The Sword of the Lictor

The sword of the lictor was originally published in 1981. It was approximately a year after the claw of the conciliator came out. Did he know that it was going to be such an extreme time between his volumes? I think he very much did because he finished his first draft of everything, right? He submitted the three books at that time as a whole to the publisher in draft form. And they came up with the arrangement to publish the books one at a time so he could edit and revise one volume while the previous volume was released.