“Here we are.” He gestures for her to enter. She had expected him to be attended by slaves so is a little nervous to step into the room alone. The walls are painted with maritime scenes, tiny boats in picturesque battles, plumes of smoke rising from the defeated enemy fleet. She wonders if Pliny visits regularly, if this room was painted specially for him. Travelling cases overflowing with scrolls and wax tablets trail across the floor. Another pile sits on the large bed. Pliny lifts them off carefully.
“If you could get undressed,” he says, turning to fuss over his tablets while she does so.
There’s no point doing a seductive striptease if he’s not even watching. She removes the cloak, carefully folds up the silk dress and undoes her hair. Then she arranges it artfully over one shoulder and perches at the end of the bed.
Pliny is a while flipping through his notes but eventually turns back to her, a wax booklet and stylus in hand. They look at each other. “Could I get a better view?” he says.
Amara is nonplussed. Is her pose not sexy enough? What is it he wants to see? She arches her back, pouting.
“No, no,” he says. “Not that. Just lie down or something, so I can take a better look. See more of you.”
She lies back on the bed, feeling more nervous by the minute. Pliny looks her over, scratching away at his tablets. He is taking notes, she realizes. The thought is so funny, she has to cough to hide the laugh that rises up her throat.
“May I?” he asks, putting down the tablets, gesturing he would like to touch her. He runs his hands over her whole body, frowning with concentration, tutting slightly to himself when he gets to the bruise on her arm. She flinches when he touches her between her legs, not sure what to expect, but he doesn’t linger any longer than he did on her elbow or her chin. “I’m glad to see you don’t remove all the hair,” he says, approvingly. “Disgusting habit.” He pats her calf. “Though that’s all nice and smooth, as it should be. Thank you,” he says, sitting down on the bed. “You can sit up now.”
Amara does as he asks, not sitting too close to him. She is not sure that even Victoria is going to believe her when she recounts this night.
“I’ve talked to a number of courtesans for my research,” he says, dignifying her with a more illustrious title than they both know she deserves. “I would be interested to know about your herbal knowledge. I wasn’t, in fact, scoffing about love potions earlier.”
“What would you like to know,” she says.
He is poised with his tablets. “Do you do anything to prevent pregnancy?”
“I insert a sponge. Soaked with honey when I can afford it. I use it as a barrier. My father let me read all of Herophilos, including his book on midwifery. He thought it would be useful to me when I married.”
Pliny nods. “Very sensible. So you don’t use any charms?”
“No, though some of the others at my establishment do. Another washes herself out with wine and vinegar. The companion I sang with this evening also uses a sponge, like me.”
He scratches away on the wax. “How did you become a… courtesan?”
“Which part of the story do you want?”
“Well,” he says, frowning. “All of it. You started out reading Herophilos to your father in Attica, and now, here you are in Pompeii. I should like to hear everything.”
He is asking for nothing other than her entire life laid bare. Amara isn’t sure whether sex might have been easier. “My father was a doctor in Aphidnai,” she says. “I was his only child. He died when I was fifteen. A disease he caught from one of his patients. My mother tried to support us for a number of years, and when this was no longer possible, she sold me as a house slave to one of my father’s former patrons.”
“Wait a moment.” Pliny holds up his hand. “This makes no sense at all. Why did your mother not simply marry you off as quickly as possible? They must have been expecting you would marry soon anyway, at that age. You were an only child, what about the dowry?”
He has managed, inevitably, to hit on one of the most shameful parts of her story. “My father did not always charge his patients as he should have,” she says, feeling the need even now to defend him for his neglect. “The debts we expected to call in were never paid. And he had significant debts of his own. What dowry there was, my mother spent to provide for us both.”
Pliny is outraged. “But this was the most terrible negligence! From both of them!” He sees the distress on her face. “No, I am sorry, go on. You were sold as a house slave. What then.”
“My mother left the money she was paid for my sale with my possessions,” Amara says, wanting at least to clear her mother of greed. “But my new master took it, and he did not use me as a house slave, as promised, but as a concubine.” Pliny rolls his eyes, as if amazed anyone could have been duped into imagining otherwise. “I was there perhaps a year, but his wife became jealous and sold me as a whore. I was taken to Puteoli and sold there at the market to the pimp who runs the town brothel. That is how I am here.”
“The journey of the mind is always stranger than that of the body,” Pliny says, cryptically. “How have you adjusted? You must have spent your early life imagining becoming… what? A respected wife? A mother?”
“I knew that was my duty.”
“What did you want then, if not that?”
“What I wanted was idle daydreaming,” she says. Pliny huffs, impatient at her quibbling. Amara gives up. “I wanted to be a doctor,” she says. “Like my father. I just assumed this was going to happen because of all the hours he had me spend reading his texts. I had not understood. Then when I mentioned it one day, he explained that, of course, this was not possible.”
“That isn’t strictly true,” Pliny replies. “Certainly, you could not have practised medicine like your father, but there have always been women scholars, philosophers, living modest enough lives. Especially in Attica. But I understand his concern at the irregularity. Though,” he mutters, clearly still irritated by her parents, “that was all the more reason to have saved up the dowry.” He puts down the tablets, glancing round at his books. “Do you have a good reading voice?”
“I suppose I must have.”
“Excellent. You can help me a little, while you are here.” He switches to Greek. “We can even read Herophilos, if you wish. I’m minded to include him in my Natural History.”
Pliny’s accent is appalling, but his Greek is perfectly fluent. “I should like that so much,” she says, smiling at him. “It would be a pleasure for me.”
He smiles too, evidently satisfied with how the evening has gone. “Now, I will be up reading for a few hours,” he says, getting off the bed. “But please don’t let that disturb you. Feel free to sleep while I work.”
“Where would you like me to… sleep?”
“On the bed, of course,” Pliny says, exasperation creeping into his voice. He sits at his desk. It’s angled so that he can still see her. Amara makes a show of getting under the covers and half closes her eyes, watching him from under lowered eyelashes. Pleased to see her settled, Pliny turns back to his scrolls and ignores her. She fully intends to stay awake, but the rustle of parchment, the sound of the fountain and the smell of jasmine are all so soothing, she has soon drifted off.
She is still half asleep when she feels his fingers run through her hair. “You’ve not left me much room,” he whispers.