He seems nice enough, this Publius, the baker’s man. Perhaps he has a wife at home, a family. Would she tear him apart? Amara doesn’t even have to ask herself the question. She rises, looking down on her breathless lover, eyes glittering orange in the lamplight. If the only way out requires working with Felix, then so be it. Whatever it takes.

APRILIS

12

“Celebrate the power of Venus, girls of the street; Venus is appropriate for the earnings of women who promise a lot. With an offering of incense ask for beauty and popular favor, ask for seductiveness and words that are fit for fun. And give your mistress pleasing mint along with her own myrtle, and bonds of reed covered with well-arranged roses.”

—Ovid, Fasti IV

Amara is caught in a river of women, unable to break from the flow, even if she wanted to. There are so many of them, they have burst the banks of the pavements and spilled over into the road. Mud is splashing up her legs, but she doesn’t care. They are a noisy crowd, singing, laughing, wrists and ankles jingling with bells. The sweet smell of mint mingles with the reek of sweat. She would never have suspected Pompeii had so many prostitutes.

Out of sight at the front of the procession, musicians blow their shrill pipes, and her blood pulses to its beat. She squeezes Dido’s fingers. The kohl she drew around her friend’s dark brown eyes has smudged a little but that only makes them look wider. Neither have watched the Vinalia before, still less taken part. The April festival of whores and wine is hardly an event a respectable girl would attend, or even try to glimpse from the window.

Plenty of others are watching though. People stand bunched together outside shopfronts or hang out of balconies to see the women pass. Men loiter at the edges of the procession, drinking and shouting, vying for a chance to grab a kiss or maybe more. Amara knows Felix, Thraso and Gallus will be weaving through the crowds, keeping watch, even when she cannot see them. After all, the women aren’t just here to celebrate but to sell. Everything in Pompeii turns to making a profit.

“Keep up!” Victoria yells, looking back over her shoulder. She is almost naked and has dressed her hair in myrtle, Venus’s own flowers. Amara knows how much this day means to Victoria. To spend your life classed as infamia, unable—even if you win your freedom—to rub off the taint is a shame that can eat into your bones if you let it. But the Vinalia upends the usual order. Today, they own the streets. Nobody can deny the whores’ importance to Pompeii’s most powerful patron.