Wiltshire Quotes

Why should I change to suit other people’s inadequacy?

Oh, Sophronia, thank goodness. Save me? Please? All those young girls, in pastels, talking about the weather. I shall go jump off a bridge, I swear I shall. Do you have bridges in Wiltshire? They chatter, they chatter worse than Dimity ever did. Oh, the chattering! The chattering, it haunts me.

If this is love for you, then you are in love with a ghost, with the illusion of a man. Is that enough for you?" "Would you let me have that? If you do, then I will find the man. I'll breathe life back into the ghost.

I don’t think you’re entirely understanding how this boyfriend thing works, Ben. Denying me in the shower, it’s very hurtful.” “You do realise I can actually hear the air quotes when you say boyfriend.

Good things can come from bad beginnings.

Who needed rings to bind you unto death when you had scars and stitches, bruises and blood?

What is the biggest threat to your—our—national identity, Benjamin?" "Britain’s Got Talent?

We're only together because we don't think about it too much? I'm gratified and flattered by your devotion." Ben sighed. "When was the last time you thought about breathing?" "What?" "Breathing? Lungs in and out? Air? When did you last think about it? You're like breathing. I don't think about it, but I need it to stay alive." A faint smile came to Nikolas's lips. "Then you're like a heartbeat. I'll miss you when you stop.

But Radulf had always proved very discreet in his observations about Ben’s sex life, so he trusted the dog not to comment to anyone on his sartorial dilemmas either.

Go shower. I’ll do penance and take Radulf out." Ben ruffled his hair. "It’s very cold. Not too long, yeah?" "For God’s sake, I survived a Siberian gulag." "I was talking about the dog.

Not at all, it’s almost holy. Didn’t God create man with free will and then spend the rest of his time pretending to mitigate that first great mistake, just to justify his existence?

Be careful, Benjamin. I would hate to have to work on a eulogy to read at your funeral." "Shit, just say I was a dumb bastard with weird taste in men and leave it at that." Nik nodded seriously. "That would work.

If Ben hadn't known better, he'd have said the dog was knowingly working the case with them he was so convincing.

Every fop and fool in London has been sniffing after her." Having said that, Jason returned his attention for the report. "Go ahead and read off the names, if you must." Frowning in surprise at Jason's dismissive attitude, Charles took the seat across the desk from him and put on his spectacles. "First, there is young Lord Crowley, who has already asked my permission to court her." "No. Too impulsive," Jason decreed flatly. "What makes you say so?" Charles said with a bewildered look. "Crowley doesn't know Victoria well enough to want to 'court' her, as you so quaintly phrased it." "Don't be ridiculous. The first four men on this list have already asked my permission to do the same thing- providing, of course, that your claim on her is not unbreakable.” “No, to all those four men- for the same reason,” Jason said curtly, leaning back in his chair, absorbed in the report in his hand. Who’s next?” “Crowley’s friend, Lord Wiltshire.” “Too young. Who’s next?” “Arthur Landcaster.” “Too short,” Jason said cryptically. “Next?” “William Rogers,” Charles shot back in a challenging voice, “and he’s tall, conservative, mature, intelligent, and handsome. He’s also the heir to one of the finest estates in England. I think he would do very well for Victoria.” “No.” “No?” Charles burst out. “Why not?” “I don’t like the way Roger sits a horse.” “You don’t like_” Charles bit out in angry disbelief; then he glanced at Jason’s implacable face and sighed. “Very well. The last name on my list is Lord Terrance. He sits horses extremely well, in addition to being and excellent chap. He is also tall, handsome, intelligent, and wealthy. Now,” he finished triumphantly, “what fault can you find with him?” Jason’s jaw tightened ominously.“I don’t like him.

There was one moment when it could have gone either way. Nikolas's heart told him one thing, but his cock another, and it was the cock that won, his cock made the right decision.

By the way, Benjamin, I prefer it when you say fuck me rather than fuck off.

Dead men can't be resurrected, no matter how much life you have running through your veins.

He noted anxiously they were entering a church but was extremely relieved to discover Nikolas could step over the threshold without combusting.

Everyone was standing up. He stood too. Chairs were being moved into a circle. Nikolas slumped like a great weight descending upon him. He’d never experienced anything good coming out of a circle of chairs.

