At the inception of the industrial era, Ana, daughter of a Spanish urine trader, complains she feels 'bartered like a Moor' to procure work for her father in a desolate and inhospitable region of northern England. Making alum, a beautiful translucent crystal, essential to the dyeing of cloth, has been a lucrative business for centuries, however, its obscure and obnoxious manufacture, burning rocks and stirring together urine and seaweed, dominates a remote part of eighteenth century Britain. Ana is put to work with the inheritor of the 'alum-makers secret', manager Robert, and witnessing the...