“And does it seem likely to you?”

“I don’t know,” she says truthfully.

“It is nonsense. The idea death leads to a second life is a childish fantasy, nothing more.” He reaches over and takes her hand, turning it over, pressing his fingers into her palm. “This is your body, Amara, so where is your soul? Why can’t I see it, or touch it? Because it does not exist.” Pliny does not let go of her, but continues holding her hand tightly in his. “Neither body nor mind has any more sensation after death than it had before birth. That is my view.”

Amara thinks of Dido, of all those she has lost. “I’m not sure I can bear to believe that.”

“Why?” Pliny asks, turning to her, frowning in surprise. “Death is Nature’s gift. It’s better to know that suffering ends. Once we accept this life is all we have, we can make better use of it.”

Amara does not feel able to reply. The idea Philos might never know freedom, even after his death, is inexpressively painful. She thinks of him alone in his cell, at the house in Pompeii, and longs to hold him, to stop the passing of the hours and days that will lead to their inevitable, agonizing separation. Instead, she sits beside Pliny. He seems to have forgotten her and stares out into the black of the unseen garden, showing no signs of dismissing her for bed. She shifts on the couch to remind him of her presence, and he releases her hand.

“You must be tired. An attendant will show you to your room.” Without needing to be asked, one of the men who has been keeping the lights burning, steps forward from the shadows, holding a lamp. Amara rises, bids Pliny good night, and follows the stranger into the darkness.

27

“He always said there was no book so bad that some good could not be got out of it.”

—Pliny the Younger, on his uncle, Pliny the Elder

The days at Misenum pass with the same soothing, sensual rhythm as the waves that Amara hears breaking beneath the villa. She wakes every morning in the beautiful guest room Plinia assigned her, a much bigger, airier space than her bedroom in Pompeii. It is covered in exquisite frescoes of the myth of Daphne and Apollo. She spends hours gazing at the paintings: the expression of ecstasy on Apollo’s face as he is struck by Cupid’s vengeful arrow of lust, Daphne’s terror as she flees from the maddened god, and the nymph’s transformation into a laurel tree, her arms tapering into delicate branches. The image is so realistic Amara feels she could almost pluck the leaves from the wall.