“That fucking cunting fuck of a whore.”   “Nikolas!”   Nikolas shrugged. “It’s only you who I don’t like to hear swear.

Do you know, of all the dumb things you’ve ever said over all the years I’ve known you, and trust me, you have said more than your fair share, that is the most dumbest thing I’ve ever heard you utter.” “Most dumbest is ungrammatical. Miles Toogood would be turning in his grave if he were dead.” “I rest my case.

Life was having someone alongside you in every single manoeuvre, every fall, every painful rise again, and knowing that, win or lose, the war was never fought alone.

Dear God. This is what happens when you allow reading to the masses.

Ben wanted to kill something but he didn’t have the energy.

You are not alone, Nikolas. Never. I’m right here with you, if this is how it has to be. I will kill the whole fucking world for you, if that is what you need.

Why are we doing it? We could both do other things." "Oh, this will be interesting." "You could...crap, I don't know. Be a translator! There you go." "This is true. You could be a dog walker." "Thanks. You could run a riding stable." "Death first. You could be a model." Ben smiled. "Aftershave?" Nikolas raised an eyebrow. "I was hoping for underwear.

I only left you because I love you. I’m so fucking dumb.” “And I don’t tell you things because I love you, and then I don’t tell you I love you either. So I’m even more—fucking dumb—as you so eloquently say.

Nikolas stared at nothing for a while; there was nothing better to stare at.

An entire life spent on the offensive. But he´d never thought to be fighting God. That was new. Well, God wanted to battle him for Ben Rider-Mikkelsen? Fucking bring it on.

Ben actually had no intention of dancing at the ball. That, as far as he was concerned, was for pussies, a judgement he also gave to art, classical music, black and white films, and any books without serial killers, or explosions, or zombies

This ploughman dead in battle slept out of doors Many a frozen night, and merrily Answered staid drinkers, good bedmen, and all bores: "At Mrs Greenland's Hawthorn Bush," said he, "I slept." None knew which bush. Above the town, Beyond `The Drover', a hundred spot the down In Wiltshire. And where now at last he sleeps More sound in France -that, too, he secret keeps.

Space, let me repeat, is enormous. The average distance between stars out there is 20 million million miles. Even at speeds approaching those of light, these are fantastically challenging distances for any traveling individual. Of course, it is possible that alien beings travel billions of miles to amuse themselves by planting crop circles in Wiltshire or frightening the daylights out of some poor guy in a pickup truck on a lonely road in Arizona (they must have teenagers, after all), but it does seem unlikely.

And he sayeth, ‘You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; that is an abomination. None who are guilty of homosexual perversion will possess the kingdom of heaven.’ You wanna go to heaven, son?” “Are you planning on being there?” He heard a snort from Lucas, and Jackson suddenly snapped, “Get back in your fricking pulpit, old man. You’re eating his meat and sleeping safe ’cause of him.

After that, she went about her task with the fascination only women can have for wounds and pus

But somehow this flickering dance of light put his life in perspective—perfect but transient. Changing. Unpredictable.

To my mother, who always told me to write about what I know. I'm fairly sure she didn't actually mean this.

Benjamin, we may be murderers, liars, and fornicators. These are British politicians. We cannot possibly compete.

What can I say about living with Aleksey that would capture one fraction of the ecstasy and fury that are my everyday lot?

Aleksey didn’t want his island to be in the Caribbean, for many reasons, but mainly because he wasn’t too sure where it was, and it irritated him when Americans pronounced it.

I'd kill them all one by one and feed them to you to keep you alive.

Silbury Hill in Wiltshire

You sent her off to walk to the cottage on her own. It would have taken her six and a half hours at her speed.’ ‘It would have been character building. I let her take a map.’ ‘She’s three!

Ben kissed deeply into his neck at the same time as he tipped over the edge into sleep, and Nikolas plunged after him, unwilling, even in this, to be left alone and in a conscious world where Ben wasn’t present.

Nicholas said, ‘I hear he’s ordered two million bricks for rebuilding that crumbling old family place of his in Wiltshire – what’s it called, Wolf’s Hole?’ ‘Wolf Hall. All paid for by the public purse, empty though it is.

