Amara did not just get the waitress a loan but her undying gratitude along with it. The abortion worked, and Amara paid off the last few pennies of the interest when it looked like Pitane wouldn’t manage it. Without telling Felix. It is not only that she couldn’t bear to endure another Marcella; she guessed it would be worth the money to build up a few favours. Felix might be able to rely on brute force, but she needs a different model, if she is going to win any clients.
“You look very well,” Amara says to her.
“I am!” Pitane replies, then lowers her voice. “And I’ve been using that sponge just as you suggested,” she whispers, with a sidelong look at the drinkers in the corner.
“You said there was another woman who might need help.” Amara perches on the edge of a table in the shade, sipping her wine. She makes a face. Sittius has given her the cheapest vintage. It tastes like vinegar. She is becoming spoiled by all the Falernian the rich men drink.
Pitane nods, clearly delighted to be called on. “It’s Terentia. You know, who runs the fruit stall, the last one on the corner before the Forum? Well,” she lowers her voice again, enjoying the chance to gossip. “She made a loss last month – some bastard sold her a rotten batch. She was telling me when I got our supplies for the inn, and I said I knew someone who could get her a loan, so she can get more stock in, make it back sooner.”
“Fancy selling rotten fruit! What a crook.” Amara tuts. “How much does she want?”
“Ten denarii.”
Amara calculates Felix’s extortionate rate of interest in her head. She hopes Terentia will be able to pay up – her own savings would never stretch that far. “I think I can help,” Amara replies. “I will call on her this week.”
“Beronice was telling me you and Dido go to so many parties these days!” Pitane says, clearly reluctant to let Amara go. “It must be exciting.”
“It makes a change.’ Amara smiles. She spends some more time chatting with Pitane, enjoying being out in the sunny courtyard rather than cooped up in the dusty storeroom. The guests in the corner fall silent and watch them, curious. Amara’s toga makes her low status obvious, and Pitane has no doubt had to serve them already, yet here the two women are, ignoring the chance of picking up an extra tip.
“Hey ladies,” one calls. “What does a man need to do around here to get a bit of attention?”
Amara thinks of Rufus’s retainer and feels warm with gratitude. She doesn’t have to entertain any idiots today. “I’d better let you get back to work,” she says to Pitane, giving the two men behind her an unfriendly stare.
“Oh,” Pitane is crestfallen. “I suppose so, yes. See you around.” She heads over to the guests, narrow shoulders drooping, her fun over for the morning.
29
Vouchsafe no easy promise to his prayer Nor yet reject it with a ruthless air; Blend hopes with fears; but hopes must grow more bright.
Amara’s life above the brothel takes on its own disjointed rhythm. It is a huge relief to spend her nights unmolested, something she has not enjoyed since her stay with Pliny. Not that she sleeps as well as she did under the admiral’s protection. The sacks are scratchy and uncomfortable, the mice scrabble, and she can hear the sounds of her friends working below, which fills her with both guilt and relief.
Some nights she dreams of Menander, and when she wakes, his absence is like a weight on her chest. In the dark of the storeroom, she relives every moment she has spent with him, finds herself turning the memories over in her mind like precious stones, until they start to lose their sharpness and she cannot be sure where fantasy and reality meet. Then she will remember Dido’s warning about wasted love and forces herself to relive the last time she saw him, when he was powerless to protect her, or himself.
Paris is a largely silent companion, often ignoring Amara if she tries to speak with him. She suspects their master has warned him off, not wanting a repeat of the black eye he gave Victoria. Even so, she is never sorry to have the storeroom to herself when he has to work in the brothel. Worse are the nights when Felix lends him to Thraso. Paris is completely unresisting, as if Thraso were having sex with a corpse. Amara curls up as small as possible, facing the wall, trying to give Paris some dignity. She finds his total silence almost as disturbing as Britannica’s screaming. The first time it happens, after Thraso has left, she risks asking Paris if he is alright. “It should have been you,” is all he says.
She tries to meet her friends at The Sparrow as before, but apart from Dido, conversation is strained. Victoria has barely spoken to her since their row over Britannica. Returning to the brothel to work, she finds the Briton’s resistance has permanently changed the atmosphere. Everyone is on edge, trying to shield her from customers, for their own sake as much as hers. The rare times anyone shares a joke, Amara no longer feels part of the banter. On the evening she and Dido are sent to entertain at Cornelius’s house, Amara is so happy to see Egnatius, with his absurd compliments and eternal good temper, she almost kisses him.
And then there is Rufus. He has not called for her quite as often as she would have hoped – no more than twice a week – but every time she sees him, she feels a little more confident in his attachment. Her own feelings are growing like bindweed, tangling her thoughts, threatening to choke her scheming. He makes such an effort to be charming, his manner is so gentle, it is hard not to care too much. But she is always aware of the imbalance in power, and fear is her affection’s shadow. She lives with the knowledge that he could tear her life apart on a whim, while she could do him no more damage than a pebble dropped in a pond.
It is her third week living above the brothel when Rufus’s slave Philos calls round on the Thursday morning, warning her to be ready for his master in the evening. She hears Felix take the message – and the money – then the creak of his footsteps as he approaches the storeroom. Amara scrambles to her feet, dusting off her toga.
“I take it you heard that?” Felix says, sticking his head around the door. “You can at least make yourself useful until then.”
“Of course,” she replies, following him out into the corridor and walking to his study.
This is the strangest part of her new life, all the hours she spends with her master. She takes her customary seat near the doorway, tucked in beside a small table. Felix has never asked her to share his bed again, but eventually, he relented and let her help with his accounts. It started with Terentia’s loan, when he got her to draw up the contract and write the records. Now he has her working on a number of files. She wonders how he ever managed to do it all himself.
Amara has always thought of her master as a thug, but she is forced to acknowledge the charm, as well as the threats, he deploys in his money lending. Clients visit, not noticing the small bent figure in the corner recording their conversations, and Felix treats the men to wine, using jokes and flattery, drawing out their hopes and their secrets. “There’s no such thing as useless information,” he tells her, after one client leaves having lamented about his mother-in-law for half an hour.
He is meticulous with his accounts, all the prostitution money gets ploughed into the loan-sharking, and he takes very little out for pleasure. In fact, pleasure seems to rank low in his life altogether. He hangs out with cronies in bars some evenings, probably the same men she saw that day at the Palaestra, but she is unsure how much he likes anyone, or if he has any real friends.