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First published in Great Britain in hardback by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2004
First published in Great Britain in paperback by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2005
This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2017
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Cover illustration © Marc Martin 2017
Text copyright © Lynne Reid Banks 2004
Lynne Reid Banks asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007462940
Ebook Edition © 2017 ISBN: 9780007349913
Version: 2017-02-01
For my son, Gillon Stephenson
Table of Contents
Chapter Two: Caesar’s Daughter
Chapter Six: Aurelia to the Circus
Chapter Seven: ‘The Greatest Treat’
Chapter Eleven: Julius in Chains
Chapter Twelve: Aurelia’s Secret
Chapter Thirteen: Aurelia’s Sacrifice
Chapter Fourteen: The Ides of July
Chapter Sixteen: A Triumph of Will
The two tiger cubs, romping in the jungle undergrowth near their den, prick up their ears.
While they play by themselves, they always half listen for their mother’s return. But these sounds are not what they want to hear. They are strange and alarming. Loud, staccato beats, clattering and banging – hacking and chopping – a trampling of green stems. And voices. Not animal voices, all familiar to them. These are voices alien to the jungle. And when they begin, other sounds, the