Oriental’ has connotations of bamboo and flutes and red sunsets. It should only really be used to describe carpets, as the word has an inherent exoticism that I’m not sure a boy growing up in Wiltshire can ever fully embody. In the US ‘Asian Americans’ have rejected the term ‘oriental’. Here, the Chinese (at least) have positively embraced it, because we appear to be a pragmatic species and aren’t known as the ‘model minority’ for nothing.

Disbelievingly, Ben saw that they were canopied by a mass of stars, the Milky Way spiralling above them in the clear summer sky. Nikolas was kissing slowly around Ben’s ear and down his neck in time to their slow steps. In all the years he’d known Nikolas and all the things they’d done together, Ben wondered if this moment was the one he’d remember at the final count of days. It was an occasion for declarations of something, proposals perhaps…A time to say...

When York’s son, hitherto Earl of March, learned that his father’s cause had devolved upon him he did not shrink. He fell upon the Earl of Wiltshire and the Welsh Lancastrians, and on February 2, 1461, at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, near Hereford, he beat and broke

Of course, it is possible that alien beings travel billions of miles to amuse themselves by planting crop circles in Wiltshire or frightening the daylights out of some poor guy in a pickup truck on a lonely road in Arizona (they must have teenagers, after all), but it does seem unlikely.

Everything I say is obeyed; everything I want is given to me. I have so much power that I think I will swell up and burst sometimes. You are the only one who reminds me of what I really am, the only one who will tell me when I am wrong. You are my king, Niko, and I need you. Please do this for me.” His

The deepening corruption of peer view for ME/CFS in the UK continues on wholly unrestrained by evidence, logic, and basic decency.

He hoped it was the film about the bear. Then he could snooze. He knew all he wanted to know about polar bears.

Nikolas was the conscious decision of his heart.

He’d read somewhere that you burned about a thousand calories a minute running.

he was once more the indestructible master of the universe he had always known himself to be.

Gertrude reckoned sherry had been as much to do with Myrtle’s early retirement as had the demands of celebrating Diwali.

she’d put her idea to the group, they’d needed another sherry to steady their nerves. This was getting edgy. They were considering being untruthful.

Thought I might try out waves. Do You surf?" Ollie's eyes opened wide "Yes. The net.

Ben looked up from his studying. Aleksey reckoned it was time Ben put the books away and fed him, and annoying him was a sure way to achieve this objective.

Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of your boat.’ Aleksey thought privately this was a bit of a stretch as they’d sunk four in less than a month by his reckoning.

You think my life is camouflage?" Ben held the stare. "Sir, I think everything you do from the moment you wake up to the moment you let yourself sleep is nothing more than a shadow dance.

The claim that patients can recover [from ME/CFS] as a result of CBT and GET is not justified by the data, and is highly misleading to clinicians and patients considering these treatments.

Why don't you ever want a photo of me?" Nikolas appeared surprised. "I have your face permanently in my mind whether you're present or not. Why would I require a photograph to take the place of that?

I don't think you're entirely understanding how this boyfriend thing works, Ben. Denying me in the shower, it's very hurtful." "You do realize I can actually hear the air quotes when you say boyfriend.

Nikolas didn’t respond, so Ben just continued anyway. “Promise me you’ll come back, and promise me you won’t sleep with him. Or with anyone, I guess. And that means what everyone means by that, yeah? Sleep, as in fuck, or anything to do with fucking—which includes kissing. Anywhere. And don’t start smoking again. And make sure you eat?” Nikolas chuckled. “That’s a great deal more than one thing, but I’d promise you anything you want, Ben. Take advantage of this moment.” Ben held him off. “The most important is that you come back.” Nikolas nodded. “I can’t live without a heart. Of course I’ll come back.

It had so happened that, in the course of his labours on behalf of the little stone figure and the girl with the ivy-leaves in her hair, Mr Honeyfoot had discovered something. He believed that he had identified the murderer as an Avebury man. So he had come to Wiltshire to look at some old documents in Avebury parish church. “For,” as he had explained to Mr Segundus, “if I discover who he was, then perhaps it may lead me to discover who was the girl and what dark impulse drove him to destroy her.” Mr Segundus had gone with his friend and had looked at all the documents and helped him unpick the old Latin. But, though Mr Segundus loved old documents (no one loved them more) and though he put great faith in what they could achieve, he secretly doubted that seven Latin words five centuries old could explain a man’s life.

