1356 (Special Edition). Bernard Cornwell

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      BERNARD CORNWELL

      

      Copyright

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2012

      Copyright © Bernard Cornwell 2012

      Bernard Cornwell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      Maps © John Gilkes 2012

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      FIRST EDITION

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9780007331840

      Ebook Edition © September 2012 ISBN: 9780007331888

      Version: 2019-01-02

      is for my grandson,

       Oscar Cornwell,

       with love.

      ‘The English are riding, no-one knows where.’

      Warning sent in fourteenth-century France, quoted inA Fool and His Money by Ann Wroe

      Contents

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Dedication

       Epigraph

       Map

       Prologue: CARCASSONNE

       Part One: AVIGNON

       Chapter One

       Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Part Two: MONTPELLIER

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Part Three: POITIERS

       Chapter Ten

       Chapter Eleven

       Chapter Twelve

       Chapter Thirteen

       Part Four: BATTLE

       Chapter Fourteen

       Chapter Fifteen

       Chapter Sixteen

       HISTORICAL NOTE

       Two Chronicles of Poitiers

       About the Author

       Also by Bernard Cornwell

       The Sharpe Series (in chronological order)

       About the Publisher

      PROLOGUE

       Carcassonne

      He was late.

      Now it was dark and he had no lantern, but the city’s flames gave a lurid glow that reached deep into the church and gave just enough light to show the stone slabs in the deep crypt where the man struck at the floor with an iron crow.

      He was attacking a stone incised with a crest that showed a goblet wreathed by a buckled belt