Category: Book Excerpt

One of the important powers of the Egyptian universe is heka, to which both gods and people are subject. This was the power that made creation possible and is often translated as ‘magic’. For the Egyptians, magic was both a force of the universe and a set of practices. A bit like the Force in Star Wars, heka is neither inherently good nor inherently bad: its effects depend on the intentions of those who wield it. There is a moral dimension to heka, but, having said that, there is little sense of black magic or witchcraft. The gods are more likely to misuse heka than are people. And Ancient Egyptians made little distinction between the sacred and the secular worlds: daily life is infused with the actions of gods and demons. As a consequence, there is no notion of a cosmic realm above nature. The separation we have come to make between science and religion did not exist in the same way in Egypt.

Furthermore, magic and religion were continuous: the gods were subject to heka, as well as being instantiations of its power, and some humans had greater control of heka than others. From this it follows that magic was not supernatural. As a practice, magic was one of the instruments available to people to hold the universe in harmony, although obviously complex training and considerable skill were needed for such large tasks; more humble magic could be used to shield from harm or to help cure minor ills. There was a spectrum of practitioners, from the priests of the major temples, with long training in how to wield heka, to men and women in villages who might protect the cattle herd from crocodile spirits when crossing a river, or a newborn baby from demons. For temple priests, written transmission of spells was vital; for more humble magic, oral transmission sufficed, so that we now know more about the former. The priests were also not moral teachers but paid specialists with defined duties. Temple priests could undertake private magical practice, for a fee, and the better-off could employ them in cases of real need, making private use of long state-funded training. Large temples had a House of Life, in which a library, a scriptorium where manuscripts were copied and a classroom were combined. Houses of Life also helped to create learned communities that could debate a range of cosmological and earthly matters.

It is worth bearing in mind the distinctive features of temples compared with mosques, synagogues or churches. Egyptian temples were not designed for congregations to worship; rather the opposite: they were to house gods in seclusion. In the form of their statues, they were clothed, fed and cared for in the temples. Such seclusion was interrupted regularly, when the gods were brought out on festivals, although still concealed in shrines covered in cloth. The town of Lahun had thirty-five annual festivals, some lasting for several days, and the general populace would have participated to various degrees, able to enjoy the food and drink of the temple, along with the gods. Harmony was the aim of the temple, but crisis was built into the magico-religious structure, with the passage of the Sun into the underworld every night a minor threat to life, with no absolute guarantee of return.

— Magic: a History, pp. 97-98

It was inevitable that meteorites should inspire awe. They came from some remote region high up in the heavens and possessed a sacred quality enjoyed only by things celestial. In certain cultures there was a time when men thought the sky was made of stone, and even today the Australian aborigines believe the vault of heaven to be made of rock crystal and the throne of the heavenly deity of quartz. Rock crystals, supposedly broken away from the heavenly throne, do in fact play a special role in the shamanic initiation ceremonies of the Australian aborigines, among the Negritos of Malacca, in North America, and elsewhere. These ‘stones of light’, as they are called by the maritime Dyaks of Sarawak, reflect everything that happens on earth. They disclose to the shaman what has taken place in the sick man’s soul and the destination to which his soul takes flight. There is no need to remind the reader that the shaman is he who ‘sees’, because he is endowed with a supernatural vision. He sees just as far into space as into time. Likewise he can perceive what is invisible to the layman-spirits, gods, the soul. When he is being initiated the future shaman is fed with crystals of quartz. In other words, his capacity as a visionary, as well as his ‘science’, comes to him, at least in part, from a mystic solidarity with heaven.

