Writ and Hunger is a grim, grounded historical novel set in England during the First Barons' War, told from the bottom of society upward.
Adam is landless, counted only when the law requires it. When royal authority fractures and rebellion spreads, he is taken from the fields and pressed into levy service-unpaid, poorly armed, and bound by obligation rather than honor. Lists replace names. Hunger becomes currency. Violence is administered with the same cold precision as law.
As the countryside empties and armies gather, Adam and the men beside him are turned into tools of baronial ambition. They march, wait, starve, and fight-not for glory, but because refusal is not permitted. Campaign life hardens them, strips them, and forces choices that cannot be undone. When the rebellion fails, survival does not mean peace. The losing side is returned home marked, watched, and punished under the restored king's peace.
Written with uncompromising realism, Writ and Hunger portrays medieval war as it was lived by ordinary people: brutal, bureaucratic, and deeply personal. This is not a story of knights and banners, but of rope, bread, ink, and the quiet weight of law pressing down on those with no voice.
A novel of coercion, survival, and the cost of being counted.
