Elodie Harper - The Wolf Den

“I know that you’re lonely,” he says, sitting beside her. “I’m lonely too. But I don’t feel it when I’m with you.”

“It hurts so much afterwards though,” she says, leaning her head on his shoulder, letting him hold her again. “It just hurts.”

“Because it makes you think of home, and all we lost before.”

“Not just that,” she says. “Do you know how many men I’ve been with? I didn’t want any of them, but it happened anyway, and it’s my life now, and I have to accept it. And then I see you, the only one I actually have wanted, and even though we are alone together now, and there’s nothing to stop us, even though you paid my fucking pimp for me… I just can’t. Not in this place. I can’t.”

“I know,” he says. “I won’t ask it of you. Not here.” He leans over to kiss her on the temple. “But we can belong to many places. Don’t you ever think of yourself as being somewhere else?”

Amara thinks of Pliny’s garden, the smell of jasmine and the splash of the fountain. “Yes,” she says.

Menander helps her sit further back on the bed, so that he is leaning against the wall and she is against him, his arms all the way round her. “At night, sometimes, when I’m sleeping on the floor above the shop,” he says. “I imagine I am back in Athens. I picture walking through the street in the evening, back to my old home, the shop my father used to own. But it’s not my parents or my sisters waiting there for me, it’s you. I can see you in the hall, though you’ve never been there, and we talk, we have all the time we need.”

“I think of you in Aphidnai, sometimes too,” she admits. “But mainly I imagine us being somewhere else altogether. Somewhere we don’t even know yet.” Amara stops. What can she tell him really? That she thought of him when Rufus kissed her, that she wished it was him instead? Or that she told Rufus her heart was free because she cannot afford for it to be otherwise.

“Might it not be possible?” he asks, holding her even closer. “Slaves do marry, don’t they? Or Rusticus might grant me my freedom one day; he has no heir, nobody to take over his business.”

Amara cannot even begin to imagine Felix’s reaction to the first idea, and she doesn’t have the heart to tell Menander that every unscrupulous owner since the dawn of time has duped a talented apprentice into working harder with the vague promise of freedom one day. She cannot bear to destroy the fantasy. “If I had the choice, it would only be you,” she says.

They talk together through the night, and Amara can feel her loneliness ebb with every moment in his company. The brothel even starts to feel like a less terrible place, simply because he is there. She tells him about Pliny, about how she felt having those few brief days of freedom, and he tells her about the way he feels in the shop, the moments he forgets he is a slave, caught up in the business of creating a new lamp, a new object, just as he did in his life before.

They are lost to everything but each other, until it is time for lock-up, and Thraso arrives to throw any lingering customers out.

“Fuck off now,” he says, barging into the cell. “You’ve more than had your money’s worth.”

Amara tries to kiss Menander goodbye, but Thraso comes between them, shoving her hard. She sees Menander react instinctively to step in.

“No!” she shouts. Amara looks at Menander, shaking her head. “Please.”

She cannot bear the self-loathing on his face, their shared understanding that he is powerless to protect her from Thraso, or from anything else.

When he has gone, Amara does not cry. She stands with the palms of her hands flat against the wall of her cell. She wants to scream her rage into the night like Britannica. Her anger is rising like the sea, drowning her. She has to get out.

It’s hot in The Sparrow, even though it’s not yet midday. Cressa has stayed in the brothel to look after Britannica, and Amara and the others sit at a table, sharing some bread and cheese, a small pot of cold vegetable stew. Amara can already feel her clothes sticking to her skin with sweat.

“So the boyfriend turned up then?” Victoria asks. There is none of the usual spark to her question.

Amara nods, not wanting to talk about Menander, and Victoria doesn’t press her. “Sorry you two had to share together,” Amara says.

“We thought you might want some space,” Dido replies.

“Thanks.”

They lapse back into silence. “What are we going to do about her?” Beronice says. Nobody has to ask who she means. “When is she going to stop with the fighting and screaming?”

An old man is mumbling at the table next to them, either drunk or unwell. He reaches out a shaky hand. It’s not clear if he is trying to reach for their bread or grope Beronice. “Not today, Grandad!” Victoria snaps, her voice loud. “Can’t get any fucking peace anywhere,” she mutters, turning back to the table.

“It’s not right,” Beronice continues. “It put my customer off his stride. Then he was in a bad mood and rough with it.”

“I think she’s brave,” Dido says.

“Brave?” Victoria says. “She’s a savage.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call her that,” Amara says. “Just because she doesn’t speak Latin. And I agree with Dido. She’s only doing what the rest of us would, if we had the guts.”

“If you think she’s so fucking fabulous, why don’t you teach her some Latin then?” Victoria says. “And it’s not brave. It’s stupid. Have you seen the bruises on her? Who fights a battle they’re never going to win?”

“That’s what courage means.”

“Oh, get lost, seriously,” Victoria says. “If you can’t see what a problem she is, maybe it’s because you spend all your time at fancy fucking parties. You won’t be around when the rest of us get attacked, will you? What do you care?”

Amara gets up from the table, taking a piece of bread and cheese with her. She was already in a terrible mood before this and doesn’t trust herself not to lose her temper.

“Where are you going?” Victoria asks, halfway between conciliatory and cross.

“To try and teach Britannica some Latin.”

Amara stomps back towards the brothel, almost barging into Nicandrus walking along the pavement to The Sparrow with a bucket of water. “Careful!” he says.

She holds her hands up in apology but doesn’t stop to chat. Seeing him makes her think of Menander, of the choice Dido made not to let her feelings for Nicandrus take root when there is nowhere for love to grow. Perhaps she was wise.

Thraso is still on the door, exhausted from guarding the brothel all night. He barely steps aside to let her in, making her squeeze past him.

“Cressa?”

“She’s not well,” Fabia says, not looking up as she sweeps the corridor. “She’s feeling sick.” There’s a sound of retching from the latrine.

Amara hurries to the end of the corridor. “Cressa! Are you alright?”

Cressa comes out, holding onto the wall. She is pale, her eyes dark with misery. Amara feels sick herself, guessing what Cressa is facing.

“You should eat something,” she says quietly. “It will help. The others are still in The Sparrow.”

Cressa shakes her head. “Nothing will help.”

“At least eat something, please . You will feel less nauseous.”

“What about Britannica?”

“I can look after her.”

“Are you sure?” Cressa looks relieved. “Be kind to her, won’t you? You promise?” Amara nods, touched that Cressa’s first thought is always for someone else. “She’s in my cell. I was just about to help her wash.” Cressa starts to head past Amara who stops her, catching hold of her arm.