FOLLETT, Ken

Fall of Giants

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In every country, those who were against war had been overruled. The Austrians had attacked Serbia when they might have held back; the Russians had mobilized instead of negotiating; the Germans had refused to attend an international conference to settle the issue; the French had been offered the chance to remain neutral and had spurned it; and now the British were about to join in when they might easily have remained on the sidelines.

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The Pillars of the Earth

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She looked at his young face, so full of concern and tenderness; and she remembered why she had run away from everyone else and sought solitude here. She yearned to kiss him, and she saw the answering longing in his eyes. Every fiber of her body told her to throw herself into his arms, but she knew what she had to do. She wanted to say, I love you like a thunderstorm, like a lion, like a helpless rage; but instead she said: "I think I'm going to marry Alfred.

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Wretched coward, Tom thought, but he was trembling himself. Nevertheless he forced himself to say: “If you want to dismiss us, you must pay us, according to the custom. Your father’s house is two days’ walk from here, and when we arrive he may not be there.”

“Men have died for less than this,” William said. His cheeks reddened with anger.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw the squire drop his hand to the hilt of his sword. He knew he should give up now, and humble himself, but there was an obstinate knot of anger in his belly, and as scared as he was he could not bring himself to release the bridle. “Pay us first, then kill me,” he said recklessly. “You may hang for it, or you may not; but you’ll die sooner or later, and then I will be in heaven and you will be in hell.”

The sneer froze on William’s face and he paled. Tom was surprised: what had frightened the boy? Not the mention of hanging, surely: it was not really likely that a lord would be hanged for the murder of a craftsman. Was he terrified of hell?

They stared at one another for a few moments. Tom watched with amazement and relief as William’s set expression of anger and contempt melted away, to be replaced with panicked anxiety. At last William took a leather purse from his belt and tossed it to his squire, saying: “Pay them.”

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Never

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President Green was met by a General Whitfield. In his late fifties, he was round faced and plump, with an amiable manner and a marked lack of military aggression. Pauline felt quite sure he was not in the least interested in killing enemies – which was, after all, what soldiers were for. His lack of bellicosity would be why he had ended up in this job.

It was a genuine storage facility, and signs directed deliveries to a loading dock. Whitfield led the party through a small side door, and that was where the atmosphere changed.

They were confronted by a massive double door that would have looked appropriate at the entrance to a maximum-security prison.

The room it led to felt suffocating. It had a low ceiling, and its walls seemed nearer, as if they were several feet thick. The air had a bottled taste.

"This blast- proof room exists mainly to protect the elevators," Whitfield said.

As they entered the elevator, Pauline quickly lost the impatient sense that she was engaged in an exercise that was barely necessary. This began to feel portentous.

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