The Wolf Den

by Elodie Harper

  They all begin to sing, and after the first verse, the awkwardness and sadness begin to fall away. Amara looks at Dido, at the joy on her face, and realizes there is nobody she loves more. Warmth spreads through her. She has never had a friend like Dido. She is the light in the darkness of her life.

  They sing song after song, learning new ones from Salvius and performing the tale of Crocus and Smilax for the two men. Aided by their high spirits, it’s an even better performance than the one Cornelius paid for. Amara can feel her cheeks grow hotter, heat spreading through her limbs as she allows herself to drink too much. Is this what life might be like if she were a free woman in Pompeii?

  The slave boy is almost falling asleep in the corner and the night sky bright with stars when Priscus finally says, “I should be going home soon.” There is a pause, and the two men look at each other, the signal of a pre-agreed arrangement. Priscus turns to Dido. “Would you do me the honour…? Would you be kind enough to join me for a little while?” At least he has the decency to ask as if refusal might be an option, Amara thinks.

  “Of course,” Dido says, taking his hand. He leads her from the room, leaving Salvius and Amara alone at the table.

  “Would you like some more wine?”

  She realizes he is nervous. “Only to join you. Otherwise, I am fine.”

  He pours them both a top-up. “I haven’t been with a woman in two years. Since my wife died.” He stops. Amara senses he is not waiting for a reply, only trying to find the right words, so she says nothing. “Sabina loved music,” he says. “You remind me a little of her.”

  “I’m sorry. It is terrible to lose one you love.”

  Salvius waves a hand, as if to minimize his grief. “I am sure you have lost family too.” She inclines her head, not wishing to speak of her parents, or Aphidnai. He drains his glass and stands. “Well then.” Amara puts her own glass down, untouched, and rises. The slave boy jolts awake as they pass then gets up wearily to clear the table.

  Salvius takes a candle to light the way to his bedroom. It’s dark in the narrow corridor, and she picks her way carefully behind him. He pushes open the door. The room is gloomy after the well-lit dinner, but Amara’s eyes adjust, and she makes out a woman’s clothes spread over the bed. She does not ask who they belong to.

  Salvius sets down the candle on a small table and picks up his wife’s robe. “Would you perhaps mind…?”

  She takes it from him. He turns away as she changes. It makes her shiver, wrapping herself in a dead woman’s clothes. The sadness of her own loneliness, of Salvius’s grief, brings a lump to her throat.

  “That’s her perfume over there.” Amara picks up the bottle, dabs a little on her neck. Salvius stares at her. “You look so like her.” He sighs. “Is there someone you would like me to… I mean, I can pretend to be someone else, if that’s easier?”

  Of all the things Amara expected him to say, this was perhaps the last. The wall outside The Sparrow blazes into her mind, the new graffiti she spotted there only this morning. Kallias greets his Timarete. “No,” she says, emphatically. “That wouldn’t help.”

  “I’m sorry,” Salvius says. “But is there, perhaps, at least a memory of being with somebody you liked?”

  “No.”

  “You have never been with a man by choice?”

  “No.” The simplicity of his question and the truth of her answer hits her with unexpected force. She turns her face away.

  “I’m sorry,” Salvius says. He sits down on the bed. Amara sits beside him, unsure what to say.

  “It’s not your fault,” she says at last. “I am still happy to be here with you.”

  “You don’t have to pretend,” he says, taking her hand. “You must have to do a lot of pretending.” She doesn’t contradict him. “Have you ever… felt anything?”

  Has she ever felt anything? What a question. A thousand answers crowd her mind. All the sensations of her life as a prostitute: disgust, panic, the obliterating blankness. An aversion to being touched so intense she is amazed she has got through a single night at the brothel without screaming, without fighting the men off. But she knows this is not what Salvius is asking. “No,” she says quietly. “I never feel anything.”

  They sit together in silence. “Sabina was very afraid at first,” he says. “It took her a long time to get used to being together.” He puts his arms around her, drawing her closer. She wonders who he is seeing when he looks at her – the woman in front of him, or his dead wife. “Amara,” he says, as if answering her question. “I will try and make this pleasant for you. All I ask is that you don’t pretend,” He brushes a strand of hair from her face, correcting himself. “Don’t feel you have to pretend.”

