“I can sing for you!” Victoria says, almost tripping Amara up in her eagerness to get close to her. “I can sing anything you like! Teach me anything!” Victoria has, in fact, been singing for much of the morning, her sweet voice ringing out through every room in the house. Amara has never seen her look more beautiful. Victoria’s body almost shimmers in her excitement at being free, like a flame dancing from a lamp full of oil. Even Philos was enchanted earlier, watching her in the garden. He looked foolish, gawping away, as if Victoria were performing for him. In contrast, he barely met Amara’s eye. Their late-night conversation might never have happened.

“I need to invite Drusilla,” Amara says. “Rufus will be expecting her to attend. I’m hoping we can all three perform together.”

“Oh, I can’t wait to meet her!” Victoria cries. “Shall we go now?”

Amara feels a pang, looking at Victoria’s eager face. “I think I had better go alone,” she says gently. “Just to tell her what’s happened. Drusilla is much . . . grander than me. Then, when I’ve explained, I will bring her around to meet you.”

“Of course,” Victoria replies, still smiling, though Amara knows her well enough to understand she is disappointed. “She’s your friend. Better you go on your own.”

Amara climbs the steps to the Venus Baths’ brightly painted portico, hoping Drusilla is not surrounded by too large a crowd. Julia, the owner, alternates the days the baths are open to the public between women and men. Drusilla is always here on a Wednesday, the regularity of her visits giving other courtesans a chance to pay their respects.

A slave girl greets Amara at the door, and Amara slips the entry fee into the girl’s purse with practiced discretion. Julia runs her baths for profit while maintaining the air that the service is only for friends. Amara steps into the small, square courtyard. The sense of privacy here is so different from the baths she used to visit near the brothel. There you had to line up out on the street, standing on display for any passing fool to catcall. Here, customers wait and drink wine together, sitting on benches shaded by a colonnade, a series of mythical landscapes painted above them on red paneled walls.