Amara thinks immediately of Menander. “Yes,” she lies.
“And at the admiral’s house, you two didn’t… I mean, you and Pliny…”
“No. He never touched me. Not like that.”
“Right,” Rufus says in relief. “You just seemed so fond of the old man. I had to wonder. He must have a will of iron, keeping his hands to himself with you round.”
“He knew about my past,” she says. “He felt my life had not taken its right path.”
Rufus nods. “Terence writes about that, the mistakes that are made. When a girl isn’t meant to be a slave. Were you kidnapped?” He asks, an idea suddenly striking him. “Then you might not really be a slave at all. If one could prove it.”
For a moment, Amara thinks of borrowing Dido’s life story, taking it as her own. But she has already told Pliny the truth and cannot risk discovery. “No. I lost my father and everything else with him.”
“My poor darling,” Rufus says, kissing her again. He is a little bolder this time, easing her back on the couch, his hand creeping up her leg. She stops him.
“You can take what you want,” she says. “We both know it. But wouldn’t you rather it was given?” She kisses him to soften the rejection. “Wouldn’t you rather wait? If it was given along with my heart?”
Amara knows she is gambling, and the dice are not weighted in her favour. Rufus has every reason to feel irritated. He has paid Felix for her; he was promised sex, and now she is asking him to treat her like a virginal heroine in a play. But her lies have the intensity of truth. She gazes at him with wide, dark eyes.
“Yes,” Rufus says, touching his fingers to her lips. “I would like to win your heart.”
*
Four of Rufus’s slaves, including Vitalio, escort her back to the brothel. She feels the irony in knowing that the place they are taking her is not much safer than the darkened streets. The five of them walk quickly, the slaves’ torches throwing out fingers of light, brushing the houses as they pass by. Nobody speaks.
She thinks of Rufus, feels a sense of elation shot through with anxiety at the memory of his kiss goodbye. The tender way he tucked the jasmine back behind her ear before she left, his wholehearted acceptance of the part she offered him. She could almost love him for the gift he has given her: granting her the illusion of being a person and not a slave. But she knows it is an illusion, and the fantasy they have created together is fragile. It would be so easy to care for him, to forget how little she really has. Now begins the painstaking journey of discovering how he might help her escape. It’s not a journey on which she can afford to have feelings.
27
Pythias: I don’t know who he was, but the facts speak for themselves about what he did. The girl herself is in tears and when you ask her she can’t bring herself to say what’s up.
Terence, The Eunuch
The screaming is like nothing she has ever heard. Fear grips Amara, and she runs to the door, terrified one of her friends is being murdered, but Thraso looks perfectly calm.
“Just the new girl,” he says, with a shrug.
She pushes past him, finds Victoria, Dido and Cressa huddled in the corridor.
“It’s Britannica,” Cressa says, her face wet with tears. “I can’t bear it.”
“What are they doing to her? What’s happening?”
“Nothing!” Victoria snaps. “Nothing that the rest of us don’t have to put up with. She’s fucking crazy!” Britannica is shouting, screaming in her own language, calling Cressa’s name. Even though none of them understand her words, they know she is begging for help. Victoria grabs Cressa’s arm to stop her responding. “You can’t,” she says. “What are you going to do? Tell them to stop and Felix will pay their money back?”
Dido bursts into tears. “We can’t just leave her. There are two of them in there!”
“Two men?” Amara is appalled.
“She was fighting so much,” Victoria says, not meeting her eye. “The other one went in to hold her down.”
Amara looks desperately at Dido, then Cressa. It seems impossible that none of them are helping, that they are all standing by uselessly, letting her suffer. Britannica’s screaming cuts through her, visceral because it is familiar. It shocks her that she has never shouted her own anguish like that, that she has been silent instead. She presses her hands over her ears, wanting to stop the horror, stop the ear-splitting sound.
“Why can’t she just shut up!” Victoria shouts, suddenly angry. “Why can’t she fucking understand? It gets the men in the wrong mood; they’re going to be violent with all of us soon if she keeps this up. Stupid fucking bitch.”
“They’re hurting her!” Cressa shouts back, distraught. “They need to stop. Not her.”
Britannica’s screaming subsides into sobs. “It’s nearly over then,” Victoria mutters, not wanting to confront Cressa. “She always fights right to the end. So that means they’ve finished. She’ll be alright soon.”
The curtain scrapes back, and the two men step out into the corridor. The women instinctively draw back, clinging together. One man gives them a contemptuous stare, spits on the floor. They swagger off. Cressa breaks from the others and rushes into Amara’s old cell. Britannica is quiet; the only crying they can hear now is from Cressa.
Another man steps into the brothel. His shape, his walk, is familiar to Amara. It is Menander.
The shock sends the blood rushing to her heart. She stares at him, unable to speak.
“I came to see you. Thraso said you were free.”
He is standing where Britannica’s tormentor spat on the floor, and it is as if the last piece of her innocence is ripped from her.
She says nothing but walks to Dido’s cell, barely waiting for him to follow, then draws the curtain behind them both. She cannot bear to look at him, to see his beautiful face, so she stands gripping the material, her back to the room.
