Harbinger

Harbinger is the second book in the EoA series, and author Gregory Figg's second published novel. It was published in the Autumn of 2018 and continues the EoA story from where Threshold left off.

*Spoilers below*

Plot

Iceland

The Templar agent Thorfridr discovers the vault that had, for ten years, held the relic she guarded, is empty. Panicked, she returns to the recently-arrived Templar knights Richard of Kent and Haraldur – who have ventured to Iceland to collect Thorfridr and the relic – and demands the Templar crews put out to sea to find who has stolen it. Further alienating her friend Hulda by refusing to divulge information about the relic, Thorfridr then discovers that one of the two ships that brought the Templars to Iceland, the Trinity's Halo, has set sail without Richard or Haraldur’s permission or knowledge.

The remaining Templar crew takes to sea aboard Richard’s ship, the Sealion, including Thorfridr and her infant daughter Iðunn. Soon they spot the Trinity’s Halo on an unusual course. Pressed by the Templars aboard, Thorfridr reveals the relic to be a weapon. Aloof, secretive and quick to anger, Thorfridr struggles to rally her comrades for the approaching conflict with their traitorous brothers, whilst her singular obsession with the relic becomes more apparent to Richard. Boarding the stricken Trinity’s Halo, the Templars board and find the ship empty with neither man nor relic to be found. Furious, Thorfridr needs to be calmed by her comrades. Haraldur resumes command of the Trinity’s Halo.

London

In the aftermath of the attack on the Godstone’s demonstration in London, Sir Henry of the Temple carries an injured woman to the hospital at St Helen's Priory. At the priory he is approached by a nun, Sister Diane, who reveals that she was with Eleanor de Molay before the attack. Sister Diane explains where El was and also that Abbot Geoffrey of the Crutched Friars could be in danger as a result of his order’s association with the attack. Fearing the danger El is in, Henry rushes off to find her. He discovers the house from which the catapults launched the attack already locked down by the King’s soldiers and reports of a woman having been arrested. Moving on, Henry visits the Crutched Friars’ order house, narrowly avoiding discovery by soldiers who arrive just after him. He finds Abbot Geoffrey freshly slain before fleeing the house and returning to the Temple church.

At the Round Church of the Knights Templar, Henry confronts Maxwell the stable lad about his role in El’s visit to the demonstration. Maxwell tells him that El was attacked in the panic and killed her assailant. Compelling Maxwell to secrecy over what he witnessed and concerned that someone knows the Templar agents by sight and intention, Henry goes to see Templar Master Guy de Foresta. Henry rages at Guy for the catastrophe that unfolded, El’s capture, the Crutched Friars’ arrest, and Abbot Geoffrey’s murder. The chaos also stirs strong memories from traumatic experiences he had in the Holy Land earlier in his life. The knight is especially angry that Guy allowed El into the city given her condition upon returning from Wales. Guy assuages Henry’s concern, telling him the Temple is still destined to take the Godstone, and encourages him to rescue El from prison.

Meanwhile, Eleanor de Molay is languishing in the deep dungeon of Newgate Gaol. Beset with anxiety for the crimes she imagines she has committed against God and man, she is subjected to abuse by the other prisoners who consider her responsible for the fire. After making the acquaintance of an unusual woman, El is bundled into a crate and taken away from the gaol by an unknown abductor.

Henry sneaks into the city before dawn and heads to Newgate Gaol, where an informant suggests El is being held. Coercing his way into the gaol, he then cannot find El present. After returning to the Temple, Master Guy and Draper Rocelin persuade Henry to instead await El’s trial, confident in their chances of freeing her, and instead send him to investigate an unusual storm off the coast of Brittany.

North Wales

Brac and his Dragon companions are fleeing English soldiers near the Welsh border. Trahern dies in the chase and Tarian tells Brac to continue riding as she goes back to finish off the English soldiers. She disappears from sight and Brac rides until nightfall, beset with horrified guilt at the importance placed upon him and the lives lost to protect it. Brac sets up for the night and is later found by a melancholy Tarian, who has not only survived but brought Trahern’s body with her.

