Last Sword of Power, as with all my other novels, is the result of many months of hard work from a gifted team. Without them my poor spelling, lousy punctuation, and talent for split infinitives would be far more widely known. To my editor, Liza Reeves, and my copy editor, Jean Maund, many thanks. I am also more than grateful to my “readers” Edith Graham and Tom Taylor and my proofreader Stella Graham. Thanks also to my father-in-law, Denis Ballard, for supplying the research on Roman Britain.