Hello Mr Cornwell, I am a huge fan of yours, having read every Sharpe novel along with the Grail Quest novels and the Warlord Chronicles (twice). The reason I’m writing is that I have recently picked up the Grail Quest and have started reading it again. First I must state that I lived in France for eleven years and, obviously, went to French school there. The reason I’m telling you this is that in the beginning of the Harlequin I noticed Will Skeat asked Thomas what La Roche-Derrien meant. His answer was ignorance to it’s meaning but a guess that it may mean the Rock in back (though you didn’t phrase it quite like that :) ). Now we all know Thomas’ French is perfect and he pulled it (the translation) out of Derrien resembling derrière. Though this may be the true meaning of the town’s name, though I highly doubt it, if you were to ask a Frenchman with no knowledge of the town what the meaning of the name is, the first thing to come to mind would not have been derrière as much as de rien: of nothing. Though not a harm to the story itself, you did not portray Thomas as a jester at that moment in the book, nor his explanation as being a jest, I therefore humbly disagree with Thomas coming up with that as the meaning of the name (though I understand that as your character you are obviously right to put any words in his mouth) I do believe as a man brought up in France, in French (me I mean), that Thomas would have immediately seen the link between Derrien and de rien, which would mean that he would have translated it in one of two ways: either as the rock of nothing or the rock of welcome (de rien being the customary response in France to anyone thanking you for something) either of which I find fit better with a small worthless town on the French coast. I thank you for reading this and thank you for your incredible and inspiring work. My regards Kevin