“Don’t send me back,” Amara says, the words coming unprepared and unbidden. “I beg you, please, please don’t.” He looks at her in surprise, and her sense of desperation grows. She clasps his hand, pressing it against her heart. “I would be loyal to you; I would give my life to your service, I would be the most devoted secretary you could ever wish. I would be anything you wanted, go anywhere you asked.”

“My dear girl,” Pliny says, “there is no need for this . . .”

“Please don’t send me away from you,” Amara says, losing all sense of dignity, falling to her knees and weeping into the palms of his hands. “Please. You could buy me from my master. I would read to you every night, dedicate every hour to your work. I would never sleep in your service.”

“You do have the most beautiful voice,” Pliny says. She looks up at him and sees that for a moment he is wavering, considering her offer. Then he looks down. “But I already have a number of secretaries. I don’t know what place there would be for you. I have already asked you everything I need to know for my work. And you know I’m not a man to keep a concubine, enchanting as you are.” He helps her to her feet, seats her beside him. “It is very sweet of you to make such an offer. I am touched by your loyalty. But I cannot accept.”

She collapses, weeping, onto the couch beside him. He rests a hand on her shoulder. “Amara, please, control yourself. There is no sense to this at all.”

But she cannot control herself, and the beautiful garden is filled with the ugly sound of her hysterical crying. Eventually, when she is completely exhausted and her eyes too swollen for more tears, he suggests retiring to bed. He seems weary, irritated even, by her emotion.

“It’s a shame to have wasted your last evening,” he says, watching her undress. “I’ve already explained it to you. It’s not that I don’t find you delightful, but there’s just no place for you in my household. And really, I’m an old man. You must want something else, surely? Plenty of courtesans end up married, or settled in some way, in the end.”

“I don’t want anything else,” Amara says, lying down heavily on the bed, her limbs weighted with misery. She can already feel the walls of the brothel closing in on her.

For once, he does not head straight to his books but lies down beside her. He props himself on one elbow, leaning over her, and runs a hand through her hair. “You’re an intelligent girl. You must understand.”