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Back The Black Earth Save as PDF
Chapters (56)
  1. Cover
  2. THE BLACK EARTH
  3. Dedication
  4. Contents
  5. BOOK I
  6. CHAPTER ONE
  7. CHAPTER TWO
  8. CHAPTER THREE
  9. CHAPTER FOUR
  10. CHAPTER FIVE
  11. CHAPTER SIX
  12. CHAPTER SEVEN
  13. BOOK II
  14. CHAPTER EIGHT
  15. CHAPTER NINE
  16. CHAPTER TEN
  17. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  18. CHAPTER TWELVE
  19. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  20. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  21. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  22. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  24. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  25. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY
  27. BOOK III
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  30. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  34. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  35. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  36. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  42. BOOK IV
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  45. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  46. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  47. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  48. CHAPTER FORTY
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  53. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  54. About the Author
  55. By Philip Kazan
  56. Copyright

‘But I’m singing for you,’ she says, and drags her hands across her own face. He’ll go, she is thinking. He’ll go back into the earth. But he is still there. ‘Are we dead?’ she whispers.

‘I came. I promised. I thought …’ She realises that he can’t walk any more, and stumbles across the grave to him, across the black earth. ‘I thought I was too late.’

‘No, no.’ When she puts her arms around him, she feels sunlight on her skin. But the sun has gone down. It is getting dark. She can feel his ribs against hers, his heart beating faintly, and her own little pulse chattering with fever: two birds left too long, left to starve, alone in their cages. She presses her face into his neck and hears the rhythm of his blood. Such a small sound. Still, a sound. A song. She feels his hand in her hair and she raises her face to him. His lips taste of blood, and metal things: of the war. But only for a moment, and then she doesn’t have to remember any more.

‘My God. There’s almost nothing left of us,’ she says. ‘But there’s enough. There’s just enough.’

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About the Author

PHILIP KAZAN was born in London and grew up on Dartmoor. He is the author of two previous novels set in fifteenth-century Florence and the Petroc series following a thirteenth-century adventurer. After living in New York and Vermont, Philip is back on the edge of Dartmoor with his wife and three children.

philipkazan.wordpress.com

@pipkazan

By Philip Kazan

The Black Earth

Copyright

Allison & Busby Limited
12 Fitzroy Mews
London W1T 6DW
allisonandbusby.com

First published in Great Britain by Allison &Busby in 2018.
This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison &Busby in 2018.

Copyright © 2018 by PHILIP KAZAN

Permission to reproduce extracts from The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot
granted by Faber and Faber Ltd

The moral right of the author is hereby asserted
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.