Felix laughs, but Amara senses he is irritated. More, she suspects, at being asked to hurry his business along than at any slight to his manhood. “Your cock’s so small, none of my whores can even find it,” Felix says, pulling her toward him, one hand at the small of her back, the other cradling her face. He kisses her, long enough for the others to start whistling, then slaps her on the backside in an obvious sign of dismissal. “Mind how you go,” he says, already walking away. “I can’t have anything happening to my favorite whore.”

9

“ ‘Tomorrow I’ll start living,’ you say, Postumus: always tomorrow. Tell me, that ‘tomorrow,’ Postumus, when’s it coming? How far off is that ‘tomorrow?’ ”

—Martial, Epigrams 5.58

The cell is the cold, dark of nighttime, even though the sun is still bright outside. Stone walls muffle the noise from the street, making it seem more distant. Amara catches the odd word as voices, raised in argument, pass her window. The hustle and excitement of the Palaestra feels like another world. Lying here on the hard bed, the air still stale with last night’s smoke, she could have passed into Hades, the kingdom of the dead.

The only color on the walls is the light reflected through Victoria’s treasured bottles of perfume, lined up carefully on the windowsill. Everyone uses Victoria’s cell when they work alone here; it’s the biggest and closest to the street. Outside the door, she can hear Fabia sweeping the corridor. The old woman must have scrubbed the entrance to the cell several times over, desperate to be invited in for company and food. Amara thinks of Cressa and heaves herself upright, swinging her legs off the bed.

“Would you like to share some lunch, Fabia?”

There’s the clatter of the broom dropping. The old woman scurries inside. “Only if you have some to spare.”

Fabia sits beside her, watching as Amara portions up the bread, olives and cheese. She says nothing, but her eyes follow every morsel like a starving dog waiting for a careless guest to drop a crumb from the table. The bones of Fabia’s thin hands bulge through her skin as she clasps them together. Amara suspects she is having to physically restrain herself from starting to eat before all the food has been shared out. Lunch with Fabia is never enjoyable. Either you have to eat at the same speed, meaning it’s over too quickly, or endure her agonized staring while she watches you finish. Amara chooses to eat quickly.