We shall do well to bear in mind the early religious significance attaching to aeroliths. They fall to earth charged with celestial sanctity; in a way, they represent heaven. This would suggest why so many meteorites were worshipped or identified with a deity. The faithful saw in them the ‘first form’, the immediate manifestation of the godhead. The Palladium of Troy was supposed to have dropped from heaven, and ancient writers saw it as the statue of the goddess Athena. A celestial origin was also accorded to the statue of Artemis at Ephesus and to the cone of Heliogabalus at Emesus (Herodian, v, 3, 5). The meteorite at Pessinus in Phrygia was venerated as the image of Cybele and, following an injunction by the Delphic Oracle, it was transported to Rome shortly after the Second Punic War. A block of hard stone, the most ancient representation of Eros, stood side by side with Praxiteles’ sculptured image of the god (Pausanias, ix, 27, i). Other examples could easily be found, the most famous being the Ka’aba in Mecca. It is noteworthy that a certain number of meteorites are associated with goddesses, especially fertility goddesses such as Cybele. And here we come up against a transference of sanctity: the celestial origin is forgotten, to the advantage of the religious notion of the petra genitrix.

— The Forge and the Crucible, pp. 19-20

Southern Spain is one of the most famous horse-breeding regions of the world. The area from Seville to Jerez de la Frontera is renowned for its breeding farms. In addition to the area’s private breeding farms, monks also bred horses, concentrating their efforts on one of the finest lines of Andalusian horses. This order of Carthusian monks (Catholic contemplatives) began pursing their passion for horse breeding when Don Alvaro Obertus de Valeto gave the fathers of Cartuja a sizable piece of ranchland in 1476 [C.E.]. They continued this horse-breeding endeavor until approximately 1835. The monks not only significantly contributed to breeding Andalusian horses but also preserved a coveted bloodline within the breed called the Cartujano, which has a strong resemblance to the Baroque horse. The Cartujano was bred for its concentration of genes from the early Barb, which came to the Iberian Peninsula before the birth of Christ.

Achieving harmony with all of creation was one of the main goals of these monks. They not only bred magnificent horses, but they lived, learned, and prayed with their animals. One thing that makes this breed so sensitive to humans is that their specific job for centuries has been tending to the human soul—truly taking the role of the anam cara, or soul friend. On the walls of a Carthusian monk’s stable, an inscription about the horses reads, “Leap into Heaven.”

— Horses and the Mystical Path, Chapter 2

The [Spanish] Armada’s new Captain General was Don Alonso Perez de Guzman el Bueno, the seventh Duke of Medina Sidonia. He was a country aristocrat of 38, short in stature, broad-shouldered, with brown hair and beard, and a melancholy countenance. His name was one of Spain’s oldest, and his fortune was considerable: He owned orange groves in Andalusia and controlled the revenues of the local tuna industry. In his role as a provincial overlord, he was known for diligence and tact. But his talents as a military leader were largely untested; when Francis Drake had raided Cadiz harbor the year before, the Duke had hurried in with troops to defend the town—but the town had never come under attack. And nothing seemed to mark him for naval leadership. He had never captained a fleet of ships. He had never seen a battle at sea.

The last thing Medina Sidonia wanted was to conduct the Armada to England. While [the Marquis of] Santa Cruz still tossed with fever on his deathbed, [King] Philip wrote Medina Sidonia a letter that hinted at the forthcoming command; the Duke’s response was prompt and plaintive. “I wish I possessed the talents and strength necessary for such a great task,” he wrote. “But, Sir, my health is too poor, for I know by my small experience afloat that I soon become seasick, and always catch cold. I am deeply in debt. My family owes 900,000 ducats, and I have not a single real to spend on the expedition.”

Medina Sidonia’s letter did no good, for Philip had made up his mind. “If you fail, you fail,” the King wrote back, “but the cause being the cause of God, you will not fail. Take heart and sail as soon as possible.” Undoubtedly the King placed special importance on Medina Sidonia’s possession of a great name. In an age when ancestry counted for much, the Duke would command automatic respect from the proud and jealous sea captains at Lisbon. No lesser nobleman could quiet the squabbles over honor and precedence that were bound to develop after the death of the Marquis of Santa Cruz. And no doubt the King reasoned further that, despite his cries of poverty, the Duke would contribute handsomely to the Enterprise. In that the King would prove correct….