We are essence of love, and when we die that love returns to our Father. This angel's love was corrupted, so I believe my Father sent his essence elsewhere. Possible Detroit, but that my have just been a joke.

The latter part of our Journey from the entrance of Wiltshire into Salisbury was very rough and abounded with Jolts, the Holes we were obliged to go through being very many and some of them Deep; and so it was with much Relief that we left the Coach at Salisbury and hired two Horses for the road across the Avon to the Plain and Stone-henge. When we came to the edge of this sacred Place, we tethered our Horses to the Posts provided and then, with the Sunne direct above us, walked over the short grass which (continually cropt by the flocks of Sheep) seemed to spring us forward to the great Stones. I stood back a little as Sir Chris. walked on, and I considered the Edifice with steadinesse: there was nothing here to break the Angles of Sight and as I gaz'd I opened my Mouth to cry out but my Cry was silent; I was struck by an exstatic Reverie in which all the surface of this Place seemed to me Stone, and the Sky itself Stone, and I became Stone as I joined the Earth which flew on like a Stone through the Firmament. And thus I stood until the Kaw of a Crow rous'd me: and yet even the call of the black Bird was an Occasion for Terrour, since it was not of this Time. I know not how long a Period I had traversed in my Mind, but Sir Chris. was still within my Sight when my Eyes were cleard of Mist. He was walking steadily towards the massie Structure and I rushed violently to catch him, for I greatly wished to enter the Circle before him. I stopped him with a Cry and then ran on: when Crows kaw more than ordinary, said I when I came up to him all out of Breath, we may expect Rain. Pish, he replied. He stopped to tye his Shooe, so then I flew ahead of him and first reached the Circle which was the Place of Sacrifice. And I bowed down.

The only public memorials ever raised to the two most tragically linked of this saga’s protagonists are miserable, niggardly affairs. William Minor has just a simple little gravestone in a New Haven cemetery, hemmed in between litter and slums. George Merrett has for years had nothing at all, except for a patch of grayish grass in a sprawling graveyard in South London. Minor does, however, have the advantage of the great dictionary, which some might say acts as his most lasting remembrance. But nothing else remains to suggest that the man he killed was ever worthy of any memory at all. George Merrett has become an absolutely unsung man. Which is why it now seems fitting, more than a century and a quarter on, that this modest account begins with the dedication that it does. And why this book is offered as a small testament to the late George Merrett of Wiltshire and Lambeth, without whose untimely death these events would never have unfolded, and this tale could never have been told.

Space, let me repeat, is enormous. The average distance between stars out there is 20 million million miles. Even at speeds approaching those of light, these are fantastically challenging distances for any traveling individual. Of course, it is possible that alien beings travel billions of miles to amuse themselves by planting crop circles in Wiltshire or frightening the daylights out of some poor guy in a pickup truck on a lonely road in Arizona (they must have teenagers, after all), but it does seem unlikely. Still,