“What do you want?”
“Timarete…”
“What service do you want?”
“Service?”
“Yes, you paid for it,” she swings round, torn between rage and heartbreak. “So what service do you want? What fuck did you pay for?”
“I didn’t.”
“Why are you here then?”
“To see you. To talk with you.”
“You wanted to talk in here?” Amara replies, her voice rising with hysteria. Even with the curtain closed, they can still hear Cressa weeping, the sound of Beronice with a customer next door, and Victoria, now rowing with Thraso, yelling at him not to let thugs into the brothel.
“Where else do we have?”
She sees the quiet sadness in his face and knows, without question, that he is telling the truth. Her relief is almost more painful than the shock before. She walks to him, puts her arms round his neck and rests the side of her face against his. “You paid to talk to me.”
“I didn’t want to wait until December,” he says, holding her tightly. “I’ve been saving for a while. Rusticus is in favour of his slaves getting some pleasure; he thinks it keeps us all more obedient.”
“But you mustn’t spend your money like that!” she says. “You need it. You need to save it.”
“I needed to see you.”
She thinks of Rufus, of all the ridiculous things she said that evening about love, of all the lies she told. “I can’t give you anything; I have nothing,” she spreads her arms out to illustrate the empty cell. “I don’t even own myself, my own body, my own life.”
“Neither do I.”
“Then what are we doing?” She sits down on the bed. “What are we doing here talking.”
“I know that you’re lonely,” he says, sitting beside her. “I’m lonely too. But I don’t feel it when I’m with you.”
“It hurts so much afterwards though,” she says, leaning her head on his shoulder, letting him hold her again. “It just hurts.”
“Because it makes you think of home, and all we lost before.”
“I know,” he says. “I won’t ask it of you. Not here.” He leans over to kiss her on the temple. “But we can belong to many places. Don’t you ever think of yourself as being somewhere else?”
Amara thinks of Pliny’s garden, the smell of jasmine and the splash of the fountain. “Yes,” she says.
Menander helps her sit further back on the bed, so that he is leaning against the wall and she is against him, his arms all the way round her. “At night, sometimes, when I’m sleeping on the floor above the shop,” he says. “I imagine I am back in Athens. I picture walking through the street in the evening, back to my old home, the shop my father used to own. But it’s not my parents or my sisters waiting there for me, it’s you. I can see you in the hall, though you’ve never been there, and we talk, we have all the time we need.”
“I think of you in Aphidnai, sometimes too,” she admits. “But mainly I imagine us being somewhere else altogether. Somewhere we don’t even know yet.” Amara stops. What can she tell him really? That she thought of him when Rufus kissed her, that she wished it was him instead? Or that she told Rufus her heart was free because she cannot afford for it to be otherwise.
“Might it not be possible?” he asks, holding her even closer. “Slaves do marry, don’t they? Or Rusticus might grant me my freedom one day; he has no heir, nobody to take over his business.”
Amara cannot even begin to imagine Felix’s reaction to the first idea, and she doesn’t have the heart to tell Menander that every unscrupulous owner since the dawn of time has duped a talented apprentice into working harder with the vague promise of freedom one day. She cannot bear to destroy the fantasy. “If I had the choice, it would only be you,” she says.
They talk together through the night, and Amara can feel her loneliness ebb with every moment in his company. The brothel even starts to feel like a less terrible place, simply because he is there. She tells him about Pliny, about how she felt having those few brief days of freedom, and he tells her about the way he feels in the shop, the moments he forgets he is a slave, caught up in the business of creating a new lamp, a new object, just as he did in his life before.
They are lost to everything but each other, until it is time for lock-up, and Thraso arrives to throw any lingering customers out.
“Fuck off now,” he says, barging into the cell. “You’ve more than had your money’s worth.”
Amara tries to kiss Menander goodbye, but Thraso comes between them, shoving her hard. She sees Menander react instinctively to step in.
“No!” she shouts. Amara looks at Menander, shaking her head. “Please.”
She cannot bear the self-loathing on his face, their shared understanding that he is powerless to protect her from Thraso, or from anything else.
When he has gone, Amara does not cry. She stands with the palms of her hands flat against the wall of her cell. She wants to scream her rage into the night like Britannica. Her anger is rising like the sea, drowning her. She has to get out.
28
Poems are praised, but it’s for cash they itch; A savage even is welcomed if he’s rich.
Ovid, The Art of Love II
It’s hot in The Sparrow, even though it’s not yet midday. Cressa has stayed in the brothel to look after Britannica, and Amara and the others sit at a table, sharing some bread and cheese, a small pot of cold vegetable stew. Amara can already feel her clothes sticking to her skin with sweat.
“So the boyfriend turned up then?” Victoria asks. There is none of the usual spark to her question.
Amara nods, not wanting to talk about Menander, and Victoria doesn’t press her. “Sorry you two had to share together,” Amara says.
“We thought you might want some space,” Dido replies.
“Thanks.”
They lapse back into silence. “What are we going to do about her?” Beronice says. Nobody has to ask who she means. “When is she going to stop with the fighting and screaming?”