— The Armada, pp. 63-64

…Travelers had to depend on inns. The quality of accommodation and services varied greatly. As a profession, hoteliers had a bad reputation, and just like today there were upmarket and downmarket establishments. Many had names like The Crown or Lion or Black Horse or Three Kings and were situated wherever there was a constant stream of travelers and traders on the road. Accommodation was usually in dormitory-like rooms, often with a number of people in each bed. Everyone slept naked. Bed linen was not changed regularly, so these lodgings were often filthy, uncomfortable, and dangerous. Skin diseases and fevers spread rapidly, and body odors were omnipresent, although many would not have noticed them because they had smelled them since birth. Latrines were basic, with no sewerage, and…baths were few and far between. Available food was restricted to bread, cheese, and, perhaps, some soup.

— The Birth of the West, Chapter 1

…[Nobles] brought with them to war a variety of noncombatants, including heralds, musicians, clerks, chaplains, cooks, body servants, smiths, carpenters, miners, barber-surgeons, physicians, and so on. In addition to these members of royal and magnate households, armies would usually have with them very substantial numbers of unattached camp followers—prostitutes, butchers, women selling provisions, shield merchants (shields being prone to demolition in combat), cobblers, and washerwomen, among other groups. Guillaume Guiart gives a nice picture of them in a French army camp of 1304 [C.E.], crying their cheeses and breads, dispensing wine from casks, baking tarts and pasties, and getting into trouble of various sorts. The number of noncombatants marching with the baggage was always large and could in fact be greater than the total number of fighters, though the army of the Free Companies in 1368, with 20,000 pillagers and women for 4,000 combatants, was doubtless an extreme case. Because all these people added as much as fighters to the logistical burdens of the army, and because some of them tended to cause disorder in the host, commanders often tried to keep them to a minimum, and it is interesting to note what that minimum was considered to be. The Crusaders against the Hussites ordained that no one below the rank of knight should have more than one servant and that no women should be permitted in the army. Charles the Bold ordered that no soldier in his ordinance companies should keep a woman privately in his quarters; instead, there were to be a maximum of 30 women “in common” for each company of 700 men. Richard I, for one difficult march, ordered all women to be left behind the army, except for 300 elderly women, considered necessary for washing clothes and heads and removing lice from the soldiers, at which task they were as skilled as monkeys.

Along with carts, wagons, and camp followers, the army would typically also be accompanied by large quantities of food on the hoof. For the start of his Murcia campaign, for example, James the Conqueror provided himself with 1,000 mule loads of wheat, 2,000 of barley, 3,000 cows, and 20,000 sheep. This would, of course, require large numbers of drovers and muleteers. The sources offer little clue as to how exactly these vast herds and flocks were managed, but they can hardly have been allowed to separate the rear guard from the main body; that would have been begging for defeat in detail. Most likely, the livestock, and often also the noncombatants who were not attached to the households of particular soldiers or contingents, were left to trail behind the army proper. This would have left them very vulnerable to attack by enemy cavalry, but they were probably usually given some protection by small escorts of men-at-arms detached from the army, and of course, despite being so-called noncombatants, wagoners, sutlers, and muleteers were normally armed and would fight to defend themselves, with some advantages provided by their wagons themselves.

— Soldiers’ Lives Through History, pp. 75-76

“I want you to know, all of you, that we stand on holy ground,” he continued. “Many years ago, in this very place fewer than two hundred warriors led by Arthur, Dux Bellorum of Britain, met the massed warbands of Saecsen, Jute, and Picti under the leadership of the wily marauder Baldulf. Though greatly outnumbered, the valiant British not only stood against the foemen, but also put a far superior enemy to flight. The cost was fearful. When the battle was over fewer than eighty Britons remained standing.

“The blood of the defenders hallowed this ground, and out of recognition for the sacrifice of those brave dead, Arthur gave this land to one of his battlechiefs with the expressed stipulation that it should be held in perpetuity for the defense and support of the sovereignty of Britain. The link forged that day long ago has held fast; the chain remains unbroken—to this day and to this hour. Through the many storms and gales of adversity, the ducal fiefdom of Morven has remained steadfast and loyal—not to the temporal monarchy, which is all too often invested in weak and fallible men—but to something higher and purer: the True Sovereignty of Britain.