The united Welsh and English army under the Earl of Hereford and Gwenhwyfar of the Dragons is marching north. Adelaide, the Witch of Clun, is unwell and has been placed with Gwenhwyfar in the medicine wagon. Tensions between the two women continue to simmer and Gwenhwyfar reveals her husband had been captured and taken to Clun Castle, possibly to be tortured by Adelaide. Normally calm, the Dragon leader begins to lose her composure, matching Adelaide’s own grief-driven fury, when they are both summoned to a parley of the army’s leadership where Hereford and his captains discuss tidings from potential allies. News of the Welsh lord Llywelyn Bren’s approach heartens the captains, but Hereford is suspicious and suggests caution. As the meeting disperses, Hereford instructs Adelaide to spy on Bren when he arrives.

Atlantic Ocean

Aboard the Sealion, Thorfridr discovers that Hulda has stowed herself away in the hold. Hulda resumes her displeasure against Thorfridr, upset and betrayed that her friend would not explain anything about who she really is. Thorfridr reveals that she is not Norwegian, and comes from a place about which Hulda would know nothing. Richard of Kent interrupts, revealing to Hulda that the relic they chase is a weapon. Thorfridr explains its nature a little more, locking horns with a startled Richard over the threat it holds and the responsibility they have to the Lord God over its retrieval.

Ghent

Recuperating from his battle injuries in a Ghentish townhouse, Comte Mathieu de la Marche learns of the disaster in London. He and his secretary Pascal Sagittaire wonder if the Welsh rebels are becoming too dangerous, encouraging the English to take more precautions than they otherwise might have, given the Godstone is now under far greater protection than previously. Mathieu also learns from a source that his wife is not conspiring against him, but has invited their son and his young family up to Paris without informing Mathieu. The comte is then summoned by King Philippe of France to an assembly with the leading French nobles, the defeated count of Flanders, Guy Dampierre, the Ghentish burghers and the city’s aldermen in the city’s town hall.

The assembly is held to discuss Flemish integration into the French kingdom. The elderly but canny Dampierre riles Philippe before the gathered crowd, provoking the King to anger. Ignoring Mathieu’s protests, the King has Dampierre dragged outside into the street and, to the horror of French and Fleming alike, the count is beheaded for insolence. The watching Flemings begin rioting, seeking to the attack the French party who now retreat back into the town hall. Comte Raoul de Clermont is seriously injured and Mathieu berates a shocked Philippe as the rioters then set the hall ablaze, forcing the royal party back out into the street. Beset by angry citizens, the royal party fights its way through the streets as the city is drenched with blood and engulfed in flames. Soldiers and civilians fall in the violence until the French cavalry can rescue them.

Paris

Responding to the disaster in Ghent, Queen Jeanne of France hosts a meeting with the Master of the Paris Temple, Matthew Norris, and the Master of the Treasury, Comte Jean Lemaître. The Queen has now been allocated a greater bodyguard in as a result of the attack on the King, and she is unimpressed with her husband’s behaviour in inciting the Flemish to such actions. To the Queen’s further irritation, Norris has brought with him the Imperial envoy, Peter von Aspelt, representing the Holy Roman Emperor Adolphus, who so recently had plotted to join the war on the side of the Flemish against the French. In a heated meeting, Jeanne, Lemaître, Norris and von Aspelt discuss the economic future of France, the Temple and the German trading confederacy of the Hansa, in the light of the collapse of the crucial Flemish wool and cloth markets and the ongoing food shortages in Paris. Norris and von Aspelt seek permission for the Temple and Hansa to help rebuild Flanders, whilst Jeanne seeks further loans from the Temple to assuage the dire French finances. Norris counters and demands Jeanne have Philippe abandon his plans to tax the Church, to which Jeanne agrees pending the King’s decision.

