“I don’t like to disrespect your mother,” Dido says. “But I can’t understand her. Better to have starved together. A woman’s honor is the most precious gift she has.” She looks out to sea, as if she half expects to see the North African coastline instead of endless blue. “Every day I want to be home—I dream of it, I see it, I hear my parents’ voices. But it’s impossible. The shame of who I am now. If I went back, it would kill them.”

“My parents didn’t believe all the stories of the gods,” Amara replies. She looks at Dido’s earnest face and for once feels distant from her. She thinks of her father’s work, of his patients—those he saved and those he didn’t—and of the agony of his own death when he knew he was leaving his family behind. She understands the grief Dido feels at the loss of her innocence but doesn’t share the profundity of her shame. “We only have life, nothing else matters beyond that,” she says. “Not honor, not anything. My mother sold me to ensure my survival.”

“And you’re alive,” Victoria says. She reaches over to take Amara’s hand, her grip fierce. Then she smiles, lifting the darkness of the conversation. “But I still think I win this one. You say men are the worst, but it isn’t true! The worst person in this story is that bitch, Niobe. Chremes was just like any other fool, thinking with his cock. Men are so predictable.” Amara looks at Victoria, her profile backlit by the sun, chin raised. Unconquered, she thinks, like her name.

“How do you know you were a rubbish-heap baby?” Dido asks.

“That’s what the other slaves in the house told me,” Victoria replies. “I was the only one who never had a mother.” She shrugs at Dido’s horrified face. “It’s not that bad. Lots of slaves don’t have any parents. Though I did ask why not once, and the cook told me she picked me up when she went to the dump one morning. Thought I was dead until I started screaming. Nearly dropped me with fright.” Victoria glances at Amara. “Your mother was wrong to think being a house slave is a better life than being a concubine. Ask Beronice about her first mistress in Alexandria, if you don’t believe me.”

They turn round to where Beronice was sitting then realize she is still not back. “She’s been a long time getting a drink,” Dido says.

“Shit,” Victoria scrambles to her feet. The others follow. They never make solo trips to the harbor, a group is always safer. So many men who have been cooped up at sea are roaming around, suddenly released on shore, hungry for what they can get. A recipe for violence.