Philos looks miserable. “No, not entirely. The admiral freed you without condition. Rufus’s patronage is conditional.” He stops close beside her and reaches for her hand, but this time it is Amara who draws away. “It’s a common clause in a freedwoman’s contract when she is released to serve as a concubine. Any other man but Pliny would have demanded it from the start.”

“Stop frightening me! Just tell me what the contract says.”

Even now, Amara can see Philos does not want to tell her, but he has left himself no choice. “If you are unfaithful to Rufus, you automatically revert to enslaved status.”

The sense of unease Amara has felt since she came to this house grows heavier, solidifying into understanding. It is not shock she feels, but recognition. Rufus owns her. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I thought it would be easier for you not to know.” Philos is looking at her anxiously. “That you might even be able to love Rufus if you believed he had truly freed you. And then, when I realized you didn’t love him, I thought you would be safe as long as you didn’t care for anyone else . . .”

“Apart from you,” Amara bursts out. Philos says nothing, his silence an admission that makes her even angrier. “So what happened just now, between us, here—that would be enough to make me revert back to . . . ?” She cannot say the word.

“The contract is to prevent you betraying Rufus with another patron,” Philos says, avoiding her question. “There wasn’t any need to protect himself from a servant. He has always had the right to kill either of us.”

“But at least I wouldn’t die a slave,” Amara retorts, spitting out the word with all the hate and disgust she feels for her own past.

“Like I am.” An angry flush is spreading across Philos’s cheeks, and she knows he has misunderstood the cause of her revulsion.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I think I know exactly what you meant.”

Amara covers her face with her hands, unsure who she is more frustrated with, herself or Philos. “You are mistaken,” she says, trying to control her temper. “And clearly an idiot if you think I would risk my life for someone I didn’t love!”

Amara’s outburst takes them both by surprise. Philos says nothing, his expression telling her even less. She turns and walks to the door, fumbling with the handle in her haste to get out, desperate to escape from the humiliation of her own confession.

19

“I’ve never been so foolish in my young life, I swear,

Or done one thing that I’ve regretted more,

Than going from you last night and leaving you alone,

Trying to hide how desperately I love you.”

—Sulpicia, Roman female poet