After the meeting, Queen Jeanne is approached by the Grand Chamberman of France, Enguerrand de Marigny, who, having been left in Paris by the King to counsel Jeanne, is upset at not having been invited to the discussions. De Marigny reports that the son of Guy Dampierre, Robert the Lion, is leading a company of Flemings that is raiding and burning across northeastern France. Jeanne suggests the King’s favourite – and a man she herself despises – Guillaume de Troyes, be sent to deal the Lion, thus removing him from the capital.

Across Paris, Luc de la Marche arrives at the de la Marche household with his wife, Mathilda, and their infant daughter, Perronele, who Luc’s mother Jaqueline  is meeting for the first time. Jaqueline quickly turns the conversation to matters she wishes to address, namely that she wants Luc to take a letter to an unnamed contact in the city in exchange for information about Jaqueline’s long-lost cousin, Alainne, who disappeared near Carcassonne ten years previously. Luc reluctantly agrees despite the fact that Jaqueline is using information stolen from Comte Mathieu and the subsequent risks this might pose to his position and young family.

Luc and a handful of his household guard travel into the city with food supplies for the markets. Their wagons become bogged down in the rain and attract attention from starving citizens, with a deadly riot breaking out from which Luc barely escapes though he is traumatised by the experience. Sending the wagons on their way, Luc meets with a representative of the informant whilst the spy Le Gris watches from a distance, and returns to Jaqueline with the information crestfallen at the horror he has witnessed. He insists that Jaqueline shares the information with himself and Mathilda, to which Jaqueline agrees. The message suggests Jaqueline visit the Hospitallers in Carcassonne, who might help her. Luc decides to accompany his mother south for circumstances are becoming very dangerous in Paris.

Atlantic Ocean

Still without the missing relic, the Sealion and Trinity’s Halo catch a large ship heading southeast that is flying the papal flag, prompting Richard and Thorfridr to assume Roman involvement with the relic’s theft. Richard demands to read the letters he and Haraldur carried for Thorfridr from the Temple Master in London, which state – in an unusual form of English – that she is to return with ‘the wheel’. Explaining that ‘the wheel’ is simply the name given to the relic because it steers people to ruin, Thorfridr denies knowing why the Master wants its return. As the ships draw closer to the papal vessel, the Templars aboard consider the concerning ramifications of facing down the Pope’s representatives and the possibility that they had been betrayed by their own Templar brothers. Thorfridr again warns Richard that they must safely secure the Wheel.

The Templar ships pull up alongside the papal vessel, the Virgo Sacrata, whose captain reveals himself to be Giovanni di Sant’Angelo. Confessing to taking the relic and coming aboard the Sealion with some of the men who had infiltrated the Templars, Giovanni shows a letter from the Pope authorising the seizure of the relic. Reluctantly Richard accepts the papal authority and bids Giovanni leave his ship, but Thorfridr rages at the surrender and goes to attack Giovanni. Quickly stopped, Giovanni calls for her arrest and a Roman scorpion siege weapon destroys the Sealion’s aftcastle as a threat to the Templars. Thorfridr, Richard and certain of his crew are apprehended, and the two Templar ships are commanded to escort the Virgo Sacrata back to Rome.

London

A heated parliament is held at Westminster to discuss the disaster at the Tower and determine how best to secure the kingdom against the threat of the Welsh Dragons. Templar Master Guy de Foresta is questioned for the Temple’s persistent interest in the Godstone, whereby he holds his own against much suspicion and anger. The Master requests the Temple possess the Godstone as the safest option, but Reginald de Grey then instead proposes, successfully, that the stone is thoroughly investigated under crown supervision outside the city. A message then arrives stating that the Earl of Hereford has turned traitor and allied with the Dragons. As the Earls of Gloucester – rival to Hereford – and Arundel volunteer to bring Hereford to justice, Reginald begins to suspect the absence of the Earl of Norfolk and a number of his allies from parliament could be related to Hereford’s betrayal. All absentees from parliament are called to immediately attend London to affirm their loyalties.

