Manipulation Quotes in Beneath a Marble Sky

I smirked at him, my spirits rising as I thought of our daughter, then our son. "You may be a master of stone, Isa, and the most astounding man I've met, but you know nothing of the guile of women. How do you think we flourish in this world where men decide what we can and cannot do? Because of your rules?" I laughed at the notion, recalling how Mother and my great-grandmother had led Hindustan in all but title. "Khondamir, trust me, shall think himself the father. I am uncertain how I'll do it, but when my honeyed talk is done, he'll boast to anyone with an ear of his deed." (11.91)

"Do you think that I have no friends? No spies among your men who would delight in slaying you? You child! You simple, witless child! I've always known this day might come, and yet you think I took no precautions. Am I such a fool?" His face twitched, and he glanced about, almost as if he was looking for cobras. I remembered only then that a gardener had once been bitten by one, and, as children, we watched as the man, crazed with pain and terror, hacked off his poisoned foot. "If you wish to test my words, kill me tonight," I dared. "But know that tomorrow, or the next day, a cobra will draw your blood." (17.97)

The passageway," I said, "begins at a house near an old cypress tree. But you won't know which house until my loved ones return. When they do, I'll mark the house for you by arranging for a black stallion to be tethered to the tree." I proceeded to tell the Sultan how an assassin might enter the passageway, and how he would need help to circumvent the ruined trap. The Sultan's questions were offered eagerly and my responses driven by desire. (20.91)