Elodie Harper - The Wolf Den

“I’m sorry. It is terrible to lose one you love.”

Salvius waves a hand, as if to minimize his grief. “I am sure you have lost family too.” She inclines her head, not wishing to speak of her parents, or Aphidnai. He drains his glass and stands. “Well then.” Amara puts her own glass down, untouched, and rises. The slave boy jolts awake as they pass then gets up wearily to clear the table.

Salvius takes a candle to light the way to his bedroom. It’s dark in the narrow corridor, and she picks her way carefully behind him. He pushes open the door. The room is gloomy after the well-lit dinner, but Amara’s eyes adjust, and she makes out a woman’s clothes spread over the bed. She does not ask who they belong to.

Salvius sets down the candle on a small table and picks up his wife’s robe. “Would you perhaps mind…?”

She takes it from him. He turns away as she changes. It makes her shiver, wrapping herself in a dead woman’s clothes. The sadness of her own loneliness, of Salvius’s grief, brings a lump to her throat.

“That’s her perfume over there.” Amara picks up the bottle, dabs a little on her neck. Salvius stares at her. “You look so like her.” He sighs. “Is there someone you would like me to… I mean, I can pretend to be someone else, if that’s easier?”

Of all the things Amara expected him to say, this was perhaps the last. The wall outside The Sparrow blazes into her mind, the new graffiti she spotted there only this morning. Kallias greets his Timarete . “No,” she says, emphatically. “That wouldn’t help.”

“I’m sorry,” Salvius says. “But is there, perhaps, at least a memory of being with somebody you liked?”

“No.”

“You have never been with a man by choice?”

“No.” The simplicity of his question and the truth of her answer hits her with unexpected force. She turns her face away.

“I’m sorry,” Salvius says. He sits down on the bed. Amara sits beside him, unsure what to say.

“It’s not your fault,” she says at last. “I am still happy to be here with you.”

“You don’t have to pretend,” he says, taking her hand. “You must have to do a lot of pretending.” She doesn’t contradict him. “Have you ever… felt anything?”

Has she ever felt anything? What a question. A thousand answers crowd her mind. All the sensations of her life as a prostitute: disgust, panic, the obliterating blankness. An aversion to being touched so intense she is amazed she has got through a single night at the brothel without screaming, without fighting the men off. But she knows this is not what Salvius is asking. “No,” she says quietly. “I never feel anything.”

They sit together in silence. “Sabina was very afraid at first,” he says. “It took her a long time to get used to being together.” He puts his arms around her, drawing her closer. She wonders who he is seeing when he looks at her – the woman in front of him, or his dead wife. “Amara,” he says, as if answering her question. “I will try and make this pleasant for you. All I ask is that you don’t pretend,” He brushes a strand of hair from her face, correcting himself. “Don’t feel you have to pretend.”

Victoria’s singing wakes her in the morning. For a while, Amara lies in her cell, listening to the sound, the sweetness of the voice so at odds with the harsh reality of the singer’s life. She knows almost nothing about Victoria’s past. At least she and Dido were loved once, and she knows Beronice and Cressa spent the first few years of childhood with their mothers, but Victoria has never belonged to anyone but an owner. Yet every morning, she sings her heart out, filling this dark place with joy. Amara wonders where Victoria learnt so many tunes. She realizes how much she has missed their friendship since her change of fortune at the Vinalia.

She gets out of bed, dressing herself quickly, and slips into the corridor. The compacted mud floor under her feet is hard and cool. She stands at Victoria’s door a moment before drawing the curtain back. “Can I come in?”

Victoria’s singing stops abruptly. “Suit yourself.”

“What was last night like?”

“The usual. Have a nice party ?”

“It was dinner above the ironmonger’s. Not really a party.”

“Still. Dinner , though,” Victoria says, face turned aside as she does her hair. “In a house. With free wine. Better than one meal a day.”

Amara pauses, wondering how much she owes Salvius for his kindness last night. “The customer got me to dress up as his dead wife. In this musty old robe.” She sees Victoria hesitate, knows there’s nothing she finds so irresistible as a ridiculous sex story. “Had the perfume out ready and everything.”

Victoria gives in to curiosity, puts down the hairbrush. “You’re joking .”

“Asked who I wanted him to pretend to be.”

Victoria laughs. “I hope you said Jupiter. In his form as a pile of fucking gold.”

“What are you two sniggering about?” Beronice stands, bleary-eyed in the doorway.

“Just a customer,” Victoria says. “Remember what they are? Before Gallus?”

“You know I had at least three last night,” Beronice says, offended. “Including that really annoying idiot from the laundry. What’s his name again?”

“Fabius,” Victoria says. Amara wonders how she keeps track of all the names. “He’s not so bad.”

“She got drunk again ,” Beronice mutters, leaning out into the corridor and looking back at Cressa’s cell. “I don’t know where she finds the money. She’ll drink every last penny she’s ever saved at this rate.”

“Wasn’t Cosmus born about this time of year? She’s probably missing him.” Victoria goes back to brushing her hair. “Did Fabius have his usual cry afterwards?”

Beronice sits down heavily on the bed. “So boring ,” she says.

“That’s why you have to get them in the right mood!” Victoria says. “You can’t blame him for crying, not if you’re lying there with your sour I’d-rather-be-with-my-boyfriend face. At least make a bit of effort.”

Beronice doesn’t defend herself but lies in a slump. “He slapped me,” she says.

“What? Fabius ?” Victoria is shocked. “He’s such a weed!”

“No. Gallus,” Beronice looks miserable. “He says I enjoy it too much. The other men, I mean.”

“What does he expect you to do? Wail and moan about your lost virtue all night? Prick.”

“ Do you enjoy it?” Amara blurts out. They both stare at her.

“What a question!” Victoria says. “You sound like a customer, Amara.”

“But, I mean…” She stops, unsure what she wants to say. Last night with Salvius had hardly been a revelation. She didn’t feel pleasure, in spite of his considerable efforts. But it hadn’t been totally un pleasant either. For the first time, she had had an inkling that it might be different, if the man were different.

“Was there more to this dead-wife fuck than you’re telling us?” Victoria asks.

“ Dead wife ?” Beronice says.

“You told them about Salvius then?” It’s Dido leaning against the doorway. Victoria shoves Beronice along to make room for Dido to sit on the bed, leaving Amara the only one standing. All three of them are looking at her.

“Please don’t tell us you’re in love with a man who gets you to dress up as his dead wife,” Victoria says.

“No!” Amara says. “Although, I do quite like him. As a friend.”

“A friend ?” Beronice repeats in disbelief.

“Would you marry him if he asked you to be wife number two?” Victoria is enjoying her role as prosecutor.