Later, Guy de Foresta requests an audience with the King and his council, all of whom still hold reservations over the Master’s trustworthiness. Citing the wide array of threats faced by Christendom, Guy proposes to weaponise the relic so as to ensure peace without bloodshed. The council is dubious but King Edward permits it on the condition that Guy is heavily supervised in working on it, the responsibility for which falls to Reginald.

Eleanor de Molay has been locked in a room in the Tower of London. A mocking gaol guard informs her that the wretched fellow in the cell opposite is the Prince of Wales, '''Madog ap Llywelyn. Speaking with Madog, El discovers him to be quite mad, unmovably morose, and beset with terrifying apocalyptic visions. As she considers these disturbing confessions the mocking guard returns and, to her shock, unexpectedly frees her before throwing a cell key to Madog. The guard takes her to a rowboat at the fortress’ Watergate and the pair escape onto the Thames. El believes she is being taken upriver to the Temple, but the guard rows downriver, telling her she is going back home. Suspicious, El threatens him with an oar until he repeats a song from her childhood and reveals that her uncle, the Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay, has commanded her return to him at Avignon in France. El is pacified until the guard repeats the madness spouted by Madog back in the Tower, at which point she attacks him and flees as they approach the Limehouse docks. Her escape is blocked by two Templar knights, who corroborate the guard’s story, and with the guard escort her to their ship.

Oxford

Whilst on temporary leave from her nunnery, Princess Mary, daughter to King Edward, is visiting her brother, the young Prince Edward, and his household. Between drinking and gambling with the household staff, she offers advice and lessons to the young prince, who she considers timid and insulated from the world. She desires him to be more outgoing like his lifelong companion, Jan van Holland, son of Count Floris of Holland, who has grown up at court with Prince Edward. Jan returns from accompanying the household staff in recovering the estate’s pet leopards, who have escaped. Edward excuses himself just before a group of outlaws burst enter and take the group prisoner, killing one of the guards and binding the others. Mary assumes the outlaws believe Jan to be Prince Edward, and they speak of taking her to ‘the King’ without revealing who that ‘king’ to be. Hooded and bound and carted off by her abductors with Jan, Mary does not know where her brother is or if he is alive.

Dolwyddelan

The combined army of Gwenhwyfar’s Welsh Dragons and the Earl of Hereford’s English troops have set up camp at the abandoned castle of Dolwyddelan, with Adelaide still under the protection of Sergeant Will. Hereford and his wife Lady Maud receive news of the disaster at the Tower of London, the work of Dragons, astonished at its violence and destruction. Gwenhwyfar enters and explains that she did not order such an attack. Maud is furious with Gwenhwyfar for the attack, and Hereford is angry at how little control she exercises over the soldiers under her command. Gwenhwyfar argues that the war against King Edward already fares well. Their argument is left unresolved by the arrival of Llywelyn Bren, a south Welsh lord, and his army, another contentious addition to an already creaking alliance. As tensions simmer and Adelaide looks on, Gwenhwyfar reveals that she has dispatched riders to abduct Prince Edward from his country estate.

Soon Tarian and Brac arrive at the camp, and are introduced by Gwenhwyfar to Hereford and the allies. To Brac’s horror, Gwenhwyfar introduces him as the new King Arthur, a claim far more than Tarian or Trahern had ever employed when bidding him join them. Hereford meets him, unimpressed and disbelieving at Gwenhwyfar’s latest failure, but maintains civility for the sake of the alliance. Stricken with fear, Brac delivers a dreadful speech that is eventually rescued by Gwenhwyfar, who seeks to rally the army gathered with promises of a new Britain to a mixed response from the audience. Sergeant Will is upbeat, content to follow Hereford’s decisions, but Adelaide is unconvinced and concerned for how long the Anglo-Welsh alliance might hold.

