Mr. Cornwell: I’ve been reading your books for years, and always enjoy them. Often I learn something from your exhaustive research, and often you bring up interesting questions. Early in your book “Heretic”, you refer to the stone missiles fired from early cannon. This is the first I’ve heard of such an idea. If they were stone missiles shaped into a ball, surely it would be easier to cast cannon balls, since they could cast the cannon? You later mention the “bolts” used against the castle,and describe how the barrel of the cannon is packed with other material, to ensure the force of the powder is not wasted. Interesting idea … would they not have to do the same thing with stone missiles, and if so, we are back to the shaping of the missiles again. Care to elaborate? Glad you didn’t fall into the same trap that Michael Crichton did, in his book “Timeline” – where he first mentions a “breech loading cannon (in the Middle Ages!) being dragged across a field whereupon it was “loaded from the muzzle”. Michael didn’t see fit to comment on this unusual situation. I hope you’ll reincarnate Thomas of Hookton yet again … Mike Goldstein