On that continent, the legacy of Rome’s pomp and paraphernalia of governance were more evident. The land was already in division among many lords. Soon there would be a king in Italy! Though Frank-land, France, did not exist, the Franks were on the rise with their terrible throwing-axes so like a pre-charge artillery barrage. The Roman title comes remained. It would become the French comte, which we call count. And though no Count has ever held demesne in my Kentucky, this state is divided into 120 count-ies.

A new age was aborning, in Europe. With the importation of the concept of stirrups, the age of chivalry-cheval-ry or horse-ry-would grow out of the chaos left by Rome’s fall, and endure until some fool went and invented gunpowder. (Surely not Hank, protagonist of Mark Twain’s sf-hf novel!)

In the A.D. 480s, Cormac and Wulfhere were raiding along the coast of what would become France, and soon they had to cross the treacherous Bay of Biscay to northwestern Spain-and honest employment!

Keith Taylor knows about twice as much about that area at that time as Andrew Offutt. That’s why he is needed as cohort in this novel and its direct sequel, When Death Birds Fly, and the others we have outlined, leading all the way to Wulfhere’s homeland, Danemark. Without Keith Taylor, this novel would be about half as good.

We have never met. We live precisely halfway around this planet from each other. Yet there are few lines in this book that are pure Taylor or pure Offutt. When we collaborate, we collaborate. (How? Expensively, between here and Australia!)

Sir Keith has worked out and sent over a fascinating astrological compilation for both Cormac and Wulfhere. Maybe it is pure imagination and maybe it isn’t. What do you think their signs are? (Well actually, no, I didn’t say that we are believers-or that we are not.)