“My little boy,” Fabia says. “He didn’t always hate me. Everyone made such a fuss of him when he was small. All the other girls, they doted on him.” She discards another olive. “But the old pimp, the master here before Felix, he rented him out to work in the kitchens across the way when he was four.” Fabia pauses, contemplating the remaining bread and cheese on her knee. “I wish he’d sold him. But he never did. My boy was too pretty.” She gives in to hunger, gobbling down the last scraps of food, sucking her fingers and wiping them on her knees. “That’s what I tell Cressa. It’s better if they’re sold. Then you can imagine things turned out well for them. Better the heartbreak now, than later.”
Amara has barely said a word but still has a small pile of food left. She eats it as fast as she can, conscious of Fabia watching. “Is this the only brothel you worked in?” she mumbles through a mouthful of cheese.
“I suppose,” Fabia replies. “I started as a house slave. Had two little babies for the master, not that he cared, the ungrateful shit. Two little girls I never got to see grow up. After the second child, I thought he’d let me marry another slave in the household, the odd-job man. I quite liked him. He was kind, anyway. But then he died, and the master rented me out. It was only guests, family members, that sort of thing. But once they do that, rent you out I mean, you know they’ll sell you on.” Amara thinks of her time as a slave in Chremes’ household. It does not cheer her to see parallels between her past and that of the destitute old woman beside her. “You didn’t start life as a slave, did you?” Fabia asks, perhaps sensing her discomfort. “I can always tell.”
“How can you tell?”
“You still act like you matter.”
Amara knows Fabia doesn’t mean to be hurtful, but still, her last mouthful of food feels like a stone as she swallows it. “That bread was dry, wasn’t it?” she says, changing the subject. She reaches down to pick up the jug by her feet. “Would you mind fetching us some more water, please? Also, I think the other cells will need some more for this evening.”
Fabia takes the jug. She looks at Amara, the hunger still in her eyes. “What does it feel like?”
“What does what feel like?”
“Being free. What does it feel like?”
What did it feel like to be Timarete? Amara’s past life blazes into her mind’s eye, with all its love, innocence and hope. “When you see a bird flying,” she says, “that moment when it chooses to swoop lower or soar higher, when there’s nothing but air stopping it, that’s what freedom feels like.” She pauses, knowing that this isn’t the whole truth. The memory she tries to keep buried, the agony of her last day as a free woman rises to the surface. “But hunger feels the same, Fabia. Whether you are slave or free, hunger is the same.”
Fabia nods, satisfied. Hunger is something she understands. She leaves the cell, and the sound of her footsteps is swallowed up almost instantly by the thickness of the stone. Amara stays sitting on the bed, conscious of the world washing past the walls outside, even though she cannot see it. Out there, over unimaginable distance, her hometown still exists. People she knew: her neighbours, her father’s patients, the baker who always spared her bread, Chremes, Niobe. All the figures of her past will still be living out their lives in Aphidnai. But not her mother. Amara knows that her mother is dead.
She knew it on her first day as a slave. After the trauma of saying goodbye, Chremes took her to his bedroom. But instead of stripping her naked as she had feared, he seized the small bundle of belongings she had brought with her. Amara watched, bewildered and afraid, as Chremes rifled through her father’s old leather bag until he found what he was looking for. Inside, her mother had hidden the money she had been paid for her only child. A well-known trick, Chremes said as he counted out the coins, for naïve parents selling their children. A way to give them a head start towards buying back their own freedom.
Amara stands up. She doesn’t want to remember the rest of that day.
Everything her parents had hoped for, every gift they gave her, including her mother’s last desperate act of love, has been taken from her. Timarete no longer exists, except as a brief reflection in the eyes of a boy from Athens. She will have to survive as Amara.