Oxford

Having been freed by the gaoler of the Tower of London, Madog ap Llywelyn has left London and is travelling across England towards Wales. He is rejuvenated with this blessing of freedom, thankful for so much fortune in his flight from the Tower, and now seeks his wife and daughter. In the fields outside Oxford he espies from a distance armed men hunting down unknown targets; it soon becomes clear that they are chasing down two children, the latter spotting Madog as they go. Hearing the men to be Welsh, he instinctively hails them with the challenge of the Dragons to which they respond. Driven with fury by his own betrayal at the hands of the Dragons, Madog engages them, barely defeating them given his own weakened physical state. He then asks the children who they are, seeing through their poorly-coordinated lies and determining that the boy is in fact Prince Edward. Vowing to do right, repay the fortune bestowed upon him, and hoping to make things right with his former friend King Edward, Madog takes the children and sets out for London to return the prince to his father.

Breton coast

Following the orders of Master Guy, Sir Henry is sailing to the treacherous waters around the uninhabited Molène archipelago to investigate the aftermath of the unusual storms reported there. The crew are apprehensive for the supernatural rumours surrounding the islands, but Henry is dismissive. Finding nothing out of the ordinary around the smaller islands, they land on Île-Molène. Henry scarcely believes his eyes upon discovering an entire beach of dead bodies, all recognisable as Mamluk Saracens, thousands of miles from their homeland, all perfectly preserved and without any sign of shipwreck about them. They are fully armed but with without indication of how they died, or even arrived on this shore so distant from their origins in the eastern Mediterranean. At a loss to explain what he is seeing – for he is sceptical of the very idea that a Saracen fleet could travel so far undetected – Henry worries if he is experiencing the infamous stone sickness supposedly spreading in London. Travelling on to the French mainland, he goes to a Hospitaller house near Brest so that he might more quickly send word of his discovery to the Temple and Hospitaller houses throughout France and England. After dismissing Henry’s words as an English ploy to destabilise France, the brothers at the Hospitaller house recognise Henry from the ill-fated siege of Acre five years previously, when the Saracens captured the last Christian city in the Holy Land. They accuse him of causing the deaths of Christian civilians in the city towards the end of the siege, the event that Henry has long suppressed in his mind. Henry denies it – for it was unintentional – but the Hospitallers seek to apprehend him and have him tried for murder. Horrified by the misinterpretation and seized with panic, Henry fights his way out of the house and flees on horseback, shocked by the sudden unravelling of his carefully protected memory and grieved at the events once more. He knows he will not evade arrest and possibly execution if hunted both by Temple and Hospital and dejectedly determines to ride as far away as he can, so that he might still offer some value to Christendom.

Ghent

Mathieu de la Marche recovers in his Ghent townhouse following the riot and fire in the city, drinking wine and furious with King Philippe’s behaviour in inciting both through the execution of Count Guy Dampierre, though he nonetheless acknowledges that the surrender of Flanders and destabilisation of the surrounding counties is progressing well. Mathieu arrives drunk to the King’s first council after the disaster – held outside the city and in the camp of the increasingly jaded French army – and finds himself quite marginalised by Philippe’s younger and inexperienced companions. Furthering Mathieu’s chagrin, the King dismisses the catastrophic financial circumstances facing Flanders and therefore France as a whole, and refuses to fully rebuilding Ghent so as to continue damaging the English economy, which is heavily dependent upon the Flemish cloth market. The King informs Mathieu he will be staying in Ghent to oversee the city’s governance, a task the comte feels below him, but the subsequent private exchange between the two is more open and therefore spikier, giving Mathieu a small sense of opportunity in reigning Philippe in.