— Avalon: the Return of King Arthur, Chapter 22

The word “hostage” has negative connotations of a captive being held against their will and with a loss of freedom. The samurai understood that hostage-taking was a political move and a way of forming close familial bonds. As a hostage under both the Oda and the Imagawa, [Tokugawa] Ieyasu was treated as a family member, well cared for and properly educated with the expectation that he—and in turn the Matsudaira/Tokugawa clan—would be a future close ally of the Imagawa. In a way, this bears comparison to a form of Stockholm Syndrome, a condition in which hostages develop a psychological bond with their captors during captivity. As a long-term [(ten years)] hostage, Ieyasu took part in the 1560 [C.E.] battle between the Imagawa and the Oda at Okehazama in the invading Imagawa forces. In this battle, 25,000 Imagawa soldiers were defeated in a surprise attack by an estimated 2,500 Oda samurai. Luckily, Ieyasu had been leading a supply mission to nearby Odaka Castle when the Oda attacked. With the death of Imagawa Yoshimoto, Ieyasu was at last free. Upon his return home to Okazaki Castle he soon allied himself with Oda Nobunaga, who had indirectly brought about his freedom.

— The Samurai Castle Master, Chapter 4

On the first day of January 1544, Yagyū castle was brimming with secret activity, and it wasn’t just for the New Year’s festivity of O-Shogatsu. That evening Ieyoshi had convened a council with the headmen of his shinobi, the ‘secret men.’ Trained in the art of stealth, their main task was the gathering of information. For a clan the size of the Yagyū, intelligence meant survival. Ever since they had joined Emperor Go-Daigo’s cause, the Yagyū had relied on intelligence rather than brute force to achieve their aims. Go-Daigo’s defeat at Kasagi had taught them an important lesson: it had been the stealth of their night attack rattier than their superior numbers that had made the enemy victorious.

The Yagyū were one of the few clans to have their shinobi. Powerful chieftains simply hired mercenaries to do their dirty work—spying and winning by stealth wasn’t part of their mindset. Proud of their martial prowess, they relished the challenge of testing it in battle and poured their heart in the strength and valor of their armies. The spies they hired were of low stock, shallow, unreliable men who massaged their message to suit their client and were known by a large number of names: rappa, suppa, toppa, dakko, all of them derogatory.

Being only a small clan, the Yagyū knew they had to rely on more than just military might. For almost two centuries now, they had maintained a small force of shinobi. Recruited from local clans, these men of stealth passed their skills on from father to son, forming a large regional network of spies who could be mobilized at the drop of a hat. They had proven their effectiveness in the recent battle for Kasagi-dera when they had helped both to anticipate and trace the attack from Iga.

The Yagyū shinobi had developed skills surpassing those of the average spy. Called ninjutsu, or hidden technique, it was a skill-set that embraced a great variety of disciplines. They were able swimmers, could go on next to no food for days on end, and could climb the steepest walls. To do this they used a so-called uchikugi, a small iron anchor attached to a long rope, which they would hurl over a defense until it caught. Even without it, they were able to scale a castle wall making use of the crevices between even the most tightly laid stones.

Unlike regular warriors, who had just one or two weapons of choice, shinobi used a large range of weapons, including the popular shuriken and makibishi, but also a variety of farm tools like the nata (billhook) and kama (sickle). Their sword was the shinobigatana, long enough to hold its own against the regular katana, short enough to carry on one’s back. Their favorite weapon was the kusarigama, the notorious chain sickle, after the piece of chain that connected the sickle to a small weight. Whipping the weight forward, they could entangle an opponent’s weapon or limb and draw them in to strike with the sickle.

