You have only to lift your hand,' Thorkel Fostri said. And after a moment, 'What else were you born for?'

'Why not happiness, like other men?" Thorfinn said.

'You have that,' said his foster-father. 'But if you try to trap it, it will change. Why do you resist? It is your right.'

'I resist because it is no use resisting,' Thorfinn said. 'Do you not think that is unfair? I shall be King because I was King; and I shall die because I did die; and did I remember them, I could even tell what are the three ways it might befall me.

Author: Dorothy Dunnett