A man around whom legends have been woven in his own dramatic lifetime.
We know little about him when he meets Gideon in a lowly alehouse in County Durham.
He is a mercenary commander, condemned as a traitor to King James in his mid-teens and exiled as a result, for to remain in England would have meant to live as an outlaw and face death if taken.
Known as the Schiavono to his men, perhaps after the sword he wears, which is a Schiavona with its distinctive basket hilt and cat’s head pommel.
Original art by Ian Bristow
He has come back to England at this time as it falls into chaos.
He has come back with some purpose.
But what purpose is not clear.
Is it to take advantage of the opportunities for pillage and plunder offered in a new theatre of war? To bring the brutality and bloodshed that has been engulfing most of Europe for the last quarter century, to the prosperous and peaceful communities of England?
Philips Wouwerman, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
It seems there are shadows looming behind him that run deeper and darker than those earned as a mercenary on bloody battlefields or as a privateer scouring the Narrow Seas and the Mediterranean. Grasping shadows which threaten to engulf him and all in his company. Shadows of a century-old conspiracy whose far-reaching tendrils still have power and influence.
The chessboard is being set up as the drums of war quicken their beat. Is Philip Lord indeed the powerful knight he seems to be, or is he in truth being played as a pawn in another’s game?
Eleanor Swift-Hook 