There was a strict hierarchy among the Yagyū shinobi, and each group had its own specialty. The secretive Kitanoyama, who lived among the mountains on the eastern edge of the Yagyū domain and had served them since the very beginning, specialized in teisatsu, reconnaissance. They could make their way into any stronghold and memorize troop numbers, weaponry, down to the place where a harness had been made. Only the teisatsu wore the typical dress of the shinobi, a dark, short-sleeved uwagi tucked into a dark karusan hakama, the hakama with trouser legs, but tapered down to fit tightly around the shins. In winter they would wear warm, padded garments, but never any form of armor. Nor did they wear the regular headgear. Instead, they wore a dark cowl, leaving only their eyes exposed. Their sinister appearance and exceptional ability to disappear soon gave rise to outlandish rumors that spread among a superstitious populace who came to believe shinobi could fly through the air and walk on water. The last one had a kernel of truth, for one of their shinobi had once escaped by staying under water and breathing through a reed.

The Obo, who lived a few miles south along the road to Uda, were different. They had specialized as kanchō, spies who mixed with the troops of hostile clans, thus extracting valuable information on troop movement and influencing morale. The best of them were able to insinuate themselves into the highest ranks, gaining direct insight into an enemy’s strategy. Their’s was one of the most dangerous roles, but also the most valuable.

The Sakahara, whose village lay a few miles down the Yagyū Kaidō toward Nara, had developed a special talent for kakuran, ‘agitation.’ They were masters in stirring up resentment and spreading rumors among the subjects of enemy warlords. They were looked down upon by the other shinobi, but not by the Yagyū chieftain, who knew how to value psychological warfare.

Only the shinobi from Iga and Koka rivaled those of the Yagyit in stealth and subterfuge. Yet, as the recent events at Kasagi had proven, when it came to a pitched battle, the Yagyū warriors amply made up for that.

— Victory Through Endurance, Chapter 2

Now I faced the black belts. My awareness of time began to slip. These fighters were far more skilled. The psychic tension of fighting is as big a factor as mere matters of technique. I could exert a type of mental force against my opponents, but now they were capable of pushing back. It meant that the pace of the matches was different: a wary circling, a flurry of attacks. Manipulation of the tips of the swords. Deflections, feints. And pushing against me like a force field, I felt the psychic pressure known as seme, communicated through posture and the weapon itself.

— Deshi, chapter 2

Among the ancient Greeks, nothing of any importance could occur, no decisions could be made, without the accompanying flow of sacrificial blood. Funerals required sacrifices, as did celebrations and homecomings, vows and agreements. Risky ventures, such as journeys and wars, could not be undertaken without sacrifices both to reveal the likely outcome and to win the support of the gods. During campaigns, the military leader served also in the priestly role of sacrificer. As historian John Keegan reports of Alexander the Great:

Bizarre though it seems to us…his day began with his plunging of a blade into the living body of an animal and his uttering of prayer as the blood flowed.

— Blood Rites, p. 27

“Listen to me, Junah. All sport is holy, for it embodies the objectified search for the subjective experience of yoga, meaning union, union with the divine. But golf is supreme because it more closely mirrors the Reality of the way to Self-realization. Listen and I will tell you why.”

“In other sports the opponent is regarded as the enemy. We seek by our actions to disable him. In tennis our stroke defeats him; in football our tackle lays him low. This is not the way to salvation, or, more accurately, it is at one remove. The golfer on the other hand is never directly affected by his opponent’s actions. He comes to realize that the game is not against the foe, but against himself. His little self. That yammering fearful ever-resistant self that freezes, chokes, tops, nobbles, shanks, skulls, duffs, flubs. This is the self we must defeat.”

“Consider the golfer’s relation to the Rules, Junah. This too differs from every other sport. In baseball a batter, knowing a pitch to be over the plate, will argue vociferously with an umpire to the opposite effect, trying to avoid having a strike called on him. The tennis player will bitterly contest a line call he knows to be fair, the footballer vehemently declare his innocence of a penalty he knows he committed.”

“In other words they will lie. Deliberately. To gain selfish advantage.”

