The Archer's Tale

The first book in the Grail Series by New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell is now available in paperback. It tells the enthralling story of a young man who is a fierce archer and goes out to revenge his family's honor but instead ends himself on a journey for the Holy Grail.

An ambush of the coastal English town of Hookton is planned by a raiding party of French pirates who arrive by boat at dawn on Easter morning, 1343. The solitary survivor, courageous young Thomas, believes that the casual brutality of a certain black-clad knight, whose banner has three yellow hawks on a blue field, best captures the tragedy of the assault. Thomas swears to get revenge on those who killed his town's residents and to recover a sacred artifact that the black knight took from the cathedral as the assassins leave.

Thomas of Hookton must first go to France in order to do this, so in 1343, just as King Edward III's army is about to invade the continent and spark the start of the Hundred Years War, he enlists with it. In King Edward's march into France, Thomas—a bowman with extraordinary skill—becomes known as one of England's most lethal archers very soon. But he never gives up looking for the flag of his real adversary across the horizon.

Thomas is rewarded for his valor when a young Frenchwoman's father, French nobleman Sir Guillaume d'Evecque, joins him in the search for the elusive dark knight and the stolen holy relic after Thomas rescues her from a rapacious mob. The pursuit of the Holy Grail itself will eventually prove to be the culmination of what starts out as a quest for revenge.