Faroe Islands

A great storm at sea has wrecked the papal and Templar ships carrying the Wheel. Richard and Tova, who had been held prisoner on the Roman vessel, wash up on an unknown beach with a number of papal soldiers and are unable to find any trace of Tova’s infant child Iðunn, their friends, nor the Wheel. Amongst the Roman survivors is Giovanni di Sant’Angelo, who believes the Wheel is not lost thanks to the flotation devices fixed to the relic. The Templars and Romans argue over how to proceed. Tova discovers another to survive is none other than Einar, her husband, who to her shock has been secretly working for the Romans the entire time, and had stolen the Wheel from her to give to the Romans. Einar in turn is furious that Tova had brought their child on such a dangerous journey, and that she planned to take the child and flee for England without telling him. Giovanni reasserts control as Tova and Einar rage at one another, and the survivors head towards what they believe to be a settlement further along the island.

London

At the investigation camp outside London’s walls, heavily guarded to prevent a repeat of the disaster at the demonstration, Reginald watches on as leading minds of the kingdom experiment on the Godstone, bringing to bear the latest scientific methods and paradigms. Those present include John Duns Scotus, Bartolomeo Fiadóni and the Chester Four – Prioress Alice de Pierrepont, Sister Agnes, Abbot Thomas Birchills and Prior Simon of Chester – who Reginald had brought from Chester Abbey with the Godstone earlier in the summer. Templar Master Guy de Foresta is absent, working on a method by which to weaponise the Godstone. The land around the camp has been transformed into a cratered wasteland through repeated firings of the stone. The group demonstrate that with the application of oil and fire, the stone is able to make things disappear as well as anything in the path taken by the flame to the stone itself. John Duns Scotus emphasises that the Godstone behaves in a predictable manner, meaning that – with appropriate application – it can be controlled. He stresses that they can know the effect of the stone, but not how it works.

One evening whilst discussing their findings and musing on the nature of the stone in a tent in the camp, the Chester Four are visited by a tall figure cloaked in black. Terrifying its hosts and speaking in a strange dialect of English, the figure delivers a cryptic warning and mentions Alice by name, before vanishing without a trace. Discovering that nearby guardsmen did not see the figure, Abbot Thomas orders the Godstone be checked on and resolves to inform Lord Reginald himself of this breach in security.

Later the leading men and women of England gather at the camp for the execution of the Crutched Brothers involved in the disaster at the Tower and other criminals, still so fresh in the memory. Much interest is stirred by the use of Guy de Foresta’s prototype fire wagon as the method of execution – a machine harnessing Greek fire so that the Godstone’s potential can be controlled from range. King Edward is distracted by the news that his son and daughter have been abducted by Dragons from Oxford but quizzes Reginald on the Godstone investigation, and Reginald reveals that the Chester Four were removed from the camp, without explaining why he deemed them to have been afflicted with some madness after Abbot Thomas’ report, whilst the gathered nobles question John Duns Scotus on the nature of the stone. The ensuing execution is spectacular and successful and the condemned disappear in a flash of blue, along with much of the surrounding field, to the awe and dread of spectators. Many are concerned over exploiting this gift from God, though the King remains bullish and enthused with the weaponry at his disposal. Soon, however, the King collapses from a seizure, sparking panic amongst the nobles, and is carried back unconscious to the city.

The camp has quietened by nightfall after the day’s drama. Reginald is readying for bed when growing commotion draws him out of his tent, whereupon he sees fire flying through the night sky and men running about in terror. He sees it is another fire wagon and goes to destroy it, only for it to vanish as he reaches it, as if it is some mirage. He is then confronted and physically restrained by a towering phantom who, addressing him personally, issues a perplexing command that he cannot comprehend. The phantom disappears as suddenly as it arrives, at which point Reginald sees the fire-riddled camp now overrun with attackers. Saving some men from the flames, Reginald rushes into battle with the unknown enemy only to be run down by a horse and breaking his leg. He is eventually rescued and, after the camp and Godstone are both secured, taken to have his leg amputated.