“Don’t run,” Amara says. She looks back over her shoulder, smiling at the man who until recently had her in an iron grip. He and the other dice players look flushed with excitement rather than anger, enjoying the thrill of the chase.
They weave past the shops and the grand houses on the Via Veneria. The road is still flooded with water. One of the five players, a short, brawny man with a patched cloak, grabs Dido and makes as if to throw her in. She screams and the men roar with laughter. The man sets her back down as a mule cart approaches, and Amara seizes her hand, dragging her further along the pavement.
Amara doesn’t think she has ever been happier to hear the raucous chorus from The Elephant as they round the corner to the brothel. She feels ready to collapse with relief at Gallus’s feet. He collects the money from their five customers. As Amara steps over the threshold, she glances down at his left hand for the signal. Three fingers. Only three women are in. Amara’s heart contracts.
Beronice is waiting in the corridor, wreathed in smoke from the lamps.
“There’s Egypt!” shouts the short man, grabbing her roughly round the hips. “Where are the other two?”
“On their way,” Amara replies, draping her arms round the man with the marked chin. “Fabia will go and fetch them.” The old woman scurries past her, hood pulled up to her face, and darts into the street.
“For fuck’s sake, you promised five!” The two men left without women are furious.
Amara’s customer has already pulled off most of her clothes and is pushing her towards an empty cell. He breaks from kissing her to catch hold of one of his angry companions, drawing him closer. “Stop complaining! You know I always share.”
The stone bed is hard against Amara’s back; there is a terrible ringing in her ears, the rush of blood pounding in her head, the smell of the strange man too close to her, his grip even tighter than she remembers in the Forum, the movement she cannot stop and cannot control. She is drowning.
Amara tries to focus on the curtain pulled across the doorway, count its folds until he has finished, anything to quell the unbearable panic. But the second man is blocking her view, his face contorted. He grips her thigh, stopping her from twisting away. She cannot scream. She cannot breathe. Terror is crushing the air from her lungs. Then the curtain opens. Cressa slips inside the room.
“No need to wait,” she whispers, running her fingers through the second man’s hair.
He pushes her off. “I want that one.” He points at Amara. Cressa moves so she is standing between them.
“No, you don’t.” Cressa slides her hands around his hips, pulling him closer. He tries to resist, but the lure of her naked body is too much. He gives in, allows Cressa to lead him away. Cressa glances back as they leave. The kindness in her eyes speaks another language, reaching Amara across the darkness.
Amara starts to cry. The man with the scarred chin collapses heavily against her. He is finally finished. For a moment, she is forced to lie squashed beneath his weight, then he raises himself on his elbows and steps back from the bed. Amara pulls her legs in towards herself, unable to stop weeping. For a moment, the man stares at her, and she cannot tell if the look of disgust is for her or himself. He leaves without speaking.
4
Take one who through long years would slave for you; Take one who’d love with purest loyalty.
Night-time at the brothel passes like a scene from Hades: the endless procession of drunken men, the smoke, the soot, angry shouting, pottery smashing, the sound of Dido weeping, the pungent smell of Victoria’s potion as she washes out her insides, the rasp of Beronice’s snoring. When the hour is too late for even the most dedicated Pompeiian to venture out in search of sex, Amara lies alone in the darkness of her cell, unable to sleep, suffocated by rage.
She is woken the next day by Victoria’s singing. It’s like music from another world, the light earthy voice full of hope and good humour. She sits up in bed.
“Couldn’t you let us sleep in for once?” Beronice shouts.
“Look at the sunshine,” Victoria calls back. “It’s like the Festival of Flora!”
Amara smiles in spite of herself. She swings her feet onto the floor, wrapping the blanket round her shoulders. Beronice and Cressa are already out in the corridor, yawning and rubbing their eyes. The three of them head to Victoria’s cell. Amara glances up as she goes in. The painting of two lovers above the door shows the woman on top, a gift from Felix to his hardest-working whore.
“You woke us up!” Beronice says. Victoria is already dressed and styling her hair. It falls in a waterfall of curls about her shoulders. She does not look like a woman who has been up all night, indulging men and deflecting violence. Her eyes are sparkling at the prospect of a new day. Amara has never met anyone like Victoria.
“Where’s Dido?” Victoria asks. “She can’t have slept through you lazy lot yelling and complaining.”
The four of them head to Dido’s cell. She is lying on the bed, her face to the wall. Cressa sits next to her, bends and kisses her on the forehead. It is not only Amara and Nicandrus who feel protective of Felix’s youngest she-wolf. “It’s morning sweetheart,” Cressa says.
Dido sits up. Her face is wet, and her eyes are red from crying. Cressa hugs her, stroking her back. “Were they shits?” she asks.
“One of them broke all the lamps,” Dido says, pointing to a pile of pottery shards that she’s swept into a corner. “He really frightened me.”
“Nasty, shitty little man.” Cressa’s voice wavers and for a moment Amara thinks she is going to struggle to keep her composure.
Victoria sits on the other side of Dido, quickly taking over. “You can’t let him bother you,” she says, smiling. “Not Mr GarlicFarticus.”
“What a stupid name,” says Beronice, looking doubtful. “He can’t really be called that.”
“But he is!” Victoria insists, her face solemn. “It’s Mr GarlicFarticus who runs that fast-food place near the baths!”
“He was kind of smelly.” Dido looks a little brighter as she starts to play the game.
“And garlicky. And farty.” Victoria nods. “Yes, definitely him. Mr GarlicFarticus.”
“I never knew he was called that,” Beronice says, wonderingly. “I thought he was called Manlius.”
“Of course it was Manlius, you idiot!” Cressa snorts.
They all laugh. Even Beronice smiles. Amara wonders for a moment if she might have played dumb on purpose.
“I think we should write him a message on the wall,” Victoria says. “In case he ever comes back.” She bends down and hands a shard of pottery to Amara. “What shall we say? I know! Thrust SLOWLY.”
“Shall I write it in Greek?” Amara asks.
“What’s the point in that?” Victoria retorts. “We want the smelly idiot to read it, don’t we?”
Amara scratches the motto on the wall. They all sit looking at it when she’s finished, smirking with satisfaction.
“I’ll tell you who does thrust slowly,” Beronice says, her face sly. She pauses, making sure all four are giving her their full attention.
“Go on then,” Cressa says. “Who is this Apollo?”
“Gallus.” Beronice beams. “I love him.”
“Gallus?” Victoria shrieks. “He’s a terrible lay!”
“You’ve not even slept with him!” Beronice says, wounded. She looks round at her friends’ embarrassed faces. “Have you?”