Dinner is, unsurprisingly, a shorter affair than usual. It is less of a saunter to Cornelius’s brothel, more a stampede. Other hired women are already waiting, no doubt booked by Egnatius to make sure none of the guests go short. Amara is disappointed Fuscus does not take her to a private room; she supposes he has made an exception to his usual preference not to be watched, confident that the other men, like him, will be more interested in watching the dancers than each other. Ipstilla and Telethusa flit between the lavish cells, putting on a performance for the men while they have sex, but not, Amara thinks bitterly, having to endure being used themselves.

She is not afraid of Fuscus, but when he maneuvers her into a painfully awkward position, purely to get a better view of Telethusa, she realizes the distance between him and Trebius is not as great as she imagined. Her body, which is too familiar to be exciting on its own, is a means to heighten his pleasure in the dancers. She is trapped by him, his weight like the waves of the sea, pushing her under. She thinks of Cressa, lost beneath the water, and turns her face to the side, gripping the expensive fabric on the bed. At the edge of her vision, she can see the flash of Telethusa’s legs as she dances. Felix put this woman here, she thinks. All the gold she has earned him, and he spent it on diminishing her value. He destroys everything in the end.

36

“Suns when they sink can rise again,

But we, when our brief light has shone

Must sleep the long night on and on.”

—Catullus, Poem 5

Amara can hear Thraso before she sees him. Gallus is leading them back home in the dark, although this street, with its bars and brothel, is never so dark as the others. A small crowd is gathered around the foot of a ladder. It stands propped against the wall, just round the corner from their own front door, and a shrieking woman is trying to shake it, stopped only by drunken bystanders. At the top, Thraso bellows down at her, clinging onto a rung with one hand and waving a hammer with the other.

“What the fuck?” Gallus says, raising his lamp to illuminate the scene.

Amara takes Dido’s hand, and they draw closer together, but Ipstilla and Telethusa seem excited at the prospect of a row, bouncing up and down to get a better view. Both are still ecstatic over their success at Cornelius’s house. Even Egnatius tipped them for their performance, something Amara has never seen him do before.

“What’s this?” Gallus yells, barging into the crowd. He grabs the shrieking woman’s shoulder. “Are you trying to fucking kill him?”