One relic from the past is here with her. Her father’s battered, mouldering bag is hanging from a hook on the wall. When the leather was bright and flexible, he would take it to visit patients, all his herbs and instruments parcelled up inside. She lifts it from the wall. Sitting back down on the bed, she counts out the savings she has managed to collect at the brothel. At most it’s enough for a few day’s food. Nothing like the enormous sum she would need to buy herself from Felix. Amara tries to calculate the number of Marcellas she will have to bring him to get anywhere close. It’s impossible. Not unless her value drops over the years like Fabia’s. Then she might well only be worth the price of a week’s bread. Amara doesn’t pursue that thought. Perhaps she will earn more at the baths, if Vibo ever has them back? For a moment, she allows herself to daydream about meeting a fantastically wealthy patron, a man who would be fascinated by her conversation, somebody who would want her to charm him and not just screw her.
“Beronice?” It’s Gallus, calling softly from the corridor. Amara walks to the doorway and sticks her head out. “Oh. It’s you.” He’s disappointed. No free fuck for him today.
“We thought it was Thraso on the door, so I agreed to stay in.”
“Felix swapped him onto the night watch,” Gallus replies. “Is Beronice coming back later?”
“Only if she has a customer.”
“Right.” Gallus looks uncomfortable. Amara feels irritated by his awkwardness. She’s had sex with the man at least twice, surely a brief conversation is not too taxing. “Does Beronice talk about me much?”
She studies him, trying to work out if it’s a trick question. Perhaps he wants to discover if Beronice has exposed his financial dishonesty towards Felix. But she can see nothing in his face other than hopefulness. Amara relents. “She loves you.”
“Well,” he says, looking smug. “I knew that.” He saunters back to the door.
She retreats into the cell, amused in spite of herself. Victoria and Dido will enjoy that story later. The walls surrounding her are covered in the same predictable attitude. Gallus is hardly alone. She runs her fingers over the scratches. I fucked loads of girls here! She remembers the man who scrawled that message; he had been keen to tell her how she compared to her friends. He works at the laundry. What’s his name again? She should remember it; he visits regularly. Amara realizes she knows exactly what sort of blow job the man likes, but not what he’s called.
She scans the walls, reading all the familiar phrases. Hey Fabia! That one makes her wince, thinking of how little life changes. On 15th June, Hermeros, Phileterus and Caphisus fucked here. She is happy to have missed that particular night – handling a group of men is usually hideous. She passes on to happier messages. Hail, Victoria the Conqueror! Victoria, Unconquered! The praise makes her smile. She wouldn’t be surprised if Victoria dictated it herself. Amara squats on the floor, looking for her favourite scrawl. An anonymous act of rebellion half-hidden at the base of the bed. Felix takes it up the arse for 5 asses. She wonders what happened to the woman who wrote it.
Another message catches her eye, its letters large and jagged. I FUCKED. She stares at it. The words look like an act of physical aggression, a reminder of her own powerlessness. She opens her father’s bag, searching for the broken stylus she once picked up in the street. It has already come in useful. She used it to draw a bird in her own cell the other day, a small act of defiance against the endless fucking and sucking that hems her in. She walks over to the message, starts to gouge into the stone, her hand shaking with anger. A man’s profile takes shape, the letters of the boast becoming his forehead, transforming his own words into a slave brand.
She steps back to look at her picture. But all her rage was spent in the carving, and now it’s done, she finds
that staring at a branded face doesn’t make her feel better. Victoria will probably hate it. She flops down on the floor. How long is it since she left the Palaestra? One hour? Two? The day feels endless.
Amara leans back against the stone bed. At home, she would have had actual books to read: her father’s medical texts, natural history, poetry – verses of idealized love, rather than the crude variety now splattered all over her walls. She starts to recite Odysseus’s meeting with Nausicaa from memory, but the sound of her own voice makes her feel even lonelier. She remembers singing a version of that story for her parents. Amara closes her eyes. She holds her arms out, imagining the shape of her old lyre, moves her fingers over the non-existent strings.
“First door on the left!” It’s Gallus. He is warning her to expect company as much as giving directions to the customer. She scrambles to her feet. A stranger appears in the doorway, making the cell even darker. Amara smiles at him, tilting her head the way Victoria does, letting her cloak slip off one shoulder.
