The Archer's Tale

The Archer's Tale is a historical novel by the British writer Bernard Cornwell, published in 2001. It is set at the beginning of the Hundred Years' War.

The story opens at dawn on Easter morning in 1343, when a band of French raiders arrives by boat to ambush the coastal English village of Hookton. To Thomas, the only survivor, the horror of the attack is summed up by the casual savagery of one black-clad knight whose flag, three yellow hawks on a blue field, presides over the whole affair. As the killers sail away, Thomas promises to avenge the deaths of the villagers and to take back the holy treasure the knight stole from the church.

In order to reach his enemy, Thomas has to get to France, so in 1343 he joins the army of King Edward III as it is about to invade the continent, which is the beginning of the Hundred Years' War. He is a preternaturally gifted bowman, and he is quickly recognised as one of England's deadliest archers as the king's army marches across France, though he never stops watching the horizon for the flag of the man he is hunting.

When Thomas saves a young Frenchwoman from a crowd that means to kill her, her father, the French nobleman Sir Guillaume d'Evecque, rewards him by joining the hunt for the dark knight and the stolen relic. What starts as a search for vengeance turns out to be the beginning of something larger, because the treasure they are chasing leads towards the Holy Grail itself.