“I’m not offended,” Amara says. “And anyway, you are right. I was a concubine before this. She wasn’t.” But I still hate it, she wants to add.
Salvius senses the shift in mood. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Shall we sing?” Dido asks, in the bright, brittle manner Amara recognizes as her brave face. At least she is learning to protect herself, she thinks. It’s better than tears.
“That would be wonderful!” Priscus exclaims.
Salvius fetches his pipe from the top of a chest, where he had obviously laid it ready for the evening. “Shall we start with our old favourite?” He doesn’t wait for an answer but begins piping the tune of the shepherd and his love.
They all begin to sing, and after the first verse, the awkwardness and sadness begin to fall away. Amara looks at Dido, at the joy on her face, and realizes there is nobody she loves more. Warmth spreads through her. She has never had a friend like Dido. She is the light in the darkness of her life.
They sing song after song, learning new ones from Salvius and performing the tale of Crocus and Smilax for the two men. Aided by their high spirits, it’s an even better performance than the one Cornelius paid for. Amara can feel her cheeks grow hotter, heat spreading through her limbs as she allows herself to drink too much. Is this what life might be like if she were a free woman in Pompeii?
The slave boy is almost falling asleep in the corner and the night sky bright with stars when Priscus finally says, “I should be going home soon.” There is a pause, and the two men look at each other, the signal of a pre-agreed arrangement. Priscus turns to Dido. “Would you do me the honour…? Would you be kind enough to join me for a little while?” At least he has the decency to ask as if refusal might be an option, Amara thinks.
“Of course,” Dido says, taking his hand. He leads her from the room, leaving Salvius and Amara alone at the table.
“Would you like some more wine?”
She realizes he is nervous. “Only to join you. Otherwise, I am fine.”
He pours them both a top-up. “I haven’t been with a woman in two years. Since my wife died.” He stops. Amara senses he is not waiting for a reply, only trying to find the right words, so she says nothing. “Sabina loved music,” he says. “You remind me a little of her.”
“I’m sorry. It is terrible to lose one you love.”
Salvius waves a hand, as if to minimize his grief. “I am sure you have lost family too.” She inclines her head, not wishing to speak of her parents, or Aphidnai. He drains his glass and stands. “Well then.” Amara puts her own glass down, untouched, and rises. The slave boy jolts awake as they pass then gets up wearily to clear the table.
Salvius takes a candle to light the way to his bedroom. It’s dark in the narrow corridor, and she picks her way carefully behind him. He pushes open the door. The room is gloomy after the well-lit dinner, but Amara’s eyes adjust, and she makes out a woman’s clothes spread over the bed. She does not ask who they belong to.
Salvius sets down the candle on a small table and picks up his wife’s robe. “Would you perhaps mind…?”
She takes it from him. He turns away as she changes. It makes her shiver, wrapping herself in a dead woman’s clothes. The sadness of her own loneliness, of Salvius’s grief, brings a lump to her throat.
“That’s her perfume over there.” Amara picks up the bottle, dabs a little on her neck. Salvius stares at her. “You look so like her.” He sighs. “Is there someone you would like me to… I mean, I can pretend to be someone else, if that’s easier?”
Of all the things Amara expected him to say, this was perhaps the last. The wall outside The Sparrow blazes into her mind, the new graffiti she spotted there only this morning. Kallias greets his Timarete. “No,” she says, emphatically. “That wouldn’t help.”
“I’m sorry,” Salvius says. “But is there, perhaps, at least a memory of being with somebody you liked?”
“No.”
“You have never been with a man by choice?”
“No.” The simplicity of his question and the truth of her answer hits her with unexpected force. She turns her face away.
“I’m sorry,” Salvius says. He sits down on the bed. Amara sits beside him, unsure what to say.
“It’s not your fault,” she says at last. “I am still happy to be here with you.”
“You don’t have to pretend,” he says, taking her hand. “You must have to do a lot of pretending.” She doesn’t contradict him. “Have you ever… felt anything?”
Has she ever felt anything? What a question. A thousand answers crowd her mind. All the sensations of her life as a prostitute: disgust, panic, the obliterating blankness. An aversion to being touched so intense she is amazed she has got through a single night at the brothel without screaming, without fighting the men off. But she knows this is not what Salvius is asking. “No,” she says quietly. “I never feel anything.”
They sit together in silence. “Sabina was very afraid at first,” he says. “It took her a long time to get used to being together.” He puts his arms around her, drawing her closer. She wonders who he is seeing when he looks at her – the woman in front of him, or his dead wife. “Amara,” he says, as if answering her question. “I will try and make this pleasant for you. All I ask is that you don’t pretend,” He brushes a strand of hair from her face, correcting himself. “Don’t feel you have to pretend.”
Victoria’s singing wakes her in the morning. For a while, Amara lies in her cell, listening to the sound, the sweetness of the voice so at odds with the harsh reality of the singer’s life. She knows almost nothing about Victoria’s past. At least she and Dido were loved once, and she knows Beronice and Cressa spent the first few years of childhood with their mothers, but Victoria has never belonged to anyone but an owner. Yet every morning, she sings her heart out, filling this dark place with joy. Amara wonders where Victoria learnt so many tunes. She realizes how much she has missed their friendship since her change of fortune at the Vinalia.
She gets out of bed, dressing herself quickly, and slips into the corridor. The compacted mud floor under her feet is hard and cool. She stands at Victoria’s door a moment before drawing the curtain back. “Can I come in?”
Victoria’s singing stops abruptly. “Suit yourself.”
“What was last night like?”
“The usual. Have a nice party?”
“It was dinner above the ironmonger’s. Not really a party.”
“Still. Dinner, though,” Victoria says, face turned aside as she does her hair. “In a house. With free wine. Better than one meal a day.”
Amara pauses, wondering how much she owes Salvius for his kindness last night. “The customer got me to dress up as his dead wife. In this musty old robe.” She sees Victoria hesitate, knows there’s nothing she finds so irresistible as a ridiculous sex story. “Had the perfume out ready and everything.”
Victoria gives in to curiosity, puts down the hairbrush. “You’re joking.”
“Asked who I wanted him to pretend to be.”
Victoria laughs. “I hope you said Jupiter. In his form as a pile of fucking gold.”
“What are you two sniggering about?” Beronice stands, bleary-eyed in the doorway.
“Just a customer,” Victoria says. “Remember what they are? Before Gallus?”
“You know I had at least three last night,” Beronice says, offended. “Including that really annoying idiot from the laundry. What’s his name again?”