"People talk about the horrors of war, but what weapon has a man invented that even approaches in cruelty some of the commoner diseases? 'Natural' death, almost by defintion, means something slow, smelly and painful."

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You didn’t really hold back on Braga so Pickering could kill him, did you?” Royce asked after the two were left alone in the hallway. “Of course not. I held off because it’s death for a commoner to kill a noble.” “That’s what I thought.” Royce sounded relieved. “For a minute, I wondered if you’d gone from jumping on the good-deed wagon to leading the whole wagon train.

— Michael J. Sullivan