She arranged this room to be as unlike Felix’s study as possible, placing the furniture at unfamiliar angles, making everything look different. The walls are white not red, small cupids balancing gracefully at intervals along the walls, one with a harp, another with a bow. Every small, pale figure, each careful brushstroke on their bodies, is more finely drawn than anything in the Wolf Den, yet somehow the images are less vivid than the bulls’ skulls and black plinths she remembers. If she closes her eyes, Amara knows she will see them. There is something about sitting behind a desk that always makes her think of her old master. Even in her dreams, this is how she remembers him. The sharp lines of his body bent over the books, the tilt of his head glancing up, the strength in his hands.

A knock at the door startles her back into the present. “Who is it?”

Martha enters. Amara smiles but her maid only looks at the floor. “Shall I get you ready to see Drusilla, Mistress?” Martha’s accent is so strong, Amara sometimes struggles to understand her.

Martha’s shoulders are rounded, her whole posture hunched. At first Amara had thought the girl was shy, but now she recognizes it as the deliberate withdrawal of the unwilling slave. She herself used that same reticence against Felix. Amara has to stifle her irritation. The girl does not know how lucky she is to be here in this beautiful house, not there, in the brothel.

Martha is Hebrew, captured in Rome’s recent offensive against Masada—or so Philos, the household steward, told Amara. It was Philos who chose which other two slaves should join him here on behalf of his master. Rufus, who owns Martha, has not said anything about her. Slaves are not people to him. He “loaned” all the servants to Amara along with the furniture, and it would no more occur to him to explain their different personalities than he would waste his time describing a history of the tables or lampstands. Amara only hopes Rufus never slept with Martha, although the girl is pretty enough. It might explain why she is so unfriendly.

“Thank you,” Amara says, rising from the desk. “You are good to remind me.”