The well is at the end of the street. “Hold it up for me,” she whispers to Dido, nodding at the lamp. Amara leans over the side, putting her weight into the groove in the stone, sunken under the pressure of so many hands. The flame flickers over the carved face as she cranks the arm of the well. Water pours from the stone mouth. It has never seemed to take so long to fill a bucket.
“Somebody is coming!” Dido hisses.
Amara straightens up, not wanting to leave her back exposed to whatever is approaching. She and Dido press together. There’s the brisk clip of feet, more certain than their mouse-like shuffle up the street, and soon, a single flame bobs into view. It’s a man with a bucket. Nicandrus.
He looks startled. “What are you doing out here?” The light from Dido’s lamp shakes wildly. Her hand is trembling with fright. Nicandrus puts down his bucket with a clank and rushes over. “It’s alright,” he says, putting an arm round her to hold her steady. “It’s alright.” He looks at them both shivering in their togas. “You’ve not even put your cloaks on!”
“We didn’t have time, we…” Amara trails off. What is there to say? That they ran off half-dressed because they were afraid of Thraso?
The sudden kindness is too much for Dido. All her emotion, already so close to the surface, spills over, and she starts to cry again. Nicandrus gently takes the lamp from her and hands both lights to Amara. “It’s alright,” he says, holding her close. “You’re alright.”
It’s not alright, Amara thinks, feeling foolish as she illuminates the pair of them, huddled like lovers in the dark. Nothing about our lives is alright.
Dido buries her face in his shoulder in embarrassment. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“You’ve nothing to be sorry about, nothing at all.” And indeed, Nicandrus looks far from sorry at the situation. “Why don’t you take my cloak?” He says, unfastening it. He looks over at Amara. “I mean, you can both share it, maybe?”
“I think I’d better keep hold of the lamps.”
Nicandrus wraps Dido in his cloak. He takes his time, smoothing it over her shoulders, reluctant to let go of her. “I can get the water,” he says. He heads to the well, starts refilling their bucket. It takes him half the time to work the pump that it took Amara. He hauls their pail out and clanks his own into the trough. “It’s not safe for you both out here, Zoskales would never send Sava out at this time of night.”
“Zoskales isn’t Thraso,” Amara replies. “Or Felix.”
“I know.” Nicandrus lifts out the second bucket. “I’m sorry.” He looks at them both – Dido muffled in his cloak, Amara standing rigid with her two lights like a lamp stand. “I wish I could… I wish…” They stare back at him, waiting for him to finish. “You don’t deserve any of it,” he says to Dido, as if Amara wasn’t there. He picks up both buckets. “I guess we should get going. Zoskales always moans if I take too long.”
Amara hands Dido one of the oil lamps and sends her ahead. Nicandrus follows, and she takes up the rear with the second light. It’s brighter with two flames, and although one skinny man would be small protection against thieves, it still feels safer with Nicandrus than it had without him.
At the back door to the brothel, Amara is prepared to slip inside and give her friend a moment alone, but Dido stands on the threshold, blocking her way. She passes Amara the lamp, her hand no longer shaking, and takes off the cloak, giving it back to Nicandrus. Then she leans over and grabs the bucket from him, holding it like a shield across her front, spilling some water on her shoes. “Thank you,” she says, not looking him in the eye.
All three stand in the doorway. It’s painfully obvious that Nicandrus wants to hold Dido, to kiss her, anything to recapture the intimacy at the well. But it’s also obvious the moment has passed. “Anytime,” he says bowing his head, before turning and walking back to the tavern.
Amara feels sad, watching him go. “I think he was hoping for…”
“I know what he was hoping,” Dido says.
“Don’t you like him? I think he really cares for you.”
“I do like him.”
“Then why not?”
Dido turns to her. Her face is drawn. “I can’t bear any man touching me. They all feel like Felix.” She is gripping the bucket. “Even when he had his arms round me, when I wanted to hug him back, I kept thinking he was going to hurt me.”
Amara is about to answer, to say Nicandrus would never hurt her, but then she realizes she doesn’t know that for sure. Perhaps he is like other men, after all. “I understand,” she says.
They step inside the brothel. “At last,” Fabia exclaims, taking the bucket from Dido. She sloshes it over the floor and starts to brush the vomit towards the front door. A man, who has been hovering at the entrance, dances to avoid the splash.
“Fucking watch it, you old crone!” He looks up at Dido and Amara. “Which one of you is mine?” Amara feels like she has met this man a thousand times before, even though his face is not familiar. Dishevelled, drunk, no doubt rough with his hands. She thinks of Cressa, of the way her kindness once reached across the darkness, of what that had meant when she was afraid.
“My cell is here,” she says, pointing to the open door.
The man staggers his way over the wet floor, avoiding Fabia’s busy, darting brush. Dido leans in towards her, speaking quietly so he cannot hear. “Thank you.”
The customer pushes between them, and Dido turns away. Amara follows him into her cell, drawing the curtain. He sits heavily on the bed. “I’m Publius,” he says.
“Lovely to meet you Publius,” she says. “I’m Amara.”
She starts to undress, taking her time, not to titillate him but to give herself a small delay. This is where Victoria would be running through her patter to get him in the mood. But there is no need. Publius is looking at her naked body in wonder. “You’re lovely,” he says.
Amara almost feels sorry for him, this man who cannot see her bitterness. She smiles. “Thank you.” She walks to the bed and kneels on the floor, unfastens his boots, easing them off his feet. “You’re tired,” she says, without thinking.
“It was a long day at the bakery,” he replies.
She carries on undressing him. At least he is not such a monster as the wealthy old men at the baths. The memory brings a flush to her cheeks. All that effort and she barely made a denarius in tips. If anything, the day has shown her rich men are meaner than poor ones. She cannot believe she was stupid enough to think a place run by a man like Vibo would ever provide her with a way out.
Amara climbs up onto the bed beside Publius. She thinks of brokering the loan in the Forum, the feeling she had when Marcella signed. Not just guilt but elation. She lets Publius kiss her, lying passive as a stone. It’s supposed to be her making the effort here, not him, but he doesn’t seem to care. The anger that is always just beneath the surface of her skin flickers into life. Why should he care? He’s lucky to be able to touch her at all.
She hears Felix’s voice in her head. And you would, wouldn’t you? Tear them all apart.
He seems nice enough, this Publius, the baker’s man. Perhaps he has a wife at home, a family. Would she tear him apart? Amara doesn’t even have to ask herself the question. She rises, looking down on her breathless lover, eyes glittering orange in the lamplight. If the only way out requires working with Felix, then so be it. Whatever it takes.