Overview: Outlaw of Torn

Extra info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Outlaw_of_Torn 

   This story starts off in a time where knights, chivalry and honor rule the courts and custom of the day but also where outlaws make a name for themselves.  A dispute between the English king, Henry III, and the French king, De Montfort, over their honor and over other comments not mentioned in the book occurred.  Being upset, Henry III decided to put out his anger on the fencing teacher for his children, Sir Jules de Vac, who was regarded as the best swordsmen alive, which involved insults and spitting on de Vac's face.  This very much upset de Vac, already had hatred towards his fellow king (Henry III), decided then and there they he didn't just want satisfaction for these insults but revenge beyond all others.
   Unsure of what his revenge should be, he spent many days pondering about and thinking what the best one would be.  All ideas were too simple or not good enough, so one day when watching the young prince, Richard, he decided that he would trick the gardener into lending him the keys to the grounds and capture the boy and train him to despise his own family and have this young boy destroy all of England.
   Once he captured young Richard, de Vac lived in an abandoned but extravagant palace to raise and train the boy for 18 years, in total isolation from the outside world.  One night when Richard was around 15 years of age, lost English soldiers came to the palace to ask directions to arrive to their destination.  Upon doing so they noticed that Richard looked very much like the prince that was taken away (by de Vac) around 15 yeras ago.  This concerns de Vac, but Richard is so well trained that Richard tries to and successfully fight off these three men with ease.  Due to this display, de Vac decides to further train him in Swordsmanship, French and hatred of English (this was his school/training all his childhood) more brutally to prepare him to be able to start the revenge and allow Richard to train his own army.
   So when Richard turned 17, de Vac (calls himself "father" of Richard, where Richard only knows to be called "son") goes along with Richard and one by one, battle by battle, they take people into their army; But they were only allowed under the guidelines of Richard being sole authority over the whole group and that no man may harm a women under pain of death.  During these battles/conquest, The outlaw of Torn never showed his identity in combat due to the warning/lie issued by de Vac that Richard's face was a monstrous face that people would not like to look upon (but was really to not allow anyone to recognize him as the long lost prince Richard).  This lead to the tall tales and stories people would tell who meet/saw the outlaw of Torn when relating the story to others such as he being the devil or the most fearsome creature one ever laid eyes on, etc..  After many of the conquest and adventures he set out with de Vac to do, he collected and organized an army of over one thousand men, all obeying his every order.  With this group of bandits, the Outlaw and his men pillage villages, steal loot, kill Englishmen but always leave the women unharmed.  His trademark was that he would draw in blood, with his sword, the initials NT for a name the outlaw gave himself, Norman of Torn.  Through the next couple of years, he would grow more mature, more powerful and by the age of 19 he was so well known that many people including the king of England had a price on his head.
   But later on throughout the book, The outlaw of Torn would meet a women named Bertrade de Montfort who would change the entire course of the book and the rest of his life and interactions with others as well.  It would allow him to make alliances, under the name of Roger de Conte (except for the priest), with the French king, de Monfort, friendships with a french prince and princess and a priest.  Due to these alliance and the threat of de Vac's revenge not being fulfilled, The Outlaw of Torn had to reveal his identity to Bertrade and the rest of his family as well as duel with de Vac himself at the end of the book.  This duel was a very climatic ending to the book that once a for all ended the revenge of de Vac, for better or for worse.