Dear Mr. Cornwell, I’ve been a big fan for decades. First with Sharpe of course. I recall twenty-five years ago telling a classroom full of recruits of the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada that if they were interested in the heritage of their regiment they could do no better than to read about Sharpe. However, I confess I did find it curious that your infantry officer in this era would need to use his sword so routinely, frequently and violently. Then I started the Saxon books, my new favourite of your series, and I think it all fell into place. I think edged warfare is your thing and I think complex man-of-his-time Uhtred is the character you would have liked Sharpe to be were it not for the constraints of context. I felt confirmed in this when I recently (re)read your Arthur trilogy. There too you did a _Face of Battle_ thing when describing combat, particularly in the shield walls of big battles. Somehow your descriptions in the Saxon books seem more mature. You seem to have gone from a fascination with and speculation about shield wall combat to a real degree of certainty about what it was like. For example, in the Saxon books you several times stress that it is the short sword, the Dark Age version of the gladius, that is by far the more useful of Uhtred’s two weapons. That represents a significant refinement about which you are undoubtedly right. I don’t mean to say that there was anything incomplete or undeveloped about the Arthur combat. Quiet the contrary. I just think you’ve improved on first class. So my sense is that while you’ve clearly maintained your fascination with the horrors of hand to hand combat with edged weapons, you are no longer merely speculating about the combat environment. You believe you know what it was like. I believe you’re right. This aside, thank you for the light you have shone on the Dark Ages. There’s really so little to read, it’s great to have a glimpse of someone’s well thought out and researched sense of life at the time. In closing, let me also compliment you on the clever way in the Arthur books you very plausibly explained and thumbed your nose at traditional Arthurian mythology. And, I might add, without ever completely eliminating the magic of, and in, the tale. I believe I actually laughed out loud when I realized what you were doing to poor Lancelot. Sword and sorcery at it’s very best. I’ll bet you really had fun writing that series. Don’t ever stop writing Mr. Cornwell. Jim Voege