“There you are!” he says, his face lighting up. “I knew I’d find you.” His joy and the lack of effort he makes to hide it warm her like wine.

“I bet you say that to all the women at the Vinalia.” She laughs.

“You know that’s not true, Timarete.”

The switch to Greek, as always, hits her harder. “Rusticus is a generous master,” she says. “Letting you wander about a wine festival at will.”

“He is generous. But only to a point. I have an hour, that’s all.”

Amara cannot look away from his face. She thinks about her prayer to Venus Aphrodite. May I know love’s power, if never its sweetness. Perhaps the goddess is punishing her for her arrogance. “Let’s not waste it then,” she says, reaching out to him.

They walk hand in hand through the crowd, not saying anything at first, not even sure where they are going, carried along on a current of shared happiness. “I’ve been to the Sparrow three times since I last saw you,” he says. “That’s every evening I’ve had off. The barman told me you usually only visit during the day.”

“But you kept coming?”

“Of course! A small chance of seeing you is better than none.”

The thought of Menander waiting for her just over the road, while she is powerless to join him, is almost too painful. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” she says.

“Does your master give you any time off for the games? I think he must do; the first game in July is traditionally for slaves too.”

“July?” Amara asks, horrified at the thought of a date so far in the future.

“Can’t you wait that long for me?”

She knows he is teasing her. He has the same air of confidence she remembers at their first meeting when he claimed the lamp in her hands as his own. She smiles, not wanting to give him everything at once. “I expect so.”

They reach the end of the Forum. A musician is playing a slow, melancholy tune on a lyre. Amara watches, imagining the vibration of the strings under her own fingers. “I used to play,” she says. “My father liked me to sing in the evenings. Though only in private,” she adds, hoping he will understand that in Greece, unlike Pompeii, she came from a respectable house.

“Why don’t you ask him to let you borrow it?” Amara laughs, thinking he is joking. “Why not?” he presses. “It’s the Vinalia. You should be free to demand what you like.”

Amara is spared from answering when she spots Dido, now standing alone. Beronice and Gallus are nowhere to be seen. “There’s my friend,” she says, pointing. “We should join her.”

“I remember her,” he says. “She has a beautiful voice.”