She lived the life of the slave. She was at the beck and call of a tyrant which had no power of discernment between night and day, no pity for exhausted limbs, troubled hearts or passing joys. Everything belonged to her Master. The earth she trod on, the sky she looked up to, the birds, the cool waters, the streets with their people, sounds and smells. Amelia loved that Master more than she loved her own life and sometimes she hated it too, especially in the early lights of morn after it had kept her going without food and drink for hours on end, days even. But she also knew she couldn't live without her Master because that heartless tyrant that demanded everything of her (one day it might even be her blood) gave her purpose in a world which had repudiated her over and over and over again. No longer a Slade girl, while all the men in her life are struggling to come to terms with the scars of war, Amelia Hameldon is called to face Woman's greatest battle. To bring harmony amongst the many selves of the feminine: the artist, the mother, the widow, the temptress, the virgin.