An old man is mumbling at the table next to them, either drunk or unwell. He reaches out a shaky hand. It’s not clear if he is trying to reach for their bread or grope Beronice. “Not today, Grandad!” Victoria snaps, her voice loud. “Can’t get any fucking peace anywhere,” she mutters, turning back to the table.
“It’s not right,” Beronice continues. “It put my customer off his stride. Then he was in a bad mood and rough with it.”
“I think she’s brave,” Dido says.
“Brave?” Victoria says. “She’s a savage.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call her that,” Amara says. “Just because she doesn’t speak Latin. And I agree with Dido. She’s only doing what the rest of us would, if we had the guts.”
“If you think she’s so fucking fabulous, why don’t you teach her some Latin then?” Victoria says. “And it’s not brave. It’s stupid. Have you seen the bruises on her? Who fights a battle they’re never going to win?”
“That’s what courage means.”
“Oh, get lost, seriously,” Victoria says. “If you can’t see what a problem she is, maybe it’s because you spend all your time at fancy fucking parties. You won’t be around when the rest of us get attacked, will you? What do you care?”
Amara gets up from the table, taking a piece of bread and cheese with her. She was already in a terrible mood before this and doesn’t trust herself not to lose her temper.
“Where are you going?” Victoria asks, halfway between conciliatory and cross.
“To try and teach Britannica some Latin.”
Amara stomps back towards the brothel, almost barging into Nicandrus walking along the pavement to The Sparrow with a bucket of water. “Careful!” he says.
She holds her hands up in apology but doesn’t stop to chat. Seeing him makes her think of Menander, of the choice Dido made not to let her feelings for Nicandrus take root when there is nowhere for love to grow. Perhaps she was wise.
Thraso is still on the door, exhausted from guarding the brothel all night. He barely steps aside to let her in, making her squeeze past him.
“Cressa?”
“She’s not well,” Fabia says, not looking up as she sweeps the corridor. “She’s feeling sick.” There’s a sound of retching from the latrine.
Amara hurries to the end of the corridor. “Cressa! Are you alright?”
Cressa comes out, holding onto the wall. She is pale, her eyes dark with misery. Amara feels sick herself, guessing what Cressa is facing.
“You should eat something,” she says quietly. “It will help. The others are still in The Sparrow.”
Cressa shakes her head. “Nothing will help.”
“At least eat something, please. You will feel less nauseous.”
“What about Britannica?”
“I can look after her.”
“Are you sure?” Cressa looks relieved. “Be kind to her, won’t you? You promise?” Amara nods, touched that Cressa’s first thought is always for someone else. “She’s in my cell. I was just about to help her wash.” Cressa starts to head past Amara who stops her, catching hold of her arm.
“Can’t I help you too?” she says, her voice low.
Cressa looks down, as if unable to bear Amara’s kindness. “Nobody can help me.”
She hurries from the brothel, stepping aside to avoid Fabia. When she has gone, the old woman turns to Amara, shaking her head.
Britannica startles when she sees Amara, drawing her legs up towards herself on the bed. She seems wary rather than afraid. There are bruises on her pale arms, including vivid fingerprints where she must have been held down. Dried blood is smeared on her face. Cowards,
Amara thinks.
She smiles at Britannica, pointing to herself. “Amara. I am Amara. Friend of Cressa.”
“Cressa?” Britannica looks past Amara, clearly hoping the other woman will appear.
Amara leans over and puts the bread and cheese on the bed. “For you. Cressa will be back soon.”
Britannica takes the food without acknowledging Amara or gesturing thanks. Amara waits for her to finish eating then goes through a painstaking performance, naming objects in the cell, asking Britannica if she can wash her face.
“Water,” she says, pointing to the jug. She dips her hand in it, showing Britannica the drops falling from her fingers. “Water. Now you say it. Water.”
In answer, Britannica releases a torrent of words in her own harsh language. Her gestures are violent, her expression intense, but although the incomprehensible tirade makes Amara feel uncomfortable, she guesses the anger is not directed at her. Amara reaches for the jug again, and Britannica grabs her arm. Her grip is as strong as a man’s. Britannica repeats the same strange word over and over, staring intently, willing Amara to understand. Then she lets go of her with a cry of exasperation, flinging herself back on the bed.
“I know. I want to kill them too,” Amara says. “But it doesn’t work that way. We don’t get a choice.”
Britannica has turned her face to the wall, ignoring her. She doesn’t resist as Amara splashes water on her skin but does nothing to help either.
“Your hair is a mess,” Amara says. “Can I brush it?” She takes the silence as agreement, picking up the brush from Cressa’s shelf. “Red,” she says, trying to tease out the knots. “Your hair is red.” Amara has never seen anything like it. She can imagine it glowing like fire in the July sun when Britannica stood naked in the slave market, her skin unnaturally white. It’s obvious Felix wanted something exotic and didn’t bother about the fact she couldn’t speak. “Fucking idiot,” she mutters to herself.
Britannica doesn’t make a fuss, though it must be painful having so many knots untangled. Amara lets her mind go blank, concentrating on nothing but combing out the mass of hair, until she hears Felix’s voice, talking to Thraso at the door. All her senses are instantly alert.
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