It is Victoria who remembers the turning. A narrow road cutting through a gap between two monuments. The tombs become smaller the further they get from the main highway. They pass a large vineyard, its branches bare above the stone walls. Amara wonders if it might be one of the vineyards Pliny visited on his tour but supposes it isn’t grand enough. She turns and looks towards Vesuvius, the mountain whose plants he wanted to study. Its sharp peak is shrouded in cloud.
Eventually, they reach the place they came for. The paupers’ field. It stretches out in an ugly jumble of mounds and piles of rock and broken amphora necks. The last stick out from the earth like gaping mouths. There is a foul smell from the nearby dump, and Amara wonders, but does not ask, if that is where Victoria was found as a baby.
“How will we know where it is again?” Amara whispers, as if the unhappy dead might hear her. The only other mourner she can see is an old man, crying over a heap of freshly dug earth.
“I know the spot,” Victoria says, picking her way confidently through the jagged field. She stops by a small tomb, barely more than a slab, though still grander than anything else nearby. At its base is a pile of stones. All that is left to remember Cressa. There had been no point in burying an amphora jar; they had no ashes to put in the bottom, no human remains to receive their gifts of wine. Victoria takes the flask Nicandrus gave her and pours The Sparrow’s cheapest vintage over Cressa’s stones. “She always did like a drink,” she says.
They stand, staring at the spattered pile, remembering the dead woman. Amara thinks the stones look like all the kindnesses Cressa heaped up in her life, insignificant, yet touching the people closest to her. She tries not to remember Cressa’s last day, the sight of her standing at the water’s edge, watching the waves.
“How much?”
It’s a thin, wheedling voice, right behind them. Both women jump. A man is hunched in a craven position, like a beggar, but something about his eyes frightens Amara.
“We don’t have any wine to sell you,” she says, pulling her cloak around herself.
“How much to suck me?” He paws at his crotch.
“Have some respect!” Victoria snaps, shooing him away. “Can’t you see we’re mourning?”
The man reaches out to her. “Take pity!” he whines.
Amara can feel Victoria’s fear in the way she snatches her arm. They hurry over the field of ashes, back towards the narrow road. The man is too quick, darting in front. “Why won’t you fuck me?” he pleads. “Please fuck me!”
They walk even faster, stepping over the amphoras’ dead lips. The beggar keeps pressing closer, and his voice is getting deeper, losing its thin whine. Amara calls out to the old mourner, still stooped over his mound, but he ignores her. He must have heard the other man pleading for sex and has no interest in helping a couple of whores fend off a customer.
The beggar starts to run, and at first, Amara thinks her cries for help might have scared him off, but then she realizes he has only gone ahead to block the road. The stone walls of the vineyard are on one side of him, a large tomb on the other, making it almost impossible to get past. They edge closer, trying to decide on which side to break through.
“Come with me,” he says, staring straight into Amara’s eyes. He is like a snake, poised to strike. She stares back, too frightened to look away. He lunges forwards, grabbing for her arm, but she anticipates his move. Victoria seizes her hand, and they run back to the field, heading for the old man. The beggar skirts round again, forcing them towards the tombs, towards the opening of another, unfamiliar path. There is nowhere else for them to go.
They flee, their pursuer close behind, driving them on through the necropolis. Amara trips, looks down and realizes grass is growing through the paving stones. With a flash of fear, she understands that this is not only a quiet road but a deserted one. He has trapped them. She gasps, lurching forwards in panic and stumbles again, only just catching her footing.
“Keep going,” Victoria yells.
Amara has no idea where they are. The tombs are getting closer together, harder to run between. She looks back and screams. The man is on her, catching her round the waist, dragging her over. She hits the ground hard. He straddles her body, a knife in his hand. Victoria grabs his arm, shouting, but he throws her wide. Amara sees her strike her head on the side of the tomb and fall, dazed, on the ground.
“Your master thinks he can do anything.” The man has her by the throat, his ragged breathing hot in her face. She is so terrified she cannot move. “Covering his fucking tracks. As if Simo wouldn’t find out in the end.” He brings the knife closer, pointing it towards her eye. “This is for Drauca.”
