Elodie Harper - The Wolf Den

“Rufus wants to give everything to a woman. You could almost say he wants to make her.” Drusilla cups her hands, as if sheltering something precious. “What he wants is a little wounded bird he can hold, feel its wings flutter against his fingers.” Her voice is low and crooning. Amara can almost imagine holding the bird herself, its tiny, frightened heart beating beneath soft feathers. “I was not fragile enough for him. You are.” Amara stares at Drusilla, still sitting with her hands cupped together. There are no words for the pain she feels, knowing it is true. “I have been you,” Drusilla says. “Veranius would never have let me go, only his death did that. But Rufus might be different. You might persuade him that there would be no greater pleasure than opening his fingers, watching the bird fly, knowing every beat of its wings, every breath it takes, it owes to him.” Drusilla opens her hands, and they both stare at the empty air. Then she drops her arms, sadness in her eyes. “At least, you have to try.”

Amara dines alone with Rufus, served a private dinner in the room with Leda and the Swan. Amara knows Drusilla is entertaining Quintus elsewhere in the house. She feels reassured that Rufus wants to lie with her before eating, at least making love to her is still more exciting than food, but she no longer feels the same comfort when he caresses her afterwards. She keeps thinking of the bird, of what it feels like for him, holding his fragile, tragic little whore.

“I wish I could spend every evening with you,” he says, tucking into Drusilla’s grilled fish and beans. “If I had my way, we would spend every waking moment together.” He takes her hand and kisses it, looking sentimental. “You know that, don’t you, my darling?”

Amara’s heart is beating so fast, and her nerves are pulled so tight, she cannot touch her own meal. She won’t beg, not after Pliny, and in any case, she does not want to swap one enslavement for another. “If only I had a home, like Drusilla,” she sighs. “You could visit me whenever you wanted.”

Rufus kisses her, but she can tell he hasn’t taken her seriously. She tries again. “You are more generous than any man I’ve ever met,” she says. “I cry sometimes, when I’m alone, thinking about how you would marry me, because I know you meant it sincerely when you asked. Even though I could never accept. I would never dishonour your family that way.”

Rufus kisses her again, more passionately this time, distracted from eating by her adoration. “How I love you!” he murmurs.

“But if you set me up in a home like this, I could be a second wife for you,” she says. “As your freedwoman.” Amara sees a flash of alarm in Rufus’s eyes, but she has rolled the dice and has to play her hand. “I would exist only for you, never taking from your family. Not now, or in the future. I would need nothing other than to be allowed to love you.”

“Is that really what you want?”

“More than anything in the world,” she replies. Her lip is trembling from fear, not love, but Rufus cannot tell the difference.

“Perhaps it might be possible,” he says, turning from her. He looks distracted, rather than excited by the idea. “It would need some work. This isn’t a small thing, what you’re asking.”

“I know. But ours isn’t a small love,” Amara says. “And although I cannot bring myself to dishonour you by allowing you to have me as a wife, I could love you as a mistress without bringing shame to anyone.”

“It would be wonderful,” Rufus agrees, beginning to warm to the idea of a constant well of devotion. “And then, even when I marry, if my wife isn’t…” He stops, perhaps realizing that speculating on the desirability of his future wife isn’t very romantic. “Anyway, whatever she were like, I could always spend time with you, whenever we wanted.”

“Yes,” Amara says. “I would always be waiting for you.”

“Maybe Drusilla could teach you the harp?” Rufus replies, his face hopeful, like a child. “You two like each other, don’t you? And you’ve no idea how happy it makes me, seeing you lost in your music. I think you would look even lovelier playing the harp than you do with the lyre.”

Amara smiles, relieved he has so easily succumbed to the image of her as the mistress singing in her gilded cage. But his words set off an unwelcome echo, and without wanting to remember, Menander’s rival fantasy plays through her mind. She sees herself as he did, waiting for him in his father’s house. The shared life they will never have together in Attica.

She leans over and kisses Rufus gently on the lips then gazes up at him, not as Timarete, the woman he will never know, but as Amara, the woman she is now. “Whatever you want.”

“I’ll do it.” He sounds more determined. “There must be a way of managing it. And I wouldn’t have to pay for you all the time then, not after the initial outlay.” He stops, wincing with embarrassment. “I’m sorry, my darling, that sounded unforgivably crude. What I meant was, if it makes financial sense, even my father might see it’s a good idea.”

“You are the best man in the world,” Amara says, clasping her hands.

He smiles at her, but she can see the same distracted look on his face. She leans her head against his shoulder, the blood pounding in her ears, hoping that he means what he says and that she has not just sped up her descent and exit from his life.

It is cold in Balbina’s small atrium. A film of ice covers the rainwater in the central pool. Amara and the other two women huddle together in their woollen cloaks, trying to come to an agreement. It cost her dearly, paying off some of Terentia’s interest to Felix, but now it may finally be worth it. The fruit seller has introduced her to another client.

“I will keep the contract safe for you both,” Terentia is saying. “I found her fair, more than fair.”

Balbina has run up a dicing debt and doesn’t want her husband to know. Perfect, as far as Amara is concerned, provided Balbina can hand over enough surety.

“Let me see the necklace,” she says, softening her command with a smile. The chain slips through her fingers, light and supple. She lacks the expertise to know whether it is worth the same amount as the loan, but she suspects the cameo pendant, at least, would fetch something. Amara loops the chain around her own neck, tucking it under the woollen cloak, then hands Balbina a purse. “You may want to check it’s the agreed amount,” she says.

Balbina counts the coins out twice, while Terentia and Amara watch. Then Terentia holds out the tablets for them both to sign. “ Much better rate of interest than I got.” Terentia sighs.

“I know,” Amara says. “But this is much riskier for me.” What she has just done is worse than risky, and she knows it. Should Felix ever discover the betrayal, the consequences are unimaginable. She tells herself that brokering this loan is a safety net, a means of earning extra cash if Rufus disappoints her. But she knows this is only partly why she has taken such a terrible risk. The real reason is the pleasure she gets from cheating Felix, the fierce joy of outwitting him. Ever since Cressa died, the hostility between them has been relentless, a battle of wits she is determined to win . I am better at this than he is , she thinks.

Amara turns to Terentia. “We are both trusting you with the contract,” she says. “So please keep it safe.” She has sweetened that trust by five asses though no need to tell Balbina that. If the gambling wife is wise, she will have given the fruit seller her own bribe. “When the interest is paid,” she says to Balbina, who has already tucked the purse out of sight. “I will return the necklace.”