Brace tells James his father sent his mother to a lunatic asylum after she tried to kill him when he was a baby whilst Cholmondely succeeds in making the gunpowder, which has to be moved when an informant betrays its location. Further drastic action is required to protect Zilpha, who has killed her bullying husband, by attributing his cause of death to a cholera outbreak. The East India board members are alarmed to learn that the Crown has sanctioned George Chichester's enquiry into their illegal slave traffic and plot action, culminating in the torching of James' ship. Finally, after a drunken night at the brothel, James wakes up in the mud to find Winter, Helga's little girl has been murdered.
—don @ minifie-1