VIPER'S BLOOD

Blackstone goes alone into Paris and is taken before the Dauphin and Simon Bucy. The Dauphin has no love for Blackstone, and recounts how he tried to kill him at Poitiers with the Savage Priest at his side. But now events have brought the enemies together. There is a chance of securing the vast ransom that Edward has demanded. It comes from the ruler of Milan, Galeazzo Visconti. He will buy the Dauphin's sister, King John's eleven-year-old daughter Isabelle, so she can marry Visconti's nine year-old son. Edward gets his ransom and the Visconti a princess from the greatest royal house in Europe.

The Dauphin would love to seize Blackstone and have his head on a pole outside the city gates. His hatred for Blackstone is only tempered by the fact that two years earlier at Meaux, during the Jacquerie uprising, Blackstone saved the Dauphin's wife and children and the young Isabelle. So the Dauphin is in Blackstone's debt. (And the wily Simon Bucy has given him the perfect means of honouring that debt, while sending Blackstone to his death without blood on his hands.) The Dauphin asks that Blackstone and his men lead the escort across France and into Italy to deliver the child to the Visconti. Blackstone sees no reason why he should. He fought for Florence against the Visconti. They are his enemy. The Dauphin tells him that the Princess asked for her petite chevalier to accompany her. This refers to Blackstone's son who was nine years old at the time and had been one of the few outsiders to have had any contact with the royal family at Meaux. But still Blackstone refuses.

And then the Dauphin repays the debt he owes Blackstone. He tells him that the assassin that was meant to kill Blackstone when he had returned from Italy into France but had instead slaughtered his wife and child at Meaux was sent by Benabò Visconti.

Blackstone is thrown into his most dangerous adventure yet – to deliver the French king's young daughter in a marriage pact to the Visconti's son – and to try and seek revenge for his family's murder.