  *

  Victoria’s singing wakes her in the morning. For a while, Amara lies in her cell, listening to the sound, the sweetness of the voice so at odds with the harsh reality of the singer’s life. She knows almost nothing about Victoria’s past. At least she and Dido were loved once, and she knows Beronice and Cressa spent the first few years of childhood with their mothers, but Victoria has never belonged to anyone but an owner. Yet every morning, she sings her heart out, filling this dark place with joy. Amara wonders where Victoria learnt so many tunes. She realizes how much she has missed their friendship since her change of fortune at the Vinalia.

  She gets out of bed, dressing herself quickly, and slips into the corridor. The compacted mud floor under her feet is hard and cool. She stands at Victoria’s door a moment before drawing the curtain back. “Can I come in?”

  Victoria’s singing stops abruptly. “Suit yourself.”

  “What was last night like?”

  “The usual. Have a nice party?”

  “It was dinner above the ironmonger’s. Not really a party.”

  “Still. Dinner, though,” Victoria says, face turned aside as she does her hair. “In a house. With free wine. Better than one meal a day.”

  Amara pauses, wondering how much she owes Salvius for his kindness last night. “The customer got me to dress up as his dead wife. In this musty old robe.” She sees Victoria hesitate, knows there’s nothing she finds so irresistible as a ridiculous sex story. “Had the perfume out ready and everything.”

  Victoria gives in to curiosity, puts down the hairbrush. “You’re joking.”

  “Asked who I wanted him to pretend to be.”

  Victoria laughs. “I hope you said Jupiter. In his form as a pile of fucking gold.”

  “What are you two sniggering about?” Beronice stands, bleary-eyed in the doorway.

  “Just a customer,” Victoria says. “Remember what they are? Before Gallus?”

  “You know I had at least three last night,” Beronice says, offended. “Including that really annoying idiot from the laundry. What’s his name again?”

  “Fabius,” Victoria says. Amara wonders how she keeps track of all the names. “He’s not so bad.”

  “She got drunk again,” Beronice mutters, leaning out into the corridor and looking back at Cressa’s cell. “I don’t know where she finds the money. She’ll drink every last penny she’s ever saved at this rate.”

  “Wasn’t Cosmus born about this time of year? She’s probably missing him.” Victoria goes back to brushing her hair. “Did Fabius have his usual cry afterwards?”

  Beronice sits down heavily on the bed. “So boring,” she says.

  “That’s why you have to get them in the right mood!” Victoria says. “You can’t blame him for crying, not if you’re lying there with your sour I’d-rather-be-with-my-boyfriend face. At least make a bit of effort.”

  Beronice doesn’t defend herself but lies in a slump. “He slapped me,” she says.

  “What? Fabius?” Victoria is shocked. “He’s such a weed!”

  “No. Gallus,” Beronice looks miserable. “He says I enjoy it too much. The other men, I mean.”

  “What does he expect you to do? Wail and moan about your lost virtue all night? Prick.”

 
; “Do you enjoy it?” Amara blurts out. They both stare at her.

  “What a question!” Victoria says. “You sound like a customer, Amara.”

  “But, I mean…” She stops, unsure what she wants to say. Last night with Salvius had hardly been a revelation. She didn’t feel pleasure, in spite of his considerable efforts. But it hadn’t been totally unpleasant either. For the first time, she had had an inkling that it might be different, if the man were different.

  “Was there more to this dead-wife fuck than you’re telling us?” Victoria asks.

  “Dead wife?” Beronice says.

  “You told them about Salvius then?” It’s Dido leaning against the doorway. Victoria shoves Beronice along to make room for Dido to sit on the bed, leaving Amara the only one standing. All three of them are looking at her.

  “Please don’t tell us you’re in love with a man who gets you to dress up as his dead wife,” Victoria says.

  “No!” Amara says. “Although, I do quite like him. As a friend.”

  “A friend?” Beronice repeats in disbelief.

  “Would you marry him if he asked you to be wife number two?” Victoria is enjoying her role as prosecutor.

  “Yes, but that’s not love. I’d just rather be a freedwoman running an ironmonger’s than a slave working for Felix. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Is he an amazing lay?”

