“But won’t Simo be watching the brothel? Won’t one of his spies see us leaving like this?”
“Paris is outside the door,” Victoria replies, fussing with the cloth, making sure Amara is covered properly. “He will check it’s clear and then open it. Felix said when that happens, we walk as quick as we can, up towards the well on the corner then round the back way to Simo’s bar.”
Amara wonders if Victoria is enjoying being in Felix’s confidence. The thought makes her bitter. She has to remind herself that she owes her friend her life, even if Victoria is now making her risk it all over again.
It is dark on the street, made worse by the material over her face that obscures what little light remains. They shuffle along, their hands to the wall, feeling their way. Paris is supposed to be following, but there’s no sign of him or his lamp to light the path. They skirt a small group at the well, somehow avoiding attention, and head further into a less familiar part of town.
“I don’t even know where the bar is,” Amara whispers. “I don’t know where we’re going!”
“Felix told me the way several times,” Victoria replies. “I’m sure I can get us there. And we don’t really have to keep watch; we’re more of a distraction.”
“Isn’t that worse?” Amara asks. Victoria doesn’t answer.
Simo’s bar is sitting in a pool of lamplight. A hanging bronze Priapus casts its sickly glow over the door. Simo must have repaired the place since Felix’s earlier attack. It seems full, several drinkers standing on the street in spite of the cold. Amara finds she is too scared to walk any closer. “Come on,” Victoria hisses, pulling at her arm. “Let’s just do this and get home.”
They stand together, sheltering in a small archway across the road. From the smell, Amara suspects they are not the first whores to work this spot. Victoria hitches her cloak and toga up, showing her bare legs, and after a pause, Amara does the same. At first, nobody notices, then a couple of the drinkers spot them. They point and laugh. A couple of men walk across.
“What’s with the covered faces?” one asks. “Too ugly to see?” Amara takes a step back. Both men reek of alcohol.
“We’re married,” Victoria says, her voice a plaintive whine. “We need to feed the children.”
“That’s what every woman says,” the man replies, hitching her cloak up further.
A third man passes by, stopping to see what’s going on. “Leave some cunt for me.”
Amara recognizes the voice. She squints through the weave of her veil. It’s the man with the white scar, the one she saw at the Palaestra with Felix, and again at the bar. He turns and saunters across the street, chatting with the remaining men outside, pointing at the women, urging them on. There’s laughter. The drinkers head over and then they are surrounding her and Victoria, jeering, yelling encouragement. Amara begins to panic.
One of the men already has her backed against the wall, pulling at her clothes. She looks over his shoulder, trying to see between the faces of the baying onlookers. Everything is grey and distorted through the fabric. The man with the white scar is standing alone outside Simo’s bar. She sees him reach up, take down the fiery hanging Priapus, swiftly light a torch from its flame. He starts setting fire to the timber frame of the building, waiting a moment until it starts to take hold. Then he flings the lamp through the door and runs off down the street.
At first, the men surrounding her aren’t distracted by the noise. Then customers pour out of the bar, yelling, pointing up at the burning building. The drunks finally start to realize what is happening. The man crushing her against the stone is dragged off by a friend, his anger at being interrupted quickly turning to alarm. Victoria and Amara are left alone as their tormentors scatter, adding to the chaos.
“We should leave now,” Amara says. “Quickly!”
“Felix asked me to make sure Paris finished the job,” Victoria says, grabbing her arm to stop her escaping. “Simo can’t leave here alive.”
Amara feels caught, too afraid to run back blindly on her own, even more terrified to stay. She clings on to Victoria. They huddle back into the hollow of the arch, watching. In the light of the flames, the gaggle of shouting men are more hindrance than help. Some rush back with water fetched from a nearby well, but a few buckets are not going to save the bar. She notices another familiar figure, the weaselly man from Felix’s protection racket. And Paris is there. She would recognize his scrawny form anywhere, even though his hood is up. They are both hanging around the doorway, looking like idle gawpers but, no doubt, checking who is coming out. It must be almost empty inside, the roar from the flames is getting louder, the heat oppressive even from the opposite side of the road.
Amara has never seen Simo before, but she knows it must be him from the way Paris and the other man take a step forwards. He is coughing, almost bent double from the smoke. Paris grabs him, as if to help, but shortly afterwards, Simo collapses in his arms. Paris lays him gently on the ground. Others rush forwards. Paris edges back, until he’s at the fringes of the crowd. Then he turns and walks quickly in the direction of the well.
“We have to leave now,” Amara says. “He must have stabbed him. It’s going to get worse.”
They don’t run but walk as fast as they dare. By now, people from the neighbouring buildings have spilled out onto the street, trying to stop the spread of the fire. A woman is screaming from an upstairs room. Sparks swirl in the heat, Amara is afraid their cloaks might catch fire. Then there’s a noise like thunder, a terrible crack as the roof of the bar collapses, the upwards rush of the flames. She looks back at the inferno in horror. Anybody still inside will not have survived.
Victoria tugs her arm, and they keep walking, leaving the light and the noise, slipping back into the darkness.
41
The pair of us were here, dear friends forever
Felix keeps Victoria upstairs with him after the fire, moving her into his room. A reward for helping him kill Simo. He barely acknowledges Amara’s role. She tells herself it doesn’t matter, that his coldness cannot hurt her if she hates him. It’s harder to watch Victoria, to see the way she opens up like a flower that has finally found the sun. In the mornings, Amara can hear her singing for Felix, imagines how she must be lying in his arms, gazing at him, pouring out all the love in her heart. The thought makes her furious.
Amara finds it easier than she imagined to say nothing to the other women about what happened. When they go to the baths together, she makes up a lie about her and Victoria being used to entertain clients at a bar, surprised at how quickly the tale trips from her tongue. Even if she didn’t find lying so easy, the bar story is soon forgotten, buried by the far more interesting gossip that Felix seems to have chosen Victoria as some sort of wife.
When news of Simo’s death finally reaches them through Gallus, Amara still gives nothing away, feigning shock to match the rest. But although she can bury her feelings in the daytime, at night she struggles to sleep, her heart racing, every fibre taut with fear. Her body relives the terror her mind cannot. She knows that Paris is suffering too, hears him weeping in the dark. But in the morning, he always refuses to speak to her. Whatever guilt he might be feeling, he is clearly determined to bury it.
On the third day after the fire, Felix sends for her. She follows Paris to their master’s study, waits while he pushes open the door. Inside, Victoria is perched on Felix’s lap, sitting with him behind the desk, her arms around his neck. She drops them as soon as Amara walks in, embarrassed, and Amara loves her for that, knowing Victoria doesn’t want to make her feel small.