He raised an eyebrow. "Where did you get this? Is our Anne Boleyn suddenly from Mars?" He chuckled. "I always thought she hailed from Wiltshire." Luce's mind raced to catch up. She was playing Anne Boleyn? She'd never read this play, but Daniel's costume suggested he was playing the king, Henry VIII. "Mr. Shakespeare-ah,Will-thought it would look good-" "Oh,Will did?" Daniel smirked, bot believing her at all but seeming not to care. It was strange to feel that she could do or say almost anything and Daniel would still find it charming. "You're a little bit mad, aren't you, Lucinda?" "I-well-" He brushed her cheek with the back of his finger. "I adore you." "I adore you,too." The words tumbled from her mouth,feeling so real and so true after the last few stammering lies. It was like letting out a long-held breath. "I've been thinking, thinking a lot,and I wanted to tell you that-that-" "Yes?" "The truth is that what I feel for you is...deeper than adoration." She pressed her hands over his heart. "I trust you. I trust your love. I know how strong it is,and how beautiful." Luce knew that she couldn't come right out and say what she really meant-she was supposed to be a different version of herself,and the other times,when Daniel had figured out who she was, where she'd come from,he'd clammed up immediately and told her to leave. But maybe if she chose her words carefully, Daniel would understand. "It may seem like sometimes I-I forgot what you mean to me and what I mean to you,but deep down...I know.I know because we are meant to be together.I love you, Daniel." Daniel looked shocked. "You-you love me?" "Of course." Luce almost laughed at how obvious it was-but then she remembered: She had no idea which moment from her past she'd walked into.Maybe in this lifetime they'd only exchanged coy glances. Daniel's chest rose and fell violently and his lower lip began to quiver. "I want you to come away with me," he said quickly.There was a desperate edge to his voice. Luce wanted to cry out Yes!, but something held her back.It was so easy to get lost in Daniel when his body was pressed so close to hers and she could feel the heat coming off his skin and the beating of his heart through his shirt.She felt she could tell him anything now-from how glorious it had felt to die in his arms in Versailles to how devastated she was now that she knew the scope of his suffering. But she held back: The girl he thought she was in this lifetime wouldn't talk about those things, wouldn't know them. Neither would Daniel. So when she finally opened her mouth,her voice faltered. Daniel put a finger over her lips. "Wait. Don't protest yet. Let me ask you properly.By and by, my love." He peeked out the cracked wardrobe door, toward the curtain.A cheer came from the stage.The audience roared with laughter and applause. Luce hadn't even realized the play had begun. "That's my entrance.I'll see you soon." He kissed her forehead,then dashed out and onto the stage.

In 1872, Lubbock learned from a rector in rural Wiltshire that a big chunk of Avebury, an ancient circle of stones considerably larger than Stonehenge (though not so picturesquely composed), was about to be cleared away for new housing. Lubbock bought the threatened land, along with two other ancient monuments nearby, West Kennett Long Barrow and Silbury Hill (an enormous manmade mound—the largest in Europe), but clearly he couldn’t protect every worthy thing that grew threatened, so he began to press for legislation to safeguard historic treasures. Realizing this ambition was not nearly as straightforward as common sense would suggest it ought to be, because the ruling Tories under Benjamin Disraeli saw it as an egregious assault on property rights. The idea of giving a government functionary the right to come onto the land of a person of superior caste and start telling him how to manage his estate was preposterous—outrageous. Lubbock persevered, however, and in 1882, under the new Liberal government of William Ewart Gladstone, he managed to push through Parliament the Ancient Monuments Protection Act—a landmark piece of legislation if ever there was one. Because

Unfortunately, the Hospital Fund Raising Committee, to which Elizabeth was assigned, spent most of its time mired down in petty trivialities and rarely made a decision on anything. In a fit of bored frustration, Elizabeth finally asked Ian to step into their drawing room one day, while the committee was meeting there, and to give them the benefit of his expertise. “And,” she laughingly warned him in the privacy of his study when he agreed to join them, “no matter how they prose on about every tiny, meaningless expenditure-which they will-promise me you won’t point out to them that you could build six hospitals with less effort and time.” “Could I do that?” he asked, grinning. “Absolutely!” She sighed. “Between them, they must have half the money in Europe, yet they debate about every shilling to be spent as if it were coming out of their own reticules and likely to send them to debtors’ gaol.” “If they offend your thrifty sensibilities, they must be a rare group,” Ian teased. Elizabeth gave him a distracted smile, but when they neared the drawing room, where the committee was drinking tea in Ian’s priceless Sevres china cups, she turned to him and added hastily, “Oh, and don’t comment on Lady Wiltshire’s blue hat.” “Why not?” “Because it’s her hair.” “I wouldn’t do such a thing,” he protested, grinning at her. “Yes, you would!” she whispered, trying to frown and chuckling instead. “The dowager duchess told me that, last night, you complimented the furry dog Lady Shirley had draped over her arm.” “Madam, I was following your specific instructions to be nice to the eccentric old harridan. Why shouldn’t I have complimented her dog?” “Because it was a new fur muff of a rare sort, of which she was extravagantly proud.” “There is no fur on earth that mangy, Elizabeth,” he replied with an impenitent grin. “She’s hoaxing the lot of you,” he added seriously. Elizabeth swallowed a startled laugh and said with an imploring look, “Promise me you’ll be very nice, and very patient with the committee.” “I promise,” he said gravely, but when she reached for the door handle and opened the door-when it was too late to step back and yank it closed-he leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Did you know a camel is the only animal invented by a committee, which is why it turned out the way it has?” If the committee was surprised to see the formerly curt and irascible Marquess of Kensington stroll into their midst wearing a beatific smile worth of a choir boy, they were doubtlessly shocked to see his wife’s hands clamped over her face and her eyes tearing with mirth.

