Book: 1356 by Bernard Cornwell
Krishna
We have reviewed many books – and many series – by this author. This book is part of the Grail Quest series, and follows Heretic, which we have already reviewed
Father Ferdinand is trying to break a carved image of the holy grail from a church building’s base. From the exposed hole, he reaches out to feel a corpse in the vault. He grabs an item that was being held in its bony hands and leaves.
After managing to evade the ransacking British soldiers, Fra Ferdinand is cornered by three hooligans who want him to hand over what is covered in the silk cloth. He uses it (a sword which is still sharp) to kill all of them – shows amazing dexterity with a sword for a priest – and manages to escape into the night.
A priest and fifteen soldiers come to visit a dying cleric, the Count of Mouthomet. We realize later that Fra Ferdinand was sent by the cleric to rescue the sword called La Malice and not report back to him so that he could truthfully confess that he did not know where the sword was currently. In spite of this, he is killed by the visiting priest, who claims he came on behalf of the Pope, from Avignon. He called himself Father Calade. But his real name is Father Bressiers.
Scene change to England : a young monk traveled from Montpellier with his two brethren. One was Brother Michael learning medicine but the two brothers became indisposed : Michael died of flux and the other, Peter, was sick and was admitted in a hospital. The message was for La Batard, a nickname obviously. He goes to the village of Villon, seeking the recipient and finds himself viewing a siege and fire. Lord of Villon was besieged by the Bishop of Lavence and Count of Labrouillade.
Sam, who works for a ‘sword for hire’ chief, meets him and takes him to meet his leader, who is fondly known as The Bastard. (Le Batard). We learn he is instrumental in getting the Count and
They manage to overpower the Lord of Villon, and the Count manages to castrate him in revenge, and humiliate the wife who ran away with him. Le Batard tries to stop the inhuman treatment and begs that the Lord be killed without the humiliation but is overruled. We learn that le Batard is none but our old Thomas Hookton of the earlier novels, grown up to be a responsible leader for hire.
The Hellequin (‘Devil’s Beloved’) were for hire but never against their own England. They were a formidable force and were going for their next assignment. That assignment turns out to be to find and retrieve La Malice.
Stung by the Count’s insults, first Thomas lays an ambush for him. He gets his money back.
Meanwhile, the monk Michael wants to stay with Thomas and he, unarmed, goes to a monastery where he falls prey to Roland, who had come with the express purpose of arresting him. He manages to run, but is foiled by a woman with a crossbow.
He discovers that he has dropped into an abbey. She helps him escape after hearing his story, and then he befriends a young monk called Keane who helps him escape from the fortress by lying in between the barrels of the shit truck that takes effluence out of the city every day.
He learns that both his wife Gienvieve and daughter have been abducted by Roland and he goes in pursuit of the man.
He is unsuccessful and watches with frustration when Roland reaches into the fortress. However, when the priest tortures Gienvieve with his vulture (‘a calade’ that can discern if a witness is telling the truth, according to him) both Robbie and Roland overpower him and escape with Gienvieve and Hugh to join Thomas – against their inclinations. Thomas is very grateful to them for saving his wife and son.
He then goes in search of La Malice – to destroy it like he did the Holy Grail in earlier books, so that it does not fall into the hands of any evil men (like the priest) who want to gain it for their own power.
When Thomas finally finds the prince they are on hilltop and seemingly trapped – by a river that they cannot cross easily on one side and an overwhelmingly large French force.
The prince first negotiates a truce – where he himself and some of his chosen men will surrender to the French King Jean. One of the people named is Thomas and his commander, the Earl of Nottingham, advises him to slip away in the night if he hears trumpets sound seven times – a sign that the truce has been accepted by the King.
But the King is persuaded – by Lord Douglas and the priests (Marshall and the evil Bressiers) and by the display of La Malice – to reject the truce and go for battle. The French prince is leading what is expected to be an easy victory but when the English line holds, the king sends him away. A third of his army also leaves with the prince, causing the King to be taken aback. So does a commander.
The remaining forces are still enough, thinks King Jean, to obtain a victory. What follows is a thrilling battle scene where things seem pretty hopeless for the English until some brilliant strategies turn the battle around.
The book ends in a crucial time of the Hundred Years War – of which this battle is a part – and it is really nice that the story continues in another series starting with Agincourt by the same author.
Look, I agree that the books will appear a bit formulaic if you read them in succession and he exploits a very repeatable trick to keep the story interesting, but still the books have a lot going for them – they are tense, the story is told well, the evil men are fascinating (if a bit caricaturish) and the stories are based on historical events.
If your aim is simply to be entertained and historically informed (even though there are invented characters in these), you can’t go wrong with Bernard Cornwell’s books.
7/10
= = Krishna