“You don’t look too well,” Victoria agrees, peering at her. “I hope it’s nothing serious.” For a moment, Amara contemplates confiding in Victoria the way she would have done with Dido, but then she remembers how Victoria used to talk about Felix, the way she excused his violence. Amara can just imagine Victoria’s reaction. “So, he didn’t slap you, or hit you, he just wanted you from behind? What do you think he pays you for!”

“It’s nothing.” Amara smiles. “Too much wine, I think.”

Victoria laughs and sprawls out across the bench. “Here’s to too much wine!” she says. “And too much food, and too many men.” She sighs in contentment, draping an arm over her face to shield her eyes, and Amara leaves her there, basking in the sun like a cat, luxuriating in her freedom to do nothing. Dido stands silent on the wall, and Amara’s longing for her dead friend in that moment brings her dangerously close to resenting the one who is still alive.

Amara does not lie in bed but goes upstairs to the quiet of her study. It is too painful to imagine speaking with Dido, so instead, she sits and thinks of Felix. His habits are still so familiar to her. She knows that at this hour her old master will be on the exercise track of the Palaestra, running as if all the hunting dogs of Diana were behind him. She wonders how Felix has survived so much violence, how he saw his mother die, yet decided to live, and wonders if she will manage to do the same, if she still has the stomach for it. Her money box rests on the table. Almost everything inside is destined for Felix. The first payment is due in days.

Hours pass, with Amara doing little other than stare at the wall, until a knock disturbs her. She calls for whoever it is to enter, expecting it to be Victoria, then realizes she must have locked the door and gets up to open it. It is Philos. She steps back to let him enter.

“You told Rufus that you lied to me,” he says, looking agitated, pushing the door shut behind him. “That you tricked me into believing he had granted you permission to buy the other women.”

Amara leans her back against the desk, not liking to remember her conversation with Rufus. “Yes.”

“Why would you do that?” Philos exclaims, and Amara understands with a sense of surprise that he is not grateful but angry. “You made me look like some sort of idiot!”

“He was going to flog you.”