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PROLOGUE

I never knew hiht I had, but it wasn’t until I read his journal that I realized I hadn’t really known him at all And it’s too late now Too late to tell hied him Too late to tell him I’m sorry

EXTRACTS FROM THE JOURNAL OF HAYTHAM E KENWAY

PART I

1735

6 DECEMBER 1735

i

Two days ago I should have been celebrating my tenth birthday at one unremarked; there are no celebrations, only funerals, and our burnt-out house is like a blackened, rotted tooth a the tall, white brick mansions of Queen Anne’s Square

For the ti in one of Father’s properties in Blooh the family is devastated, and our lives torn apart, there is that to be thankful for at least Here we’ll stay, shocked, in lihosts—until our future is decided

The blaze ateanew That being the case, I should probably begin with lish boy whose hoo lived an idyllic life sheltered from the worst of the filth that exists elsewhere in the city Fro over the river, and like everybody else ere bothered by the stink, which I can only describe as “wet horse,” but we didn’t have to tread through the rivers of stinking waste from tanneries, butchers’ shops and the backsides of animals and people The rancid streae of disease: dysentery, cholera, typhoid

“You et you”

On walks across the fields to Hampstead my nurses used to steer hs, and shieldedthey feared disease I suppose because you cannot reason with disease; you can’t bribe it or take ar It is an implacable foe

And of course it attacks without warning So every evening they checked ood health to Mother, who caht I was one of the lucky ones, you see, who had a ht, and a father who did, too; who loved me and my half sister, Jenny, who told ood fortune and urged me always to think of others; and who employed tutors and nurserow up to be a ood values and of worth to the world One of the lucky ones Not like the children who have to work in fields and in factories and up chimneys