title: Medieval Mercenaries: The Business of War
author: William Urban
description: <SPAN STYLE= "" >&quot;Mercenary armies were a common thing in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In this fascinating book based on contemporary chronicles and the latest research, William Urban tells the tumultuous story of soldiers of fortune at the service of various rulers. swarming anecdotes, the book offers an immersion into the complex and precarious world of professional soldiers whom war was primarily a matter of profit. It provides many individual portraits of mercenaries and studies their presence in works of writers as well known as Geoffrey Chaucer or Arthur Conan Doyle.&quot;</SPAN> (<i>Pretorien, No. 40</i>)
zlib_text: **The King’s Buccaneer**
  
  Krondor’s Sons – Book 2
  
  Raymond E. Feist
  
    
  
   **PROLOGUE - Meeting**
  
  Ghuda stretched.
  
  Through the door behind him came a woman’s voice: ‘Get away from there!’
  
  The former mercenary guard sat back in his chair on the porch of his inn,
  settling his feet upon the hitching rail. In the background the usual evening
  serenade was commencing. While rich travelers stayed at the large hostels in
  the city or at palatial inns along the silvery beaches, the Inn of the Dented
  Helm, owned by Ghuda Bule, catered to a rougher clientele: wagon drivers,
  mercenaries, farmers bringing crops into the city, and rural soldiers.
  
  ‘Do I have to summon the city guards!’ cried the woman from inside the common
  room.
  
  A large man, Ghuda had found enough hard work keeping up the inn that he
  hadn’t run to fat and he still kept his weapons finely honed; more times than
  he cared to recall, he had been forced to toss one or another customer through
  the door.
  
  Evenings, just before dining, w