Caitlyn O'Malley was a lass, but none would have known it who saw her swaggering along Dublin's narrow cobbled laneways on that misty April afternoon in 1784. For the last eight of her fifteen years of life, she had aped the role of a male. So successful was she at it that she herself forgot her true sex for days at a time. Her unkempt black hair was cropped into a ragged bob that just touched her shoulders. A constant layer of grime obscured delicate features. Thick-lashed kerry blue eyes, big as agates in her hunger-pinched face, passed almost unnoticed amidst all her dirt. With her spindly frame clad in shabby, cast- off coat and breeches that were two sizes too large, she looked as much like a ragged twelve-year-old boy as her companion, who could lay claim to the condition in truth.

"B'God, O'Malley, would ye take a whiff o' that, now?" Willie Laha stopped to sniff enviously at the tray of meat pastries that the vendor was setting out on the counter of his cart. They were so fresh steam was rising from them. Staring at the golden-brown crusts, sniffing their delicious aroma, Caitlyn felt her mouth water. Pangs of hunger twisted her stomach. Neither she nor Willie had eaten the night before nor all that day, and it was nigh onto evening again. Pickings for supper were likely to be slim. The gangs of urchins and beggars that haunted the mews intersecting O'Connell Street had become so notorious that the merchants were going about armed. It was worth a lad's life to pinch so much as an apple. With the street fair in progress and the workers from the quays crowding the street every night, pickings should have been plentiful. But revelers were guarding their purses, and merchants were watching eagle-eyed over their wares. Only a week ago, Tim O'Flynn, one of the loose gang of boys that was the closest Caitlyn had to family since her mother died, had been hanged for stealing two plums and a chunk of bread. With that example fresh in mind, Caitlyn was more cautious than was her wont, although hunger was beginning to override her unaccustomed prudence. If she did not steal, she would not eat.