Elizabeth’s concern that Ian might insult them, either intentionally or otherwise, soon gave way to admiration and then to helpless amusement as he sat for the next half-hour, charming them all with an occasional lazy smile or interjecting a gallant compliment, while they spent the entire time debating whether to sell the chocolates being donated by Gunther’s for $5 or $6 per box. Despite Ian’s outwardly bland demeanor, Elizabeth waited uneasily for him to say he’d buy the damned cartload of chocolates for $10 apiece, if it would get them on to the next problem, which she knew was what he was dying to say. But she needn’t have worried, for he continued to positively exude pleasant interest. Four times, the committee paused to solicit his advice; four times, he smilingly made excellent suggestions; four times, they ignored what he suggested. And four times, he seemed not to mind in the least or even notice. Making a mental note to thank him profusely for his incredible forbearance, Elizabeth kept her attention on her guests and the discussion, until she inadvertently glanced in his direction, and her breath caught. Seated on the opposite side of the gathering from her, he was now leaning back in his chair, his left ankle propped atop his right knee, and despite his apparent absorption in the topic being discussed, his heavy-lidded gaze was roving meaningfully over her breasts. One look at the smile tugging at his lips and Elizabeth realized that he wanted her to know it. Obviously he’d decided that both she and he were wasting their time with the committee, and he was playing an amusing game designed to either divert her or discomfit her entirely, she wasn’t certain which. Elizabeth drew a deep breath, ready to blast a warning look at him, and his gaze lifted slowly from her gently heaving bosom, traveled lazily up her throat, paused at her lips, and then lifted to her narrowed eyes. Her quelling glance earned her nothing but a slight, challenging lift of his brows and a decidedly sensual smile, before his gaze reversed and began a lazy trip downward again. Lady Wiltshire’s voice rose, and she said for the second time, “Lady Thornton, what do you think?” Elizabeth snapped her gaze from her provoking husband to Lady Wiltshire. “I-I agree,” she said without the slightest idea of what she was agreeing with. For the next five minutes, she resisted the tug of Ian’s caressing gaze, firmly refusing to even glance his way, but when the committee reembarked on the chocolate issue again, she stole a look at him. The moment she did, he captured her gaze, holding it, while he, with an outward appearance of a man in thoughtful contemplation of some weighty problem, absently rubbed his forefinger against his mouth, his elbow propped on the arm of his chair. Elizabeth’s body responded to the caress he was offering her as if his lips were actually on hers, and she drew a long, steadying breath as he deliberately let his eyes slide to her breasts again. He knew exactly what his gaze was doing to her, and Elizabeth was thoroughly irate at her inability to ignore its effect. The committee departed on schedule a half-hour later amid reminders that the next meeting would be held at Lady Wiltshire’s house. Before the door closed behind them, Elizabeth rounded on her grinning, impenitent husband in the drawing room. “You wretch!” she exclaimed. “How could you?” she demanded, but in the midst of her indignant protest, Ian shoved his hands into her hair, turned her face up, and smothered her words with a ravenous kiss. “I haven’t forgiven you,” she warned him in bed an hour later, her cheek against his chest. Laughter, rich and deep, rumbled beneath her ear. “No?” “Absolutely not. I’ll repay you if it’s the last thing I do.” “I think you already have,” he said huskily, deliberately misunderstanding her meaning.

