The Jester
He was their fool. They killed his family. So he learned from their enemies.
Seventeen-year-old Thomas Vale survives the dangerous halls of medieval power by doing one thing better than anyone else: making powerful men laugh.
As court jester to the ruthless Lord Edmund Blackthorne, Thomas is overlooked, underestimated, and nearly invisible. Behind the painted face and jingling bells, however, Thomas sees everything.
Then his family is murdered.
When Thomas discovers that Blackthorne ordered their deaths to conceal his own corruption, the young jester wants vengeance. But Thomas knows that challenging an armed and powerful lord would mean certain death.
So Thomas does the unthinkable.
He runs.
Stealing ordinary clothes from the castle and carrying a single bell from his old life, Thomas joins men sailing east during the Crusades. But Thomas has no desire to become a celebrated crusader.
He wants to learn from the warriors England taught him to fear.
After slipping away during battle, Thomas is captured by the formidable warrior Faris ibn Rashid. Expecting death, Thomas instead makes an extraordinary request:
Teach me.
Thomas's strange story eventually brings him before the legendary Saladin, who grants the English youth an opportunity that will change his life forever.
Under Faris's relentless instruction, the former fool learns the bow, the blade, horsemanship, patience, and the discipline of a true warrior. Years of hardship forge an unlikely brotherhood between teacher and student and transform the frightened seventeen-year-old who fled England into something Lord Blackthorne could never have imagined.
But when the Crusades begin drawing toward their end, Thomas must make a choice.
Return home and claim the revenge he has dreamed about for years...
Or remain in the East long enough to discover whether vengeance is truly the purpose for which he has been preparing.
Because one day Thomas Vale will return to England.
And when Lord Blackthorne finally hears the sound of a jester's bell again...
no one will be laughing.
The Jester is a sweeping historical adventure of revenge, brotherhood, transformation, loyalty, and the dangerous difference between learning how to kill an enemy and learning why a man should fight.
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