There’s a pause. “I’ll go,” Amara offers. She is just as desperate as the others for a wash, but she owes Cressa for rescuing her, Dido had a terrible night and Beronice was trapped inside most of yesterday. Although given her affair with Gallus, this may not have been such a sacrifice after all.

“Take my savings,” says Cressa. “We can split the cost when you get back.”

Fabia is sweeping the floor when they step out into the corridor. Not for the first time, Amara wonders where she slept that night. She has found her huddled on the back doorstep before, wrapped in nothing but her cloak. The old woman smiles at them. “Don’t you all look beautiful,” she says.

Fabia helps the four who are going out to tidy up their hair. Even though they are not fishing, Felix hates his women to wander about town looking a mess. “You’ll never need paste for your lips,” Fabia says to Amara, as she straightens up her yellow toga, fastening it with a cheap pin. “They’re bright as pomegranate seeds. You’re so lucky.” Amara wonders what Fabia looked like when she was young. Her face is not just lined, but beaten, like the ruts in the road where the carts have repeatedly run over the stones. It can’t help that she has such a shit for a son.

“Can I bring you back anything to eat?” Amara asks.

“Gallus brought me some bread yesterday,” Fabia replies. “Don’t you worry.”

Thraso is slumped half asleep on the doorstep when they leave. His lip looks a little better than yesterday, but his nose is still swollen. He asks where they are all going and heaves himself up to check whether the tale of broken lamps is true. Once his surly permission has been granted, they set off. Amara says goodbye to the others a few paces down the road at the entrance to the women’s baths then makes for the pottery shop on the Via Pompeiiana, Cressa’s leather purse tied around her waist.

Last night was dry, and the water level on the road has dropped. It no longer resembles a canal. Instead, the wet surface shines silver in the glare of the late morning light. The town is already busy. It’s not often Amara has an excuse to venture out by herself. She lingers as she passes the doorways of Pompeii’s wealthiest homes, stealing a look inside whenever a tall wooden door is left ajar. She catches the sparkle of fountains, glimpses of winter gardens and elaborate mosaics which sweep up to the edge of the street. Her parent’s house in Aphidnai was not so grand, but some of the homely touches—a woman sitting spinning in the atrium, a sleeping dog—remind her of what she has lost.