“He left Dido’s body on the rubbish heap. He left her there like nobody loved her, like she was nothing. I couldn’t bear it.”

“I know.” Philos hugs her, and she leans into him. “I don’t blame you. It’s not your fault.”

“Of course it’s my fault!”

“No, it’s not. Sometimes, a person can be pushed beyond endurance.”

“You would never have lost control of yourself like that, I know you wouldn’t.”

Philos gently separates himself, taking her arms from around his neck and holding both her hands. “But I have,” he says. “I have lost control like that.”

Amara removes her right hand from his and touches his tunic, where she knows the branding lies on his skin. In all the time they have been together, she has never dared ask him how it happened. “Is that why they marked you?”

Philos moves her fingers from his chest, as if the scar still hurts. “Do you remember, when we were first together, I told you that I once embarrassed myself by crying over a girl?” Amara nods. “I did see her again. I loved her very much.” he stops, and Amara is about to tell him he doesn’t need to share this story, that he doesn’t have to tell her everything, but he continues. “We were married.”

“Married?”

“I know slaves’ marriages aren’t recognized,” Philos replies, as if this were the reason for her surprise. “But that doesn’t mean it never happens.” He pauses. “Her name was Restituta.” The reality of Philos’s wife rests in the air between them for a moment, like a shadow passing. “After Terentius lost interest in me, it was almost worse than enduring him. I had no sense of myself. I hated what he had made me; it felt as if he had destroyed everything. And Restituta was so kind—I cannot even begin to explain how kind she was.”

“Like you are to me,” Amara says, realizing then that perhaps Philos was not always this gentle, but instead learned from the love another woman showed him.