“You’d better be worth the money,” he says.
Amara hurries to draw the curtain behind them both. “But of course,” she says in a husky voice that nobody in Aphidnai would recognize. She lets the cloak drop to the floor, waits to see the impact her body has on him. Then she beckons the strange man over to the bed, unsure if her feeling of light-headedness is due to dread or relief from boredom.
10
Sextus, you say their passion for you sets the pretty girls on fire – you who have the face of a man swimming underwater.
Martial, Epigrams 2.87
The noise grows, like the buzz from a hive, the deeper they push into the crowd. It isn’t an official market day at the Forum but, as always, various chancers have arrived here early with their wares bundled up in blankets to spread on the pavement. Gallus and Amara weave between the makeshift stalls, heading for the towering bulk of Apollo’s Temple. At the steps to the god’s sanctuary, a salesman is beating on a copper pot, bellowing out its price. Several more metal pots and jars, in varying sizes, are stacked in piles by his feet.
It takes Amara a while to recognize the woman she is here to meet. Marcella looks more formidable in her clothes. Her red hair is no longer smudging her skin. Instead, the curls are piled up neatly on her head. She looks at Amara with sharper eyes than she did at the baths. Amara knows she cuts a much shabbier figure in the full glare of the marketplace. She is afraid she looks like what she is: a prostitute working for a loan shark.
“Is this the steward?” Marcella nods at Gallus. He looks even more disreputable than usual, having tipped an absurd amount of oil into his hair. It’s a style he’s newly copied from Felix, but where the boss achieves an air of slicked-back menace, Gallus looks more like he got soaked in the street by a slave slopping out an upstairs room.
“Yeah.” Gallus sidesteps to avoid an ironmonger shoving past with his tray. Amara worries he might start a row, but he catches her eyes and thinks better of it. Felix made it clear that Amara was to be in charge of the business side of this deal, a role reversal neither Amara nor Gallus quite know how to navigate.
“We brought some surety.” Another woman, standing just behind Marcella, steps forwards. She must be Fulvia, the younger sister. Blonde as her name, she is thin and fragile-looking. When the copper seller starts clanging his pot again, she flinches.
“Let’s see.” Amara holds out her hand before Marcella can intervene. Fulvia is clearly the weaker of the two. She smells of need and desperation. Amara tries not to imagine why she might want the money. Fulvia unwinds a long rope of amber beads from her neck, placing it carefully into Amara’s palm. The stones are perfectly round, a couple shot through with twisted, sparkling strands. It is years since she has touched anything this valuable.
“It more than covers the loan,” Marcella says.
She’s correct, but Amara is not going to concede the point. “Not the interest though.” She gestures at Gallus to hand her Felix’s wax tablets. “This is my master’s proposal.” She gives the tablets to Marcella. “And here’s the money.” Gallus fumbles at his belt for the purse, nearly dropping it. Amara snatches it before it falls, handing it to Fulvia while her sister pores over the agreement. As Amara anticipated, the feel of the money in her hands has a physical effect on Fulvia. She looks close to tears.
“This rate is very steep,” Marcella says, frowning. “I’ll be paying almost double the value of the loan!”
“We can be flexible about the time period,” Amara says, unsure if Felix will agree but eager to seal the deal. She can persuade him to extend the repayments later, she tells herself. Just as long as Marcella signs.
“Marcella, please,” Fulvia begs. “Please think about what he’ll do if I don’t have the money.”
“But this is too much!” Marcella hisses back. “You’re risking mother’s necklace and all for a rate that’s going to punch a giant hole in my accounts.”
Fulvia clutches the purse to her chest. “Please, I’m begging you. Please.”
“Let me look at it again.”
The two women huddle anxiously over the tablets. Fulvia’s distress makes Amara feel edgy. She understands the terrible, ceaseless pressure of never being able to make as much money as you need, of knowing you are running out of things to sell. After all, it’s the reason she’s here herself. “If it’s too much…” she begins, gesturing for Fulvia to give back the coins.