The sound of smashing pottery startles them both. Her attacker turns, just as Victoria plunges a shard deep into his neck. He claws at it, his hands drenched in blood, but Amara knows whatever he does, he is already dead. She stares at the clay buried in his throat then scrambles out from underneath, not wanting to be stained in the spatter. She stands back, watching, Victoria beside her, the remnants of Cressa’s clay pot on the ground at their feet.
The man is shuddering where he lies. Death only takes a moment. Amara grabs Victoria’s hand and they run.
39
He who does not know how to protect himself does not know how to live
Herculaneum graffiti
They cower together behind a tomb, trying to get their breath back, to collect their thoughts, to make sense of what has happened. Victoria is in shock, shaking so badly Amara is afraid her friend’s teeth will break from chattering. She holds her close to keep her warm.
“He was going to kill me,” she whispers, rubbing Victoria’s shoulders. “You saved my life. You saved me.”
“I killed a man,” Victoria whispers, the horror of it slowly sinking in. “I killed him! I’m a murderer!”
“Nobody is ever going to know,” Amara replies. “Nobody will find out. You’re safe. We’re both safe.” She thinks of the man’s body lying on the ground and feels a sense of calm. He is dead. All that matters now is avoiding suspicion. She inspects their clothes, peers at Victoria’s face, wipes a hand on her own cheeks, then checks her fingers. They are both lucky not to have more blood on them. She gathers mud in her hands, rubbing it over any red spots she can see on their cloaks. “Is there anything on me?” She turns her face, as if asking her friend to check her make-up. Victoria shakes her head. “Good. Then we should head back.”
“We have to tell Felix.” Victoria is still trembling. “Did you hear what he said?”
“That Felix killed Drauca.”
“Do you think he did?” There is desperation in Victoria’s eyes. It is one thing to suspect the man you love might be capable of murder, another to know it for sure.
“I think so,” Amara says. Victoria turns away, too upset to speak. “I owe you everything,” she says, taking Victoria’s hand. Her skin is icy cold. “And so does Felix. Without you, he would have no warning of what is coming.”
“How are we going to get home? What if somebody remembers us?”
“Nobody will. We are nobody. We’ll just head back into town slowly, keep our heads down. It will be days before the body is discovered. If it ever is.”
Victoria stands up, gripping the tomb to steady herself. “Some benefits to being worthless, I guess.”
They pick their way slowly through the necropolis, not walking back the way they came. It takes a long time to find the road again, and when they do, it’s an even longer trudge. Victoria is jumpy, but Amara grips her hand, stops her walking too fast. They pull their hoods up, as if to keep out the cold, half hiding their faces. Neither of them says a word.
By the time they reach the brothel, after what has felt like the longest walk of their lives, both women are ready to drop from exhaustion. Amara raps on Felix’s door.
“What?” Paris glowers at them both through the crack.
Amara slams her hand on the wood. “Don’t mess me around today. This is important.”
He st
ands back to let them in. “But Felix is with a client!”
“Then tell him we’re waiting for him in the bedroom.”
*
Amara feels as if she is standing outside herself, watching Victoria recount what has happened. She has never seen anyone cry so much. Victoria sobs her way through the murder, and all the while, Felix is holding her, kissing her face, pressing her hands to warm them. There is a tenderness to him Amara could never have imagined. She watches, a pain in her chest that she cannot name. He has never been like that with her, not even when she told him about Cressa, when she would have done anything to be comforted. Nobody but Menander has ever held her the way Felix is holding Victoria. The thought upsets her. She is not sure whether it makes Felix worse, if he is capable of love.
He looks up at her over Victoria’s bent head, the familiar coldness in his eyes. It is as if he has stepped outside himself too, in order to talk to her. “Tell me again what he said about Simo.”
“He said you won’t get away with it. You didn’t cover your tracks. Simo discovered what happened.” She pauses, remembering, as if the violence happened to somebody else. “Then he held a knife to my eye and said, This is for Drauca.”
