She finds herself laughing at this world where the slaves are cleverer than their masters, and the men love women to distraction. She remembers Rufus telling her he admired the theater for telling the truth—can he really think the world is like this? On stage, she watches as an actor disguises himself as a eunuch in order to rape the slave girl he fancies. He is a tall man, lisping and mincing to convince everyone he is safe to leave with the young virgin. Laughter ripples round the theater at the absurdity and audacity of the joke.

“The comic timing!” Rufus whispers to her. “It’s perfect.”

The girl’s exaggerated screams off stage cause further titters of amusement. Rufus laughs with the rest. Amara sits listening to the actress’s cries, a fixed smile on her face. Perhaps comedy is a mirror after all.

The sky turns a deeper blue, and the shadows on stage lengthen. Rufus is caressing her hand, teasing out the shape of her fingers with his own. She had worried, before this evening, about being out of place in a respectable crowd. Victoria had insisted she let her make some changes to the white robe Pliny gave her—“You don’t want Rufus thinking he’s taken his mother! At least show a bit of shoulder.”—and now she is grateful to her friend. Many of the women here are obviously courtesans, out with wealthy lovers. Her eye is drawn to one woman, sitting with the poise of a queen, her robes elegantly dipped at the back to show the line of her dark brown shoulder blades. Amara shuffles on her seat, trying to pull her own dress a little further down her arm.

The play’s end surprises her. Thais gets to keep both her lovers—the one she likes and the one who pays. She looks at Rufus who is cheering enthusiastically. Perhaps her life will disturb him less than she feared. He turns to her, face lit with excitement. “Did you like it?”

“It was wonderful!” she exclaims. “I cannot think of a happier evening!”

“I’m so glad,” he says, kissing her hand. “I hoped you would.”

They spill back out onto the streets with the rest of the audience. Laughter and conversation warm the evening air. Amara can see a small crowd pressed around Marcella’s bar and instinctively turns away.

“Is there somewhere to entertain privately at your place?” Rufus asks. He has not yet been to the brothel—one of his slaves was sent to collect her.

“Oh!” Amara says, looking horrified. “We couldn’t go there!” She imagines Rufus stepping into the narrow, sooty corridor, greeted by some vomiting laundryman, embracing her to the sound of Victoria’s moaning, the air stagnant with the smell from the latrine. She would never see him again. “It’s a terrible place!”