Leviathan Society and Class Quotes

It was always like this. To the servants he might be "the young archduke," but nobles like Volger never let Alek forget his position. Thanks to his mother's common blood, he wasn't fit to inherit royal lands and titles. His father might be heir to an empire of fifty million souls, but Alek was heir to nothing.

Volger himself was only a wildcount—no farmlands to his name, just a bit of forest—but even he could feel superior to the son of a lady-in-waiting. (1.46-47)

Alek shut his eyes. It always pained Father when Sophie wasn't allowed to stand beside him at official receptions. More punishment for loving a woman who wasn't royal. (5.29)

But worst of all were the people. In the walker's small cabin he'd grown used to the smell of unwashed bodies. But here in Lienz hundreds of commoners packed the Saturday market, bumping into Alek from all directions and treading on his feet without a murmur of apology. (13.4)

Their constant chatter about nothing made a certain sense, he supposed, as nothing important ever happened to common people. But the sheer insignificance of it all was overwhelming.

"Are they always this way?" he asked Volger. (13.6-7)

As he listened, Alek noticed that Master Klopp's accent had changed. Normally, he spoke in a slow, clear cadence, but now his words blurred and trilled with a common drawl. For a moment Alek thought Klopp was pretending. But then he wondered if this was the man's normal way of speaking. Maybe he put on an accent in front of nobles.

It was strange to think that in three years of training, Alek had never heard his tutor's true accent. (13.23-24)

Alek's hand went instinctively to his side, where his sword would normally have hung. The man's eyes tracked the gesture.

The room was dead silent for a moment.

[…]

As the dust and sunlight stung his eyes, Alek realized what he'd done. His accent, his bearing… the man had seen who he was. (13.31-32, 36)

As Alek glared at the newspaper man one last time, an unsettling realization overtook him. He spoke French, English, and Hungarian fluently, and always impressed his tutors in Latin and Greek. But Prince Aleksander of Hohenberg could barely manage the daily language of his own people well enough to buy a newspaper. (13.55)

Dylan rolled his eyes. "You're quite up yourself, aren't you?"

"Pardon me?"

"You think quite highly of yourself," Dylan explained slowly, as if talking to an idiot. "Like you're something special."

Alek looked at the boy, wondering what to say. It was pointless to explain that, in fact, he was something special—the heir to an empire of fifty million souls. Dylan had no way of understanding what that meant. (26.88-91)

For a boy, Dylan seemed to have had the most extraordinary adventures. For a moment Alek wished he could forget his birthright and become just like him, a common soldier without land or title. (34.22)

Something like a smile appeared on his face. "Yes, I suppose it was, especially the way my mother told it. She was a lady-in-waiting for Princess Isabella of Cröy. When my father began to visit, Isabella thought he must be courting one of her daughters. But she could never figure out which one he liked. Then one day he left his watch behind on the tennis courts."

Deryn snorted. "Aye. Back home I'm always leaving my watch on the tennis courts." (35.34-35)