“I wonder if Celadus will remember me,” Victoria says, fanning herself to create a breeze. Amara thinks back to last year, when the gladiator singled Victoria out from the crowd, lifting her off her feet to kiss her, murmuring a secret message in her ear, before continuing on his procession into the arena. It was the same day Amara met with Menander, the only afternoon they ever spent together. Dido was here then too, and Cressa. The sense of loss is heavy, as oppressive as the heat.

“You never told us what Celadus said to you,” Amara says.

Victoria smiles at the memory but doesn’t answer Amara’s question.

“The fighters,” Britannica says, impatient at this distraction from the real point of interest. “Who are they? Why they here?”

“Well, what do you think?” Victoria says, pursing her lips. “It’s mainly net men fighting today, obviously.”

“What is net men?”

“Gladiators who are styled as fishermen,” Amara says. “They have a net to catch their opponent, and they fight with a big trident, which is a sort of spear with three prongs. And a dagger, too, in case the trident gets lost or broken.”

“If I have trident, I kill too quickly,” Britannica says, though she looks more interested than Amara has ever seen her before, sitting up as tall as possible, craning to see into the ring.

“Amara! Victoria!”

The voice is a familiar one. Amara turns to Victoria, sees the same look of disbelief on her face.

“Beronice!” Amara shouts, standing up. She stares around the arena, trying to spot her friend.

“There she is!” Victoria yells, waving frantically. “Over here! Beronice!”

Beronice is struggling to make her way along the row, other women having to squash aside to let her pass. Amara and Victoria watch her slow, painful progress, until with a last undignified shove past some bad-tempered looking matrons, Beronice reaches them. Felix’s three women fall on each other, shrieking and laughing, unable to believe they are together again.

“Look at you!” Amara exclaims, astonished by Beronice’s appearance. “Just look! What happened?”

Beronice is not in the gaudy yellow toga she was obliged to wear to mark herself out as a prostitute. She is dressed like a respectable married woman in a long tunic and shawl, her hair covered by a thin veil. “He married me!” Beronice shouts, wild with happiness. “I’m married!”

Neither Amara nor Victoria need to ask who the man is. It can only be Gallus. “Felix let him marry you?” Victoria is so shocked she is clutching her chest as if Beronice just dealt her a physical blow.

Beronice pulls them both down onto the bench, so that they are sitting together in a huddle. “Felix has a bar now. He put Gallus in charge of running it!” she exclaims. “And Gallus, my Gallus, persuaded him it would be better for business if he had a wife to help!”