Elodie Harper - The Wolf Den

Pliny nods. “Very sensible. So you don’t use any charms?”

“No, though some of the others at my establishment do. Another washes herself out with wine and vinegar. The companion I sang with this evening also uses a sponge, like me.”

He scratches away on the wax. “How did you become a… courtesan?”

“Which part of the story do you want?”

“Well,” he says, frowning. “All of it. You started out reading Herophilos to your father in Attica, and now, here you are in Pompeii. I should like to hear everything.”

He is asking for nothing other than her entire life laid bare. Amara isn’t sure whether sex might have been easier. “My father was a doctor in Aphidnai,” she says. “I was his only child. He died when I was fifteen. A disease he caught from one of his patients. My mother tried to support us for a number of years, and when this was no longer possible, she sold me as a house slave to one of my father’s former patrons.”

“Wait a moment.” Pliny holds up his hand. “This makes no sense at all. Why did your mother not simply marry you off as quickly as possible? They must have been expecting you would marry soon anyway, at that age. You were an only child, what about the dowry?”

He has managed, inevitably, to hit on one of the most shameful parts of her story. “My father did not always charge his patients as he should have,” she says, feeling the need even now to defend him for his neglect. “The debts we expected to call in were never paid. And he had significant debts of his own. What dowry there was, my mother spent to provide for us both.”

Pliny is outraged. “But this was the most terrible negligence! From both of them!” He sees the distress on her face. “No, I am sorry, go on. You were sold as a house slave. What then.”

“My mother left the money she was paid for my sale with my possessions,” Amara says, wanting at least to clear her mother of greed. “But my new master took it, and he did not use me as a house slave, as promised , but as a concubine.” Pliny rolls his eyes, as if amazed anyone could have been duped into imagining otherwise. “I was there perhaps a year, but his wife became jealous and sold me as a whore. I was taken to Puteoli and sold there at the market to the pimp who runs the town brothel. That is how I am here.”

“The journey of the mind is always stranger than that of the body,” Pliny says, cryptically. “How have you adjusted? You must have spent your early life imagining becoming… what? A respected wife? A mother?”

“I knew that was my duty.”

“What did you want then, if not that?”

“What I wanted was idle daydreaming,” she says. Pliny huffs, impatient at her quibbling. Amara gives up. “I wanted to be a doctor,” she says. “Like my father. I just assumed this was going to happen because of all the hours he had me spend reading his texts. I had not understood. Then when I mentioned it one day, he explained that, of course, this was not possible.”

“That isn’t strictly true,” Pliny replies. “Certainly, you could not have practised medicine like your father, but there have always been women scholars, philosophers, living modest enough lives. Especially in Attica. But I understand his concern at the irregularity. Though,” he mutters, clearly still irritated by her parents, “that was all the more reason to have saved up the dowry.” He puts down the tablets, glancing round at his books. “Do you have a good reading voice?”

“I suppose I must have.”

“Excellent. You can help me a little, while you are here.” He switches to Greek. “We can even read Herophilos, if you wish. I’m minded to include him in my Natural History .”

Pliny’s accent is appalling, but his Greek is perfectly fluent. “I should like that so much,” she says, smiling at him. “It would be a pleasure for me.”

He smiles too, evidently satisfied with how the evening has gone. “Now, I will be up reading for a few hours,” he says, getting off the bed. “But please don’t let that disturb you. Feel free to sleep while I work.”

“Where would you like me to… sleep?”

“On the bed , of course,” Pliny says, exasperation creeping into his voice. He sits at his desk. It’s angled so that he can still see her. Amara makes a show of getting under the covers and half closes her eyes, watching him from under lowered eyelashes. Pleased to see her settled, Pliny turns back to his scrolls and ignores her. She fully intends to stay awake, but the rustle of parchment, the sound of the fountain and the smell of jasmine are all so soothing, she has soon drifted off.

She is still half asleep when she feels his fingers run through her hair. “You’ve not left me much room,” he whispers.

Instantly, she is alert. “Oh!” she exclaims, realizing she must have sprawled across the entire bed in her sleep. “Sorry,” she scrambles to the other side.

Pliny slips in beside her. “It’s a gift, to sleep well,” is all he says.

They lie next to each other in the dark. Amara has no idea what time of night, or perhaps morning, it is. She can sense from his extreme stillness and shallow breathing that Pliny is also fully awake. It is difficult to know what he might want, but Amara feels she had better suspect the obvious rather than offend him. She shuffles over, placing her hand gently on his arm. “I’m so grateful you invited me,” she says.

“You are a delightful girl,” he replies. Amara knows he is looking at her, but his face is obscured in the darkness. She leans over and kisses him. He has dry, papery lips. Pliny doesn’t respond to her kiss, but he doesn’t shove her off either. She relaxes, letting her body rest on his, while her hand travels across his thigh. Immediately, he stops her, catching her by the wrist. “There’s… no need.”

“I only want to please you,” she says, moving away, so she is no longer lying against him. “I didn’t mean to presume.”

“I understand,” he says, kissing her hand with his dry lips and releasing her wrist. “But there’s no need. It’s a pleasure for me simply to have you here.” He stretches out his own hand and rests it on her waist. It’s the only part of their bodies that is touching, though he is so close she can see the dark of his eyes and feel the warmth of his breath. “What lovely soft skin you have,” he says.

Amara remains braced in the same position, expecting that perhaps he wanted to be the one doing the seducing, until she realizes, as his hand grows heavier and his breathing deeper, that he is asleep.

She gently lifts his arm, moving his hand from her body and placing it on the bed, then shuffles away slightly, not wanting to roll into him later by mistake. Amara closes her eyes. She thinks this is going to be a very pleasant week.

Pliny is stroking his fingers through her hair. The sensation wakes her. She opens her eyes to see him staring down at her. Daylight is less forgiving of his age. There is grey hair on his bare chest and an oddly intent expression on his face. She wonders how long he has been watching her.

“I’m so glad you don’t dye your hair like so many silly women,” he says, by way of greeting. “Yours is such a lovely natural shade. Soft like a squirrel.” He leans over and gives her a dry kiss on the nose.

He is such a bewildering mixture of affectionate and creepy, Amara isn’t sure what to say. “Thank you,” she manages, hoping he will stop looming over her soon, so she can sit upright and move away.