The Archer’s Tale
by Bernard Cornwell

The first book in New York Times bestselling author Bernard Cornwell’s Grail Quest series—a spellbinding tale of a young man, a fearless archer, who sets out wanting to avenge his family’s honor and winds up on a quest for the Holy Grail

At dawn on Easter morning 1343, a marauding band of French raiders arrives by boat to ambush the coastal English village of Hookton. Brave young Thomas, the only survivor, vows to avenge the murder of his townsmen and recapture a holy treasure that a mysterious and vicious black knight stole from the church.

To do this, Thomas of Hookton must first make his way to France; so in 1343 he joins the army of King Edward III as it is about to invade the continent—the beginning of the Hundred Years War. A gifted bowsman, Thomas quickly becomes recognized as one of England’s most deadly archers in King Edward’s march across France. And when Thomas saves a young Frenchwoman from a blood-thirsty crowd, her father—French nobleman Sir Guillaume d’Evecque—rewards his bravery by joining him in his hunt for the mysterious dark knight and the stolen holy relic. And what begins as a search for vengeance will soon prove the beginning of an even higher purpose: the quest for the Holy Grail itself.