“And nobody saw?”
“No. The body is in a deserted place. There was only one old man at the pauper’s field, and we didn’t even go back that way. I covered any trace of blood on us that I could see.” She shrugs. “Who would notice a couple of women?”
“You don’t seem too disturbed by watching a man die. Are you very sure he is dead?”
“She hit him here.” Amara gestures at her own neck. “Nobody survives a blow like that. Even if I had never read a book on anatomy, I would know he’s dead.” Victoria cries out again, weeping against Felix. He holds her head to his chest, rocking her back and forth. Amara stares at them both, unable to understand Victoria’s sense of guilt, irritated that she is still crying over such a worthless man. “He tried to kill me, and now he’s dead. There’s nothing to be upset about.”
“You will feel it later,” Felix says. “Everyone does, the first time. Even if you’re a bitch with stone for a heart.”
“What are you going to do?” Amara asks. “We’re all at risk now. All of us.” She is still too afraid of Felix to express her anger, but she feels it. Because of you, she wants to add. We’re at risk because of you.
“First, you don’t tell anyone. Not even Dido. And if you value her life”—he strokes the sobbing Victoria—“you will never mention it again, even to each other.” Amara nods. She knows the killing ties all three of them together, her blood debt to Victoria, the secret they now share. It is not a bond she wants to have. “As for Simo, I can take care of him.”
“We can’t afford to leave it.”
“No,” he says. “We can’t.”
“I didn’t mean to kill him.” Victoria looks round, desperation on her face. “I just wanted him to stop. I didn’t want anyone to die.”
“I know,” Felix says, rocking her again. He kisses Victoria’s forehead, whispering into her hair. “You were very brave.”
Amara looks at her friend, twined around their master like a needy child, unrecognizable from the strong woman she knows. Is this who Victoria really is? The thought makes Amara angry. “It’s nothing to cry about,” she says, her voice loud. “He fucking deserved it.”
“Shut your mouth!” Felix shouts. She sees Victoria shrink from his anger, even though it is not directed at her. He strides over to Amara, taking hold of her shoulders, shoving his face into hers. “She just saved your life. Have some fucking gratitude. Not every woman is a heartless bitch like you.” He lets go of her then scoops Victoria up again, as if protecting her from Amara.
She does not wait to be thrown out but walks from the room. In the corridor, her legs are unsteady. She manages to make it to the storeroom, collapses on her bed of sacks in the corner. Her sense of calm is fracturing. She thinks of Cressa’s pot, all those pieces on the ground. The shard in the man’s neck, the blood. Feelings are returning to Amara, coming back like the incoming tide, bringing terror with them.
She grips the sacks, feels the rough fabric against her fingers, tries to imagine burying her fear, shoving it under. She doesn’t want to feel afraid; she doesn’t want to feel anything. Tomorrow, she will see Rufus, sit with him in Drusilla’s lovely home, laugh, chatter about the house they will share. She will not be a woman who nearly died, who was held powerless with a knife to her eye. It will be as if it never happened.
Calm begins to settle back over her heart, like the ice on Balbina’s pool. Amara exhales, relaxing her fingers, letting go of the fabric. Nobody has their arms around her, but it does not matter. She does not need Felix, or anyone else, to comfort her. Every fear can be overcome if she only tries hard enough.
*
Amara does not move from the storeroom for the rest of the day. She is supposed to earn extra money on the days when Rufus pays for her, but Felix does not insist she go out. Night falls, and she is still sitting curled up in the same spot. Paris tries to goad her, imagining she must be jealous at Victoria staying the night, at the huge favour their master is showing a rival, but Amara stares ahead, as if she hasn’t heard him. Somehow, she sleeps.
The next morning feels as if she is still dreaming. She forces herself to go downstairs, spends time with Dido at the baths, listens to her as she pours out her fears about Ipstilla and Telethusa. It is the second time the Spanish girls have been booked by Egnatius while she and Amara are left behind. Amara can see how upset Dido is but somehow cannot reach her. Even though they are sitting side by side, it feels like she is a long distance away.
