“I trust him,” Amara says. “I don’t believe he would do that to me.” She hopes it is true. She feels too ashamed to admit the truth to Drusilla. That she is so lonely she cannot bear to be distant with Philos, to admit that he is Rufus’s servant and not her friend. Who else is there in the house for her to talk to? “How is Primus?” she asks, changing the subject.

“Oh!” Drusilla claps her hands, face shining with delight. “He’s doing so well with his letters! Such a clever boy. Come, come, I’ll take you to see him. He will love to show off to you.” She leaps off the couch, holding out her hand. Amara takes it and lets Drusilla lead her down the stairs.

They cross the atrium, heading out into the garden. Primus is roaming through the flowers, prattling about a bee, waving a small chubby hand, watched over by his nurse. He looks so like his mother. The same dimples when he smiles, the large, dark eyes. Drusilla flings her arms out and the little boy runs over, hugging her round the knees. Amara smiles. She didn’t even know about the existence of Primus until a month after Rufus freed her. Drusilla guards her child from all but her closest friends.

“What have you learned today?” Drusilla is asking him. “What can you tell Mummy?”

“Bees live in palaces of wax!” he declares, looking up at his mother and then at Amara, as if daring her to contradict him. “They turn flowers into honey!”

Drusilla gazes adoringly at her son as he relays his three-year-old’s wisdom with a great deal of self-importance. Amara had been shocked when she learned who the child’s father is. Popidus is a Pompeiian grandee, one so ancient Primus must be many years younger than his father’s legitimate grandchildren. The old man does not recognize Drusilla’s son as his own.

Sitting with her friend, watching the child play in the garden, Amara can almost imagine that her life is now one of blissful security. But even though he is absent, she can still feel Rufus’s hands holding her up . . . and knows he has the power to let her fall. It is his money which brought her here; he pays for Drusilla’s time, and Amara knows she would never have won such a valued place in her friend’s life if she had had a less prestigious lover. When they meet at the Venus Baths, Drusilla is always surrounded by other, less powerful concubines. Amara is just one of many women in her orbit.