- Genevieve De La Croix: What is it? Why are we stopping?
- Eleanor Grey: We really haven't had a chance to get to know each other have we? I have an idea.
- [Eleanor points her crossbow at Genevieve's throat]
- Eleanor Grey: Let's start with everything you know about everything.
- [first lines]
- [Sir Thomas enters his banquet room after two armored knights have destroyed its furniture and dishes during their furious swordfight]
- Sir Thomas Grey: How many times have I told you? NOT... IN... THE CASTLE!
- Sir Thomas Grey: Friar! Friar!
- Friar: My lord?
- Sir Thomas Grey: Where's my son?
- Friar: Which one?
- Sir Thomas Grey: The only one you tutor. You are still tutoring him?
- Friar: Yes. Of course.
- Sir Thomas Grey: How he is progressing with his studies?
- Friar: We're... making progress.
- Sir Thomas Grey: Does he have an aptitude for the church?
- Friar: He's working on his Latin now.
- [Sir Thomas walks into the study and finds his son hiding behind a huge book while cuddling a beautiful servant girl]
- Sir Thomas Grey: Latin has changed.
- Cedric Grey: Latin isn't working out for me.
- Sir Thomas Grey: It seems to be working out quite nicely.
- Sir Thomas Grey: Where's Eleanor?
- Cedric Grey: In the solar - but I wouldn't go in there?
- Sir Thomas Grey: Not go in there? I'll go wherever I like. Whether anyone realizes it or not, this is still my castle. While I'm still lord of this castle, my God, I will go anywhere I like!
- [Sir Thomas opens the door to the solar and is immediately greeted by a crossbow bolt that barely misses his head]
- Sir Thomas Grey: You could have killed me!
- Eleanor Grey: You could have knocked.
- Sir Thomas Grey: Lady Elizabeth has offered you music lessons.
- Eleanor Grey: I don't want music lessons.
- Sir Thomas Grey: You're going to take them nonetheless.
- Eleanor Grey: But why?
- Sir Thomas Grey: Because ladies study music, not the crossbow.
- Cedric Grey: Why can't I be a knight?
- Sir Thomas Grey: Because you're going to become a cleric.
- Cedric Grey: I wasn't meant for the church.
- Sir Thomas Grey: When Almus left, I swore an oath for your mother, Cedric, that since she was losing her eldest son to the Crusades, at least her youngest would be spared the horrors of war. A cleric's blood is not spilled on the battlefield. We have enough knights. Now, leave it.
- William Grey: To be a knight is not what it's always thought to be, brother.
- Richard Grey: To be a knight is to be most honored.
- William Grey: To be the first son and a knight is to be most honored. To be anything else is to watch the first son get most of the honors.
- Eleanor Grey: At least you get to be something. Women get to be nothing!
- Richard Grey: Women are not supposed to be anything - they're women.
- Eleanor Grey: How can you say that?
- Richard Grey: Name me one thing you can do better than me?
- Cedric Grey: She rides better than you.
- Lady Elizabeth: You don't like me very much, do you?
- Eleanor Grey: It doesn't matter what I like, does it?
- Lady Elizabeth: What do you like, Eleanor?
- Eleanor Grey: The crossbow. It kills quickly, cleanly, and with great effect. Does that shock you, Lady Elizabeth?
- Lady Elizabeth: Do you wish that it would?
- Eleanor Grey: Why do you want my father? Aren't three dead husbands enough?
- [Lady Elizabeth slaps Eleanor and Eleanor slaps Lady Elizabeth in return]
- Lady Elizabeth: It's always good when women understand each other.
- King Edward: Thomas - a word. Mullens has an intriguing notion.
- Sir Thomas Grey: So your message said.
- King Edward: It's time to put this feud to rest, Thomas. I'm being threatened by the Scots, the French are making noises, your own land is being robbed and pillaged by bandits. This is not the time for Englishmen to be divided. I want peace, Thomas! Listen to what he offers.
- [after furiously berating Jasper, Eleanor sends the servant girls from the room, then kisses the painter passionately]
- Jasper: You weren't very nice.
- Eleanor Grey: I had to be convincing.
- Jasper: You outdid yourself.
- [Cedric, angry at being left behind, is informed that the coach transporting the awaited French emissary has arrived]
- Cedric Grey: [speaking to himself] I'm not sure what would be worse - the friar or the Frenchman.
- [a beautiful woman descends from the carriage]
- Cedric Grey: The friar. Definitely the friar.
- Genevieve De La Croix: [introducing herself] Genevieve De La Croix.
- Cedric Grey: Are you alone? You are alone. You're very alone.
- Genevieve De La Croix: Are you feeling well?
- Cedric Grey: Most well... very well...
- [eyeing the beautiful woman]
- Cedric Grey: Well, well.
- Sir Thomas Grey: Since when did love have anything to do with a marriage contract?
- Eleanor Grey: Well it should. And it will for me!
- Sir Thomas Grey: I've indulged you too much, Eleanor. Your days are spent in fantasy! Crossbows and whimsical notions that have nothing to do with the world.
- Eleanor Grey: The world can be anything we make it.
- Sir Thomas Grey: The world as you know it has been made by me! This place, everything about you, the food you eat, the safety you enjoy - where do you think it came from? From the commerce I've sought, from the compromises I've made. From the thing not perfect and at times damn unpleasant.
- Eleanor Grey: What was mother like?
- Cedric Grey: Yes, what was she like?
- William Grey: Well, she liked to sing.
- Richard Grey: Politics bored her, but she loved a good story.
- William Grey: Especially comedies.
- Richard Grey: I never heard her complain about anything.
- Eleanor Grey: Then she wouldn't have liked me.
- Richard Grey: She would have liked you more than anyone. It was courage she admired most in people because she thought she had so little herself. You were the woman she wanted to be, Eleanor.
- Eleanor Grey: Why should you help me?
- Lady Elizabeth: Because I've know what it is to have love keep missing my grasp - and because I'm a woman.
- Lady Elizabeth: Rant and wail until these old walls shake - it won't change the truth. You're sending your daughter into bondage.
- Sir Thomas Grey: I gave my word.
- Lady Elizabeth: And how I hope that word comforts you when you see in the hatred in the eyes that once worshipped you.
- [Henry practices sword strokes for the trial by combat with Sir Thomas]
- Henry of Gault: I'm looking forward to it.
- John Mullens: You don't really think you're going to fight him, do you?
- Henry of Gault: Not fight?
- John Mullens: Knightly honor means nothing to me. I simply want him dead! Besides he could get lucky. He was considered a great swordsman in his day.
- Henry of Gault: His day has passed.
- Sir Thomas Grey: [to his sons] In my dying breath, these faces will give me such comfort.
- [seeing that they are distressed]
- Sir Thomas Grey: I have done this before. Try not to destroy the place while I'm gone.
- [Elizabeth saves her father's life with a well-aimed shot from her crossbow]
- Sir Thomas Grey: This doesn't mean you get to give up your music lessons.
- Eleanor Grey: Your precious Genevieve is a spy.
- [signals for her brothers to look inside the carriage]
- Eleanor Grey: They tease you because they love you, Cedric.
- Cedric Grey: You think so?
- Eleanor Grey: No.
- Cedric Grey: Good. Because I loosened their saddle straps out of my fondness for them.