Nikolas Mikkelsen. I’ve never strayed, never not loved you, never not wanted to be by your side. My only fault is wanting you too much, wanting you beyond this life, which is something you can’t control or give me. I realise that now. It was too much to ask of you.” Nikolas sighed. The intense focus on his profile didn’t waver. He shrugged. That usually worked. He twitched his nose then muttered, exasperated, “I suppose I could try.” He sensed a shift in something, possibly the fabric of the universe but it could have just been Ben’s position on the couch. “I will defeat death for you, Ben, if I can. That seems like a small request in comparison to the things I would do for you.” He turned his head as well and they were facing each other at last. “I have also never strayed, never not loved you, never not wanted to be by your side.” He made a tiny movement with his hand and then brought it up to rest on Ben’s thigh. The ring, replaced on his finger, was still heavy, but in a different way now. It was his anchor, his tether, his gravity.

The late American golfing coach and writer, Harvey Penick, held that any who played golf was his friend – in the politer sense of Arcades ambo, I gather. … I myself hold with Honest Izaak that there is – and that I am a member of – a communion of, if not saints, at least anglers and very honest men, some now with God and others of us yet upon the quiet waters. … The man is a mere brute, and no true angler, whose sport is measured only in fish caught and boasted of. For what purpose do we impose on ourselves limits and conventions if not to make sport of a mere mechanical harvest of protein? The true angler can welcome even a low river and a dry year, and learn of it, and be the better for it, in mind and in spirit. So, No: the hatch is not all that it might be, for if it is warm enough and early with it, it is also in a time of drought; and, No: I don’t get to the river as often as I should wish. But these things do not make this a poor year: they are an unlooked-for opportunity to delve yet deeper into the secrets of the river, and grow wise. … Rejoice, then, in all seasons, ye fishers. The world the river is; both you and I, And all mankind, are either fish or fry. We must view it with judicious looks, and get wisdom whilst we may. And to all honest anglers, then, I wish, as our master Izaak wished us long ago, ‘a rainy evening to read this following Discourse; and that if he be an honest Angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a-fishing.

A real professional is the one who knows how little he knows.

Perhaps what should make you feel better is the thought I would kill you, that I’m obsessed with you enough to do that. I’d rather you not live than that you live apart from me.

I entered the courtyard and handed my reins to a man who assured me that Xavier would be taken care of as well as I. I had to suppress a smile at this and wished Xavier well in that endeavor. He had never, to my knowledge, expressed such preferences, but should he find a suitable young stallion, he was welcome to try.

I am a king now, Niko. Everything I say is obeyed; everything I want is given to me. I have so much power that I think I will swell up and burst sometimes. You are the only one who reminds me of what I really am, the only one who will tell me when I am wrong. You are my king, Niko, and I need you.

lanes. The mill wheel on the horizon turning its daily grind as chimneys breathed tendrils of smoke into the Wiltshire sky and smartly attired gentlemen played cricket on the Barley Field. Nothing now. Not even the distant din of agricultural equipment ploughing the fields. Just silence. Heavy. Oppressive. I glimpsed something then, a quick movement at the very edge of my field of vision. There were enough trees in the churchyard; it might easily have been a branch stirring on the wind . . . I looked to the great elm tree at the far end of the churchyard and saw, in the shadow cast by its overhanging branches, an ornate memorial stone fashioned from smooth white marble in the shape of a lamb. On either side of the lamb were two stone urns. Something told me there was only one family in Imber who could have afforded such a monument. With weather-worn angels looming on all sides of me, I crossed the churchyard to examine the impressive monument, and wasn’t surprised to find I was right. IN LOVING MEMORY OF PIERRE HOWISON HARTWELL APRIL 1925 – OCTOBER 1930

is easy, as Freddie Hunter says, to let the events on Island Home turn us into armchair detectives. To plough doggedly through the newspaper long reads, listen to podcasts with all the glib clichés of true crime reports, and let such cheap little tricks of familiarity prompt us to treat the whole thing as light entertainment. It is perhaps harder to put ourselves in the shoes of Ned Groom’s elderly parents, seventy-nine and eighty-four, driven from their home in Wiltshire to a morgue in Maldon to identify the body of their eldest son after a week in the water, warned in advance

How's Emily? What a woman. [Pouring,] Black? Here you are. What a woman. Have to tell you I fell in love with her once upon a time. Have to confess it to you. Took her out to tea, in Dorchester. Told her of my yearning. Decided to take the bull by the horns. Proposed that she betray you. Admitted you were a damn fine chap, but pointed out I would be taking nothing that belonged to you, simply that portion of herself all women keep in reserve, for a rainy day. Had an infernal job persuading her. She said she adored you, her life would be meaningless were she to be false. Plied her with buttered scones, Wiltshire cream, crumpets and strawberries. Eventually she succumbed. Don't suppose you ever knew about it, what? Oh, we're too old now for it to matter, don't you agree?

