Elodie Harper - The Wolf Den

Pliny inclines his head in acknowledgement. “I understand. Forgive me.”

When it is too dark and chill to stay longer in the garden, they walk back up to Pliny’s room. There are even more scrolls scattered about than she remembers. “Ah, I forgot,” he says, pointing to a pile of women’s clothes. “I had them find you some more suitable things.”

“Thank you,” she says, resisting the urge to pick them up and see what he has given her. “I will wear them tomorrow. You are so kind to me.”

He watches her get undressed, with the same intent expression that she remembers from the morning. Amara hopes that he wants her, that this evening he will not move away. She knows that it is not him she has fallen in love with – it is the gardens, the beauty of the life he possesses – but there is no focus for her desire other than the man in front of her. In spite of her efforts undressing, he does not join her on the bed, instead sitting down at his desk to work.

“Could I not read for you?” she asks

“You must be tired,” he answers. “I would not expect you to sit up reading all night.”

“Please,” she says. “I would like to.”

He hesitates then passes her the scroll he is studying. “From there,” he says, indicating the point in the text with his thumb.

This time there is no Secundus to bring her discreet glasses of water and the treatise on plants is unfamiliar and even worse, the scribe’s handwriting is cramped and hard to decipher. More than once, she hears Pliny wince or tut impatiently as she stumbles over a phrase, but still, Amara reads on and on, until she thinks she will lose her voice or fall asleep exhausted over the parchment. Finally, he has had enough and gets ready for bed. “I see we are alike in our avoidance of sleep,” he says. “It always seems a kind of death to me.”

She lies closer to him as he gets in beside her, hoping he will put an arm round her. He doesn’t. “Amara is not a name I have heard before,” he says, when they are lying facing one another in the dark. “I take it it is not your real name.”

“My master gave it to me,” she says, and the mention of Felix is like the cold of a knife laid flat against her heart. “He told me it is halfway between love and bitterness.”

“Yes, amare , amarum ,” he says. “A bit poetic for a pimp.”

Pliny rests his hand in the hollow of her waist, the same as he did last night, and she is afraid he is going to fall asleep. She leans towards him, so that his hand slides into the small of her back and kisses him. His lips are as dry and unmoving as before. She kisses him again, trying to imagine he is Menander, that he will respond to her like Menander, but instead, he pushes her gently away.

“I just want to please you.” It’s a line that she has repeated endlessly to so many customers without a trace of sincerity. This time she wishes the need wasn’t so abject in her voice.

“You do please me,” he says, as if humouring a child. “I like looking at you; you are very lovely.” He runs his fingers slowly through her hair, the same way he did when he woke her in the morning. “I don’t feel the need for more.”

He must be impotent , she thinks, and finds the idea neither disturbs nor reassures her. She is too exhausted and the bed is too comfortable for her to mind anymore about the puzzle of Pliny. She falls asleep, lulled by the sensation of him still stroking her head.

Time passes like a silk ribbon through her fingers. Every hour spent as Pliny’s guest sees her fall more deeply in love with his life, her days an endless procession of pleasures. She bathes alone in the private bath suite, has her hair dressed each morning, eats freely without considering the price of the food. Slowly, she feels her own body return to her. Nobody touches her without permission, still less with violence. In the beautiful garden, the brothel’s ugliness starts to take on a sense of unreality. But she still knows it is there, like the fading bruise on her arm.

Pliny becomes the obsessive focus of her hopes. She never spends as much time with him as she did on her first day – he is often busy receiving guests or dining out – but every night, she reads to him and falls asleep under the weight of his hand. She sits in the shadow of the colonnade, watching silently when guests call on him in the garden, trying to learn more about his habits, his views, anything that might allow her to make herself indispensable to him. He would be a good master, she tells herself, imagining her life as his secretary. Even if he lost interest in her, if she became a half-forgotten beautiful object in his home, something to set alongside the flowers or the fountains, her voice would still be useful to him, he would still treat her with kindness. Sometimes, alone in the garden, she thinks of the other women, of Dido most of all, and she longs to talk to her. Then she is flooded by guilt at her planned abandonment. She tells herself elaborate lies: that if Pliny bought her, she would persuade him to buy Dido too, that her own good fortune could be shared. She tries not to think of Menander, the memories are as painful to hold as burning firewood.

On her sixth day at Pliny’s house, her fear of being sent back to the brothel is so intense, she cannot read. He has said nothing about her leaving but has not mentioned extending her stay either. She is sitting silently in the garden, hidden in the shadows, when two of Pliny’s acquaintances visit.

They stand gossiping by the fountain as they wait for him. It is a while before she realizes what they are talking about.

“… I don’t know why he picked her up. Only Pliny could be so eccentric, taking home some funny little Greek girl who sang at a party.”

Startled, she turns her attention to the speaker. He is much younger than Pliny, with an arrogant, self-satisfied air. He reminds her of Quintus.

His companion has his back to her, but she can hear the amusement in his voice. “Caecilius saw her when he dropped in this week. Quite pretty, he said, but perfectly ridiculous. So lovelorn she was practically quivering, gazing at the admiral with tragic dormouse eyes. And Pliny paid her no mind at all!”

The first man snorts with stifled laugher. “Well, you have to hand it to him. I’ll be quite happy if I can fuck a whore into a state of devotion at that age.”

“The old boy’s put a bit of weight on. Let’s hope she doesn’t give him a heart attack.”

The men’s mockery doesn’t hurt Amara, but her powerlessness does. Across the garden, standing silently in the colonnade, she realizes Secundus is also listening. His exact role in Pliny’s life is unclear to her, but she soon guessed that he is more than a steward – he is his master’s eyes and ears. She can see from his face, usually so inscrutable, that he is angry. The two men carry on chatting idly at the fountain, oblivious to the two slaves listening. Secundus looks at her. He has always known she was there. He smiles, inclining his head slightly towards the men. She knows then that whatever favour the pair came to seek from the admiral today will not be granted.

It is Secundus who tells her later that Pliny will dine alone with her that night.

“Do you think he would like me to sing for him?” she asks.

“I think he enjoys your reading voice most,” Secundus replies, tactfully. “He has told me how helpful you have been, reading to him for hours, long into the night without any complaint.”

“It has only been a pleasure for me.”

The look Secundus gives her has more than a little pity in it. Her sense of foreboding grows.

Pliny is in a good mood at dinner, more than usually solicitous about what she has been reading, complimenting her, even, at one point, kissing her hand, the only sign of physical affection he has ever shown her outside his bedroom.