This is the third book in Cornwell's Grail Quest series, set during the 14th century Hundred Year's War between England and France.
The story begins at the English siege of Calais in 1347. Thomas of Hookton, an archer in the service of the Earl of Northampton, arrives in the English camp accompanied by his friends, Sir Guillaume d"Eveque (a Frenchman) and Robbie Douglas (a Scot), to report on his mission to learn more about his family's connection with the Grail. Thomas is not convinced there is a family connection to the Grail, or even that the Grail exists. His own ambition is to command a company of archers in the service of the Earl. But the Earl has his reasons for pursuing this quest, and he sends Thomas and his friends, and a company of archers and men at arms, on a dangerous mission into Gascony. deep in the south of France, to the ruins of Astarac, ancestral home of Thomas' family, the Vexilles, rumored to be the last guardians of the Grail.
Cardinal Bessieres, Papal Legate to the Court of France, is also seeking the Grail, convinced that the legendary relic is his key to election as the next Pope and absolute power over all of Christendom. He has sent his henchmen to Gascony to examine the books and records of the Count of Berat, whose lands include the ruins of Astarac, looking for any reference or mention of the Grail and its possible fate.
Thomas and his company take control of a small fortress at Castillon d'Arbizon to which the Earl has some tenuous claim, to use as a cover for their real purpose. But here their task becomes complicated, when Thomas, as commander of the castle and representative of the civil authority, is faced with carrying out a sentence of death by burning on a heretic condemned by the Church authorities. When the heretic turns out to be a young girl whose only crime, so far as Thomas can find, is to be the orphaned child of a vagabond father left to fend for herself in an unfriendly world, he balks at carrying out the sentence. When he discovers Genevieve has been tortured by the Church authorities into confessing her "heresies," he remembers his own torture at the hands of a fanatic priest, and vows to protect her.
This leads to discord and unrest among the men of his command, and an estrangement between Thomas and Robbie when Thomas and Genevieve becomes lovers. Thomas and Genevieve are forced to flee, and Robbie forsakes his friends for a new allegiance. Thomas and Genevieve find refuge with the kindly abbot of a monastery near Astarac, but when the Cardinal's men arrive on their heels, Thomas discovers a plot to fake the discovery of a substitute Grail at Astarac. Then he witnesses the cold-blooded murder of the abbot by the same man who has caused so much grief in Thomas' own life, his cousin Guy de Vexille.
But all the schemes, ambitions and follies of men are swept aside by an implacable foe that none anticipated and no one can defy when the Pale Rider of the Apocalypse joins his grim brothers in their assault upon this ravaged land. Only in the aftermath of that horror does Thomas discover the clue hidden in plain sight that will lead him to the true Grail.
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