When she has finished, Martha holds out the silver mirror. Amara always prefers to do her own makeup. She takes the kohl, redoes her eyes where it has smudged, but doesn’t smear any paste on her skin. It was unaffordable while she worked at the brothel, and now Rufus is used to seeing her barefaced. The only time she painted herself for him, he had hated it. All the words he uses to describe her—lovely, delicate, naive—she takes as instructions rather than compliments. It doesn’t matter that she worked in a brothel, that she outwitted the most violent pimp in Pompeii, or that she could move mountains with her rage. This is not what her lover wants to see, so she hides it all.

“Thank you,” Amara says. “You can start work in the kitchen now.”

“But don’t you need me to come with you?” Martha looks nervous. “Master said it’s better you don’t walk out alone.”

It is one thing having to put up with a discontented maid, Amara does not want a spy as well. “The streets do not frighten me,” she replies, with a cold smile, knowing the girl will understand her. “I am quite used to walking them.”

Martha bows her head, cheeks flushing, no doubt cursing the day the Romans dragged her from her homeland to serve a whore. Amara leaves her and walks across the atrium to the huge wooden door. Juventus hesitates a moment before letting her out unaccompanied, glancing round to see if Philos, the steward, is there to grant permission. “Philos is with the master today,” Amara says impatiently. “Perhaps you will let me out to attend the harp lesson Rufus has paid for?”

“Of course, mistress,” Juventus says, stepping aside.

It’s a quieter street than the one she used to live on—the brothel stood at a fork in the road, facing one bar and a stone’s throw from another—but even so, stepping out onto the pavement always makes Amara feel like she has slipped from a still pond into a fast-moving stream. She weaves her way past the billowing cloths that flank her doorway, strips of red, yellow and orange fabric flapping in the breeze. The house Rufus rents for her is fronted by a clothes store, one of several on the street. The shopkeeper, Virgula, nods as she passes, unperturbed at having a concubine for a neighbor. After all, they both share the same landlord—a friend of Rufus who Amara is yet to meet.

The road is narrow, but Amara owns her space on the pavement, her gaze cutting through to the middle distance, forcing others to let her pass. A man weighed down with an armful of leather goods huffs but stands aside. Amara does not acknowledge him. The days when she had to meet any man’s eye on the street are over.