Have Faith

Prologue

"Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat." Mother Teresa

---- 

Prologue

Hertfordshire, England

1802

What was this pain?

It felt as though iron rods were puncturing his stomach over and over. He was so tired and so weak. His limbs did not want to perform normal actions. He could not remember the last time he had tasted food. It could have been weeks. His gums hurt and bled. He felt as though he was rotting from the inside out. His mouth was dryer than sand and his lips were cracked and scabbed. His staggered, raspy breathing was only making this worse. He had become so thin that his bones protruded everywhere, and his once thick, curly black hair had begun to thin and fall out.

Cassian Kensington was starving, and was the poorest of poor men. He had not a penny to his name, with nothing but lint in his moth-eaten pockets.

While he was not born into poverty, it had soon found him. Cassian was born the son of a blacksmith and his wife. But an accident had claimed his father's life only three years later, and what little money that had was quickly taken in rent.

Out of utter desperation, and on the brink of starvation, Cassian's poor mother had turned to the entertainment profession. Cast out of their village in shame, Cassian and his mother lived in appalling conditions while his mother entertained strange gentlemen.

"Just you wait here, and you may choose whatever you like for supper tonight."

Cassian remembered her telling him that over and over as she left him in strange rooms, and on strange corners, or alleys, while she went away to do business. He remembered standing on street corners, only a small child, and watching the rich walk by him. They had such fine coats and hats. But they did not see him.

He quickly learned that the rich preferred not to notice the poor.

His poor mother suffered in those conditions. She wasted away, eventually dying from typhoid fever when Cassian was only ten years old.

Cassian had been on his own for twelve years. As a dirty, skinny, young street urchin, work was scarce, and impossible to find. As he grew older, he had hoped to find an apprenticeship, but no master would even consider him when they had older, burlier, stronger boys from families to choose from.

Every so often vicars would take pity on him, and find him odd jobs to do for a penny now and then, but steady work was virtually impossible for him to secure.

Despite his poverty, Cassian had never resorted to thievery. He had seen men in his similar situation hung for stealing, and sentenced to seven years transportation for poaching. No matter how hungry he was, he had never poached, and never stolen, not even a loaf of bread.

Though now, lying half dead on the side of the road as he was, a loaf of bread, stolen or not, would have made him feel like the richest man alive.

He was dying. He could feel it. Cassian's eyelids were heavy as he laid his head down on the ground next to the road. The grassy mounds beside the gravel road were comfortable.

As good a place as any for the death of a man like him. A man who mattered to no-one.

Would anyone find him before the animals made a meal out of him? Would anyone care? Would he have a burial? A grave? Would he be remembered?