Dorothy Dunnett. The Ringed Castle.
Text as Penguin edition 1999.

The remainder of p. 468

 ‘Right?’ said Lymond.

		‘Till Little-lookedfor Death appeared
		And Loathsome on the Lovers Leered
		And Laughter’s Lodge was Let to Fear
		and Love to Lugworms Fell . . .’
‘You’ve changed the metre,’ said Philippa.
‘I reserve the right,’ said Lymond, ‘ to change the metre. Don’t interrupt.

		‘Ah, Lamuel, lest you Life be Light
		Lament not for your Lost Delight
		Beshrew Loose Ladies in the Night
		Or . . .’
‘Let me do it,’ said Philippa.
Lymond said, looking up, ‘That is robbery.’

The remainder of p. 474 (Chapter 10)

… had been at such pains to please, turned out to be the son of a tanner.
In Russia, a man knew to whom he was speaking: boyar or peasant. Unless, by taking orders, a moujik turned into a clerk, a man in Russia kept his station, and his son after him through the generations. With this nation of madmen, where were you? They laughed at the stake, and boasted of relatives hanged: if you had no kinsmen quartered that you knew of, it was because you were not a gentleman, they remarked. They might well go to war, the other ambassadors said with resignation, for no other reason than a sheer love of novelty. And the Queen claimed she was poor, but where in Russia would you find such ostentation in living: the palaces of Whitehall and Westminster, Nonesuch, Chelsea and Oatlands, Richmond and Greenwich. And the clothes . . .
He had discovered that he was expected to retain the Queen’s gift of his clothes; that in England an ambassador’s perquisites were his own, and did not have to handed back to his monarch. In this matter, and the freedom these traders possessed, unhindered by royal monopolies, Muscovy had perhaps something to learn.

The remainder of p. 475 (Chapter 10)

… they pretended here to be surprised that so great a monarch could not overthrow a few Tartars, but what success was the lord Henry having in Ireland? Why, if the Queen called herself monarch of France, was she content with owning two fortresses only?
He had come to this country with an open mind. The Voevoda had told him so, and the Voevoda had shown him those things from which he thought Muscovy should benefit. But, in time, a man grew tired of foreign ways, and foreign food, and the incessant chirrup and yowl of uncouth foreign tongues, and Osep Nepeja felt he owed England nothing, and himself a small rest from his labours, with his journey done and his treaty concluded and the prospect before him of the long hardship of the Primrose’s homeward voyage.
So he did not seek to have the incessant pressure of instruction renewed, and went his own way, merely mentioning his surprise and disapproval to Robert Best over the undignified and expensive accident in the Office of Revels and Masques. The following day, the big Anglo-Frenchman, Master Ludovic, making light of his broken arm, had gone back upriver to call on the young woman the Voevoda had married and taken her an armful of spring bluebells gathered, so Master Daniel suggested

The remainder of p. 481 (Chapter 10)

… called the Turkish fleet to assist him.
He himself, declared King Philip, had decided to raise a powerful army to create a diversion in France this summer, and, this being the first campaign in which he had taken part, he was anxious that it should go well. Since he was unable to finance it wholly from his own resources and those of Spain, he requested the bishops, the leading nobles and the high officers of state of England ‘as you are animated by the greatest zeal for our service and the general good of the Spanish kingdom’, to lend him as much money as they possibly could, And, promising ample security for repayment at the earliest possible date, he signed it, was it was written, in Spanish.
The air was not filled with the murmur of Englishmen, obediently counting their gold. And Philippa, traitorously, had cause to be glad that the four ships now lying above London Bridge were already freighted with their cargo of arms, destined for another country entirely.
They were due to sail on May 3rd: and on April 19th the Court returned to Whitehall Palace in London. On the same day the Muscovite Ambassador went to Westminster Abbey to hear Mass, and later to the Lord Abbot’s for dinner. Afterwards, he was invited to tour the reopened monastery and to inspect St Edward’s new shrine. then, escorted by the Aldermen of the City and the merchants of the Muscovy Company in