Novel by Bernard Cornwell

Harlequins are lost souls, so loved by the devil that he would not take them to hell, but left them to roam the earth. In French, the word is hellequin - the name given to the English archers who crossed the Channel to lay waste the towns and countryside.

In the fourteenth century the English were just beginning to discover their national identity, and one of the strongest elements of this was the overwhelming success in battle of the English bowmen. England's archers crossed the Channel to lay a country to waste. Thomas of Hookton was one of those archers.

When his village is sacked by French raiders, he escapes from his father's ambition to become a wild youth who delights in the opportunities which war offers - for fighting, for revenge and for friendship. But Thomas is hounded by his conscience. He has made a promise to God to retrieve a relic stolen in the raid from Hookton's church.