Elodie Harper - The Wolf Den

Amara thinks immediately of Menander. “Yes,” she lies.

“And at the admiral’s house, you two didn’t… I mean, you and Pliny…”

“No. He never touched me. Not like that.”

“Right,” Rufus says in relief. “You just seemed so fond of the old man. I had to wonder. He must have a will of iron, keeping his hands to himself with you round.”

“He knew about my past,” she says. “He felt my life had not taken its right path.”

Rufus nods. “Terence writes about that, the mistakes that are made. When a girl isn’t meant to be a slave. Were you kidnapped?” He asks, an idea suddenly striking him. “Then you might not really be a slave at all. If one could prove it.”

For a moment, Amara thinks of borrowing Dido’s life story, taking it as her own. But she has already told Pliny the truth and cannot risk discovery. “No. I lost my father and everything else with him.”

“My poor darling,” Rufus says, kissing her again. He is a little bolder this time, easing her back on the couch, his hand creeping up her leg. She stops him.

“You can take what you want,” she says. “We both know it. But wouldn’t you rather it was given?” She kisses him to soften the rejection. “Wouldn’t you rather wait? If it was given along with my heart?”

Amara knows she is gambling, and the dice are not weighted in her favour. Rufus has every reason to feel irritated. He has paid Felix for her; he was promised sex, and now she is asking him to treat her like a virginal heroine in a play. But her lies have the intensity of truth. She gazes at him with wide, dark eyes.

“Yes,” Rufus says, touching his fingers to her lips. “I would like to win your heart.”

Four of Rufus’s slaves, including Vitalio, escort her back to the brothel. She feels the irony in knowing that the place they are taking her is not much safer than the darkened streets. The five of them walk quickly, the slaves’ torches throwing out fingers of light, brushing the houses as they pass by. Nobody speaks.

She thinks of Rufus, feels a sense of elation shot through with anxiety at the memory of his kiss goodbye. The tender way he tucked the jasmine back behind her ear before she left, his wholehearted acceptance of the part she offered him. She could almost love him for the gift he has given her: granting her the illusion of being a person and not a slave. But she knows it is an illusion, and the fantasy they have created together is fragile. It would be so easy to care for him, to forget how little she really has. Now begins the painstaking journey of discovering how he might help her escape. It’s not a journey on which she can afford to have feelings.

The screaming is like nothing she has ever heard. Fear grips Amara, and she runs to the door, terrified one of her friends is being murdered, but Thraso looks perfectly calm.

“Just the new girl,” he says, with a shrug.

She pushes past him, finds Victoria, Dido and Cressa huddled in the corridor.

“It’s Britannica,” Cressa says, her face wet with tears. “I can’t bear it.”

“What are they doing to her? What’s happening?”

“Nothing!” Victoria snaps. “Nothing that the rest of us don’t have to put up with. She’s fucking crazy!” Britannica is shouting, screaming in her own language, calling Cressa’s name. Even though none of them understand her words, they know she is begging for help. Victoria grabs Cressa’s arm to stop her responding. “You can’t ,” she says. “What are you going to do? Tell them to stop and Felix will pay their money back?”

Dido bursts into tears. “We can’t just leave her. There are two of them in there!”

“Two men?” Amara is appalled.

“She was fighting so much,” Victoria says, not meeting her eye. “The other one went in to hold her down.”

Amara looks desperately at Dido, then Cressa. It seems impossible that none of them are helping, that they are all standing by uselessly, letting her suffer. Britannica’s screaming cuts through her, visceral because it is familiar. It shocks her that she has never shouted her own anguish like that, that she has been silent instead. She presses her hands over her ears, wanting to stop the horror, stop the ear-splitting sound.

“Why can’t she just shut up !” Victoria shouts, suddenly angry. “Why can’t she fucking understand ? It gets the men in the wrong mood; they’re going to be violent with all of us soon if she keeps this up. Stupid fucking bitch.”

“They’re hurting her!” Cressa shouts back, distraught. “ They need to stop. Not her .”

Britannica’s screaming subsides into sobs. “It’s nearly over then,” Victoria mutters, not wanting to confront Cressa. “She always fights right to the end. So that means they’ve finished. She’ll be alright soon.”

The curtain scrapes back, and the two men step out into the corridor. The women instinctively draw back, clinging together. One man gives them a contemptuous stare, spits on the floor. They swagger off. Cressa breaks from the others and rushes into Amara’s old cell. Britannica is quiet; the only crying they can hear now is from Cressa.

Another man steps into the brothel. His shape, his walk, is familiar to Amara. It is Menander.

The shock sends the blood rushing to her heart. She stares at him, unable to speak.

“I came to see you. Thraso said you were free.”

He is standing where Britannica’s tormentor spat on the floor, and it is as if the last piece of her innocence is ripped from her.

She says nothing but walks to Dido’s cell, barely waiting for him to follow, then draws the curtain behind them both. She cannot bear to look at him, to see his beautiful face, so she stands gripping the material, her back to the room.

“What do you want?”

“Timarete…”

“What service do you want?”

“Service?”

“Yes, you paid for it,” she swings round, torn between rage and heartbreak. “So what service do you want? What fuck did you pay for?”

“I didn’t.”

“Why are you here then?”

“To see you. To talk with you.”

“You wanted to talk in here ?” Amara replies, her voice rising with hysteria. Even with the curtain closed, they can still hear Cressa weeping, the sound of Beronice with a customer next door, and Victoria, now rowing with Thraso, yelling at him not to let thugs into the brothel.

“Where else do we have?”

She sees the quiet sadness in his face and knows, without question, that he is telling the truth. Her relief is almost more painful than the shock before. She walks to him, puts her arms round his neck and rests the side of her face against his. “You paid to talk to me.”

“I didn’t want to wait until December,” he says, holding her tightly. “I’ve been saving for a while. Rusticus is in favour of his slaves getting some pleasure; he thinks it keeps us all more obedient.”

“But you mustn’t spend your money like that!” she says. “You need it. You need to save it.”

“I needed to see you.”

She thinks of Rufus, of all the ridiculous things she said that evening about love, of all the lies she told. “I can’t give you anything; I have nothing,” she spreads her arms out to illustrate the empty cell. “I don’t even own myself, my own body, my own life.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then what are we doing?” She sits down on the bed. “What are we doing here talking.”