Thomas achieves his ambition: to raise and lead a mercenary force.

Afterward, Thomas discovers a clue his father left him. He is trapped in a castle he had captured, but an outbreak of the Black Death causes many of his besiegers to flee, and Thomas fights his cousin on more even terms. Thomas leads a small band of men into southern France to find the Grail. Heretic finds Thomas still in France, this time during a time of supposed peace with the French following the fall of Calais. Thomas returns to Brittany to come to the aid of a friend and fights in the Battle of La Roche-Derrien. He discovers that his cousin, Guy Vexille, is working with an ambitious French cardinal to obtain the Grail for their own ends. In Vagabond, he returns to England to try to uncover the Grail's whereabouts and helps defeat the Scottish invasion of 1347. The battle is a decisive victory for the English, despite being seriously outnumbered. In Harlequin, he is involved in the fighting in Brittany and subsequently at the Battle of Crécy. The fictional Thomas of Hookton leaves his native Dorset after the murder of his father and joins an English army under Edward III as an archer.

Harlequin (2000, published in the United States under the title The Archer's Tale).

The Grail Quest is a historical fiction novel series written by Bernard Cornwell dealing with a 14th-century search for the Holy Grail, set during the opening stage of the Hundred Years' War.

First volume Harlequin first edition cover

Stonehenge by Bernard Cornwell