The wooden box is no longer under Rufus’s bed; it sits in front of her. She opens it. Folded above the jewelry is a letter from Pliny to Rufus. She picks it up. Words jump out at her “. . . the attagen, also of Iona is a famous bird; but although it has a voice, at other times, it is mute in captivity . . .” And so it goes on. There is almost no mention of Amara in the letter. Pliny built his case for her freedom by calling on a multitude of birds, perhaps feeling more comfortable making his argument in abstract terms. But she knows what a gift it is. Not only that he paid toward her freedom, but that he gave her his name.

It was the name, not the money, that mattered in the end. Caught between his father’s refusal, and Amara’s desperation to be free, Rufus had written to the admiral, asking his advice about what he should do. It was Pliny who had introduced him to Amara in the first place, so surely, he would know. Pliny responded with unimaginable generosity. “I never asked him for the money,” Rufus has told her, over and over again. “And I did pay half, so it’s not like you didn’t cost me anything.” Amara is beginning to suspect that, for Rufus, the pleasure of opening his hands to see the bird fly will never be quite as satisfying as feeling its fragile form beneath his fingers.

He did not enjoy her grief after Dido’s death. It wasn’t a pretty flurry of tears he could kiss away, but a frenzy of pain and hysteria that swamped her gratitude and his glory. He let Philos take her back here to recover herself. She spent the first two days of the Saturnalia alone, save for a handful of slaves. Rufus has ‘lent’ them all to her. Philos is the only one she knows.

She cannot remember much of that first night, other than the agony, but the following day is stamped on her memory. She was huddled here, in this study, wrapped in a pile of blankets, when Philos brought her hot wine. A drink was the only consolation he had to offer. He stood at the very edge of the room, not getting too close to her, nothing like the man who once offered her his arm on the street. It was as if the sight of her frightened him.

“You can’t be like this when he comes for you,” he said, not looking at her face. “He planned that night for weeks, imagining all your joy, all the adulation. And instead, he got grief and disappointment. I know you loved her. But Rufus will never understand. She was just a pretty slave to him. You will have to mourn her in private.”