“It is only in golf, Junah, that players routinely call penalties on themselves. Look at [Bobby] Jones, striding there. Do you remember the ’25 Open at Worcester? That great man, your foe this day, lost by a single stroke, the result of his calling a penalty on himself in the first round when his ball moved accidentally. Jones finished tied for first and lost in the play-off. Take away that selfenforced penalty and he would have won outright.”

“The greatness of this is that it mirrors Higher Reality. There can be no cheating in the dimension in which the Self resides. There every action inexorably produces its result, every thought its consequence.”

“Therefore, Junah, love your opponents. When I say love, I don’t mean hand them the match. I mean contend with them to the death, the way a lion battles a bear, without mercy but with infinite respect. Never belittle an opponent in your mind, rather build him up, for on the plane of the Self there can be no distinction between your being and his. Be grateful for your opponents’ excellence. Applaud their brilliance. For the greatness of the hero is measured by that of his adversaries. In this too the etiquette and honor of golf reflect the Reality of the Field. Those new to the game often cheer an opponent’s misfortune, but the player of wisdom who has entered into the soul of the game schools himself to feel and act the opposite. This too is the greatness of the game.”

“But all this you know, Junah. I repeat it now only to focus your distracted mind under this excruciating pressure. To return you to the imperative to act.”

Here Junah, who had been listening with as much attention as he could muster under the circumstances, bridled and pulled up in midstride. “I don’t understand you, Bagger,” he said. “You order me to win, as if I could, but in the same breath you tell me to love my opponents. Please be clear. I need to understand what you’re telling me.”

“Act, Junah, but act without attachment, as the earth does. As I do. The rain falls, with no thought of watering the land. The clouds roll, not seeking to bring shade. They simply do. And we must too….

— The Legend of Bagger Vance, Chapter 16

By around 1585 [C.E.], the growing power of [Japan’s] militaristic monks, the Ikko Ikki and the Shingon sect’s warrior priests of the Negoro-ji Temple in Kii Province…was becoming a concern for the Toyotomi [clan]. The Negoro-ji had been established around 1087, and at its peak during the Muromachi period (approximately 1335-1573), some 2,700 temples graced the spacious complex. They had been throwing their weight around in the political arena for some time now. and in particular their support of Tokugawa leyasu against [Toyotomi Hideyoshi] in the Battle of Komaki Nagakute the previous year had earned them his great displeasure. That the Toyotomi clan had recently taken their gates and various structures for use in Hidenaga’s castle gave them cause for greater offence.

Having watched Nobunaga before him struggle with the protracted sieges against the militant monks of the Hongan-ji Temple, and not wanting to have the same experiences himself. Hideyoshi launched a preemptive attack of Negoro-ji Temple, Having first attacked other local warrior-monk temples. Hideyoshi’s forces approached the Negoro-ji Temple from two directions. Many of the monks quickly fled to nearby Ota Castle and Hideyoshi ordered the temples razed. Any remaining Buddhist monks fleeing the flames were cut down. Hideyoshi then turned his attentions to Ota Castle, and built dams on three sides of the castle to divert the rivers and allow heavy rains to flood the castle. Those trapped on the hill by the rising waters soon succumbed to hunger, and the samurai, monks and peasants inside finally surrendered. In a last-ditch effort, some fifty warrior monks made a final suicidal charge against Hideyoshi’s forces. All were destroyed….

— The Samurai Castle Master, Chapter 3

2,700 temples! Spacious, indeed—even if most of them were merely (small) shrines.

…A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power upon the door.

The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone for ever fair and bright.

There hammer on the anvil smote,
There chisel clove, and graver wrote;
There forged was blade, and bound was hilt;
The delver mined, the mason built.

There beryl, pearl, and opal pale,
And metal wrought like fishes’ mail,
Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,
And shining spears were laid in hoard….

— from “The Song of Durin” – The Lord of the Rings, Book Two, Chapter 4

My favorite part of the poem: describing the dwarf king’s throne room and hoard of forged arms.

If there are gods, they do not help, and justice belongs to the strong: but know that all things done before the naked stars are remembered.

