Dido helps her up. “Thank you,” she says, answering for Amara who hasn’t spoken. “We appreciate it.” They walk out onto the balcony, and Dido slips an arm around her. “You shouldn’t be so afraid. He wasn’t angry today.”

“I don’t think you can ever know with Felix,” she mutters as they head down the corridor.

“Amara.”

His voice stops them. Felix is standing in the doorway of his room. “A moment, before your singing. There is something I forgot to ask. No, not you,” he says as Dido turns to go back with her. “Take the lyre for her.”

Amara watches her own feet cross the painted wooden floor as she walks toward him. He takes her hand, guiding her over the threshold. “You didn’t tell her,” he says when they are inside. Amara says nothing. She knows it isn’t a question. He takes her chin between his finger and thumb, forcing her to look up. “There are many ways to spill a secret. Especially if you sit there like a quivering sheep. Do you understand?”

“You are threatening me not to be frightened?”

“That’s better. A bit of temper.”

She isn’t sure what she hates more, feeling afraid of him or sliding into familiarity. She pushes his hand away. “One of the waitresses at the Elephant wants a loan from you,” she says. “Two denarii.”

“Two denarii? Why chase small change like that when you will be making me seventy next week?”

“It’s all money. Nobody got rich turning down a deal.”

“What’s the debt for?”

“An abortion.”

“And she can afford it?”

“She says so.”

“Like your fast-food seller.” Felix crosses to the desk, looks through the drawers until he finds the agreement with Marcella. “We’re still waiting for her. I didn’t think you were meant to be taking on any more debtors until the first had paid up?”

“But her loan isn’t due yet.”

“Don’t try it. You know her instalments have been too light. And I never accept late payments, particularly not from a woman.” He smiles, as if suddenly remembering he is not meant to be threatening. “But then, of course, it’s you who is collecting her payment, isn’t it? So she is quite safe. Until the day it’s late. Then the debt is mine.”

17

“Trickles of acacia pomade ran down his sweaty forehead and there was so much powder in the wrinkles on his cheeks he looked like a peeling wall in a thunderstorm.”

—Petronius, The Satyricon

The room still holds the heat of the spring day and is much more crowded than Amara was expecting. A troop of mime actresses, all of them naked save for garlands of flowers, are practicing their routine. She and Dido look overdressed in comparison, with their silvery robes and gilded bodies. One of the actresses glances at them sidelong then turns back to her friends, laughing through pretty fingers.