Marcella puts a hand out in front of her sister, preventing Amara from stepping closer. “Alright, I’ll sign it,” she says. “I’ll sign. But tell your master he needs to give me a few more months.” Amara and Gallus watch as Marcella scratches into the tablet with the stylus. “Where is your master’s business?”
“Opposite The Elephant Inn,” Gallus replies, taking the tablet and snapping the wooden frame together. Fulvia and Marcella exchange glances.
“Not the…?”
“I will visit to take the first payment in two weeks,” Amara says with a bow.
She and Gallus head back swiftly through the Forum, leaving the two unhappy sisters to their recriminations. “I’ll take that,” Gallus says, gesturing for the amber necklace. He stuffs it into a bag as they walk.
“Don’t scratch the beads.”
“Least of our worries,” he replies. “What were you doing telling that poor bitch Felix would give her more time?”
“What difference will another month make if he gets the money?”
“This is Felix we’re talking about.”
The guilt Amara had been trying to ignore starts to surface, making her feel sick. “I’ll think of something,” she says. Gallus shakes his head. “What will you tell Beronice?”
“I won’t tell her anything!” Gallus snaps. “I’m not a fucking woman. I never talk about Felix’s business. And neither should you, not if you want to live out the year.”
They almost miss the turning off the Via Veneria with their bickering. Amara waits to let Gallus go first, and they walk in single file onto the narrower pavement. To her surprise, as they round the corner, she sees Felix standing in the street outside the brothel.
“Get a move on,” he calls, as they hurry to meet him. “Fabia’s gone to round up the others. You’ve all got another chance with Vibo.” He peers at Amara, frowning. “Do something with your hair; you look like a slut.” He turns his back on her, taking the tablets from Gallus. “All signed?” Gallus nods. Amara waits for Felix to acknowledge her part in the transaction or ask what happened, but when he sees she is still standing in the street, he loses his temper. “What are you staring at?” He grabs her by the hair, pulling her towards him before shoving her back towards the brothel. “I told you to fucking move!”
*
The splash of the warm water as she slides into the pool brings back memories of their last ill-fated visit. On the domed ceiling above her, light ripples over an elaborate mosaic. It’s Europa, her naked body wreathed in flowers, being carried across the sea by the god Ju
piter in his form as a Bull. Amara had forgotten how opulent this place is. Beronice drops down heavily beside her. The light on the ceiling dances, reflecting back the waves she’s made. All Felix’s women are more flustered than usual. Victoria wouldn’t let them leave until everyone’s hair had been styled, so instead of having messy curls, they are flushed and sweaty from rushing to make it in time.
“Already had a busy morning, ladies,” Drauca calls. She is draped languidly against the side, both arms resting on the ledge of the large open window at her back. Simo’s other two women, Maria and Attice, are floating either side of her like a pair of bodyguards. A third woman, whose name Amara doesn’t know, lurks sullenly in the corner.
“We’re always in demand,” Victoria replies.
“I’m sure you must have picked up a few tricks at the Wolf Den,” Drauca says. “But have any of you had a man in water?” None of Felix’s women reply. “Just try not to drown. That’s my advice.”
“Is she serious?” Beronice whispers, as Drauca and Attice laugh. “I don’t want some idiot sticking my head underwater.”
“She’s just being a bitch,” Amara says, though the threat of drowning has done nothing to calm her own nerves. It’s an ugly secret she carries, the panic which so often threatens to overwhelm her. A terrible sensation of being unable to breathe, unable to move. The horror began that first time with Chremes and has never left her. It’s bad enough when it happens with a customer in her cell. She couldn’t bear the humiliation of crying here, in front of Drauca.
She looks round the room for the others. Dido and Cressa haven’t joined them in the water but are sitting on a marble bench not far from the side of the pool. Felix sent for Dido this morning while Amara was in the Forum. The thought makes her feel guilty in ways she cannot explain. Dido hasn’t said what happened, but Amara knows she is upset. She looks like a wounded bird. Not that the customers will care. Dido’s vulnerability always seems to attract the greediest men, like wasps to honey.
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