– Klingon proverb

— The Final Reflection, Prologue

Initiation involves forging a conscious, working relationship with disembodied spirits and an existential knowledge of the way they work in our lives and our afterlives. It reveals the way they operate when we are awake, when we dream and when we are dead. We have seen that the histories we have been examining, such as the trials of Hercules, are structured according to different astronomical cycles—the journey of the sun through the months of the year and its precession through the galaxies. The point is that the same patterns that structure life on earth also structure the spirit worlds. Hercules and Job suffered trials in their earthly lives that have been recorded in the history of the world, but they will also have to suffer the same trials in the afterlife—unless they can learn to become conscious of them. And if they can’t, they will also have to suffer them in their next incarnation.

This is the aim of initiation: to make more and more experience conscious, to roll back the boundaries of consciousness.

In our individual lives—and collectively—we go round and round in the circles traced out for us by the planets and stars.

But if we can become conscious of these circles, if we can become conscious of the activity of the stars and planets in our lives in a most intimate way, then we are, in a sense, no longer trapped by them. We may rise above them, we are moving now not in a circle but in an upward spiral.

— The Secret History of the World, Chapter 10

Author’s emphases.

Two dawns later Toranaga was checking the girths of his saddle. Deftly he kneed the horse in the belly, her stomach muscles relaxed, and he tightened the strap another two notches. Rotten animal, he thought, despising horses for their constant trickeries and treacheries and ill-tempered dangerousness. This is me, Yoshi Toranaga-noh-Chikitada-noh-Minowara, not some addle-brained child. He waited a moment and kneed the horse hard again. The horse grunted and rattled her bridle and he tightened the straps completely.

“Good, Sire! Very good,” the Hunt Master said with admiration. He was a gnarled old man as strong and weathered as a brine-pickled vat. “Many would’ve been satisfied the first time.”

“Then the rider’s saddle would’ve slipped and the fool would have been thrown and his back maybe broken by noon. Neh?“

The samurai laughed. “Yes, and deserving it, Sire!”

— Shōgun, Chapter 61

“Listen, Omi-san, the battle will begin in a few days. You’ve served me loyally. On the last battlefield, after my victory, I’ll appoint you Overlord of Izu, and make your line of the Kasigi hereditary daimyos again.”

“So sorry, Sire, please excuse me, but I don’t deserve such honor,” Omi said.

“You’re young but you show great promise, beyond your years. Your grandfather was very like you, very clever, but he had no patience….”

“May I ask what you mean by patience, Sire?” Omi said, instinctively feeling that Toranaga wanted the question to be asked….

“Patience means restraining yourself. There are seven emotions, neh? Joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate. If a man doesn’t give way to these, he’s patient. I’m not as strong as I might be but I’m patient. Understand?”

“Yes, Sire. Very clearly.”

“Patience is very necessary in a leader.”

“Yes.”

— Shōgun, Chapter 61

Author’s emphasis is in italics. Mine is in bold.

The ward chewed at me. Thin veins of dim green light formed in the empty air—the spell trying to expel me. I held my magic shield. Defensive wards came in different flavors. Some were walls, barriers you had to break through with sheer force. Some, like this one, were designed to cause pain and squeeze the intruder until they retreated. This wall type had to be shattered. Most people thought that the squeezing type couldn’t be broken. Most people were wrong….

— Blood Heir, Chapter 17

“Is that my wolf in your bag?”

“What’s left of it.” I let the bag fall to the floor. The fabric vanished, revealing melted remnants of the [metal] wolf. “I broke it. I’m sorry.”

“You’re standing in front of me, so it must have done its job. Did it serve you well?”

“It saved me. Can you fix it?”

“It is only a machine,” Roland said. “Did you mourn it?”

“I did.”

[He] smiled. “Be careful. I will rebuild it, but the more attached you become to it, the more agency it will obtain. Such is the nature of magical constructs. There may come a time when it will become an entity with an independent will.”

“I will keep that in mind.”

— Blood Heir, Epilogue