“Are you alright?” Dido asks. “Was it Felix?”
“Yes,” Amara says. Dido looks so worried that Amara wants to tell her what really happened, wants to warn her to be careful, but she cannot betray Victoria. Besides, it is not a lie. Felix is the cause. If he had not killed Drauca, she would never have been attacked. She begs Dido to stay close to Britannica, pretending it is for Cressa, but in reality, because she hopes the Briton will keep them both safe.
When her friends go fishing, she goes back to hide in the storeroom. Even if Felix charges Rufus double today, she cannot bring herself to pick up any men. The thought of approaching strangers takes her back to the necropolis, the knife, the man’s hands at her throat. How would she know if any of her customers wanted to kill her?
The effort of getting through the day is such a strain, Philos notices her distress when he collects her. At a safe distance from the brothel, he offers his arm.
“Do you need a moment?” he asks. “Just to collect yourself?” She nods. They cross over to a less crowded patch of the pavement, and she rests her back against the wall. “You’re alright,” he says to her. “I know it’s not easy.”
“Thank you,” she says, breathing out slowly, trying to let go of the fear. She turns to Philos. There is nothing but kindness in his grey eyes. The warmth of him, standing close to her, is comforting. “I’m so grateful to Rufus.”
“I know,” he says. “And I know how hard it all is. I’ve been there myself.” He glances back along the street where they came from. “I don’t mean I worked in a brothel,” he adds, lowering his voice. “But I don’t think I felt safe for a minute when I was younger.”
Amara tightens her grip on his arm. “You don’t have to tell me,” she says. “I understand.”
“Who’d be a slave, eh? When you’re young, they fuck you, and when you’re old, they fuck you over.”
“Rufus values you though.”
“Yes, he does,” Philos looks away. “I can’t complain now.”
“The man who…” Amara stops, not wanting to say the word, not wanting to humiliate Philos. “It wasn’t Rufus’s father, was it?”
“Not Hortensius, no. He’s not interested in boys. His father, on the other hand, was very interested.”
Amara wonders how old Philos is, perhaps ten years older t
han her, maybe a little more. He is nice looking, she realizes, though she has never really noticed him that way. When he was young, he must have been striking. The thought of him ever living in fear, unable to defend himself, makes her angry. That Rufus’s grandfather was responsible is even worse. “What’s Hortensius like?” Philos says nothing, and she realizes he doesn’t want to be disloyal. “You can trust me,” she says. “But I’m also not offended if you don’t.”
“I wish you had asked me earlier,” Philos says, rubbing a hand over his face. He looks at her, obviously torn. “I’m not meant to tell you, but Rufus is bringing him along tonight. To meet you. It was supposed to be a surprise. Hortensius insisted Rufus keep it quiet; he wants to see you ‘as you really are’, catch you on the hop, so to speak.”
“Oh,” Amara replies, not liking the sound of him. “I suppose he wants to look after his son.”
“If you were my wife,” Philos says, surprising her that he would refer to her in such a way. “I wouldn’t leave you alone with him. Not if I could help it.”
“I will be careful,” Amara says, conscious that she is still holding his arm, that perhaps she should let go. “Thank you.”
*
Hortensius looks so like his son, Amara has to stop herself from staring. Even the mannerisms, the exaggerated hand gestures so particular to Rufus, have their double in his father. She is grateful Drusilla is part of the gathering, that she can, at times, take away the heat of his attention. It is the only obvious difference between father and son. Where Rufus is kind and lacking in guile, Hortensius seems shrewd and calculating.
“Rufus tells me you helped the admiral with his research,” he says to her. “You must be highly educated. Was it your first master who taught you?”
“It was my father,” Amara says. “When I was free. He was a physician in Attica.”
“I told you all this,” Rufus says, looking flustered.
Hortensius throws his hands up, inviting her to laugh with him at his son. “You told me she was a concubine in Aphidnai!”
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