He was entirely unmoored from his life, no one younger and no one older left alive. He had outlived them all. And he could not remember.

Take cover,’ at which the eleven untrained soldiers ran around like headless chickens, screaming with glee, or genuine terror (it was hard to tell), until they fell over, entirely visible, squirming and wriggling, calling out, and asking endless questions.

Of course, it would be a relief to step out of the nightmarish streets of Sarajevo and into the calm of her daughter’s Wiltshire village, but every instinct tells her to stay put. And it isn’t just the risk of redundancy and of their homes being taken that makes her want to remain. She loves Sarajevo. She knows all its alleys and courtyards, all its scents and sounds - the way the light falls at the end of their street in wintertime, the rattle of the tram, the blowsy roses that bloom each June in the mosque gardens, the plums and fogs in the autumn, the ponderous old men playing chess in the cafes, the mahalas - the old neighbourhoods - that radiate out from the centre like the spiral of a snail’s shell. In her twenties, when she returned home from her six years in Paris and Belgrade, she realised she couldn’t live anywhere else. And now, she wants to stay in the city she loves as it’s shaken, to see things through.

You, however, I love with the very conscious decision of my heart—which is how you say you choose to love, isn’t it?

What did this mean? Fucking hell! It meant he couldn’t now leave Ben unattended in the same room with the professor either! It was like trying to herd cats.

He recalled Cossack dancing in the snow paralytic on vodka, Gregory and Anatoly, their arms linked with his, one on either side.

remembered in the old days at Barton Combe having entirely coherent conversations with one Ben Rider whilst paralytic on alcohol.

Unfortunate for a nativity play, this one was based on the character in Shrek.

Are we there yet?’ which had finished off the three rows in front and behind

He wondered if anyone would put a tartan blanket around his shoulders and he could finally head for a cosy rest home somewhere.

This is all ancient history. Before even you were born.

They continued their potter down the Cornish highway, caravans backed up behind them unable to pass. Possibly a pedestrian too.

Suddenly, Ben cursed, ‘Fuck it.’ He slammed his foot down. Aleksey’s neck, not entirely pain-free since their accident, was pressed into the seat. He thought he felt his eyes bulging for a moment and then they were past and back in their own lane.

Nothing to kill or die for.

This is my father’s story. I am writing it to find him. But to get to where you’re going you have to first go backwards. That’s directions in Ireland, it’s also T. S. Eliot. My father was named Virgil by his father who was named Abraham by his father who once upon a time was the Reverend Absalom Swain in Salisbury, Wiltshire. Who the Reverend’s father was I have no clue, but sometimes when I’m on the blue tablets I take off into a game of extreme Who Do You Think You Are? and go Swain-centuries deep. I follow the trail in reverse, Reverends and Bishops, past the pulpit-thumpers, the bible-wavers, the sideburn and eyebrow-growers. I keep going, pass long-ago knights, crusaders and other assorted do-lallies, eventually going as far back as The Flood. Then in the final segment, ad-breaks over and voiceover dropped to a whisper, I trace all the way back to God Himself and say Who Do You Think You Are?

But, in fact, Grendel was the name that our forebears gave to a particular species of animal. This is evidenced by the fact that in the year AD 931, King Athelstan of Wessex issued a charter in which a certain lake in Wiltshire (England) is called (as in Denmark) a grendles mere.10 The Grendel in Beowulf, we note with interest, also lived in a mere. Other place-names mentioned in old charters, Grindles bec and Grendeles pyt, for example, were likewise places that were (or had been) the habitats of this particular species of animal. Grindelwald, (lit. Grendelwood), in Switzerland is another such place. But where does the name Grendel itself come from?

He was tempted to say that Ben’s daughter preferred stealing bio-weapons but asked instead, ‘He’s gone back now?

He wondered how many other people were lucky enough to have an entire universe of need satisfied by one blond-haired man.