  Amara pauses.

  “He is an amazing lay!” Victoria yells. The other two start laughing, and Amara finds herself laughing too.

  “He just made an effort, that’s all. Customers don’t normally, do they?”

  “That’s why you steer them,” Victoria says. “You can take some control of the situation.”

  “I’m not sure,” Beronice says, frowning. “I know what she means.”

  “Nobody wants to hear what a great lover Gallus is,” Victoria says, rolling her eyes. “Please spare us.”

  “Yes, but, it is different, if the man makes an effort. It just is,” Beronice says. “Don’t you think?”

  “It’s never any different,” Dido says.

  “You can’t rely on the man to give you any pleasure,” Victoria states, as if this were obvious. “You just have to do what you like and take them along.”

  “What if you don’t like any of it?” Dido asks.

  “Then,” says Victoria, putting an arm round her like a conspirator, “you just have to hope, one day, if you are really lucky, an ironmonger asks you to dress up as his dead wife.”

  Amara looks at the three of them falling about on the bed, hooting with laughter, and smiles. Perhaps there are some pleasures in the life of a whore, after all.

  “What’s so fucking funny?” Paris glowers in the doorway. Ever since Victoria offered him the golden paste and asked if he wanted to gild his arsehole, he has been even less friendly than usual.

  “Oh, is laughing forbidden now?” Victoria asks. “I didn’t realize. But I’m afraid a scowl isn’t going to scare the customers away. They can’t see your face from behind.”

  Paris moves so fast none of the others have a chance to try and stop him. He punches Victoria hard in the face then swings back to hit her again. Beronice leaps, shrieking, onto his back, clawing at his arms, and he staggers, blow landing wide. Amara and Dido scramble in front of Victoria, holding their hands up, screaming at him to stop. Paris tries to dislodge Beronice, but she’s clinging to his neck, putting pressure on his windpipe. Cressa runs into the room, tugging at Beronice, trying to stop her from strangling Paris, yelling at her to let go.

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  At the sound of Felix’s voice, the screaming stops, and Beronice drops to the floor like a stone. Paris rubs his neck, gasping.

  “I said what the fuck is this?”

  “He hit her face!” Amara says, pointing at Victoria. “He hit her in the face!” It is the unbreakable rule at the Wolf Den. Neither Felix nor any of the other men are allowed to mark their faces.

  Felix does not have to ask if it’s true. Victoria is cradling her eye, the skin on her cheek bright red. “Let me see.” He crosses swiftly to the bed. Amara and Dido scramble out of the way. Felix takes Victoria’s hand from her face, examining the damage, pressing his finger against her cheekbone. She winces. “Nothing’s broken,” he says, standing up. “It will mend.” He walks over to Paris, shoving him. “What the fuck were you thinking? Not such a big man now, are you? Get the fuck out of here.”

  Paris doesn’t wait to be asked again; he lurches from the cell.

  “And you,” Felix says, turning back to Victoria who quails against the wall. “Mind your mouth. I know what will have happened. You provoked him. Didn’t you?” She says nothing, and he grabs her by the shoulders, shaking her. “Didn’t you?”

  Amara looks at the pots of perfume lined up on Victoria’s windowsill, imagines grabbing one, smashing it on Felix’s head, pictures herself yelling at him to stop. But she does nothing. Just shrinks terrified against the wall, like all the other women.

  Felix lets go of Victoria who pushes herself to safety, clambering away from him on the bed. The pain on her face grips Amara’s heart, but Victoria’s eyes are dry. Amara realizes she has never seen her friend cry.

  “You watch your fucking mouths, all of you,” Felix says. “I don’t want a Drauca on my hands, with a useless, ugly face. Look at you.” He spits the words at Victoria. “No man is going to want to touch you for days.” He flings the curtain aside and storms out of the brothel.

  “Don’t,” Victoria says, raising her hand to prevent Dido coming near. “Don’t say anything. Just leave me.”

  All the women go back to their own cells, as if seeking comfort from one another would diminish Victoria’s suffering. Amara sits alone on the bed, staring at her father’s mouldy bag. She thinks of Felix upstairs, Marcella’s cameo ring in his desk drawer, the smile on his face when she handed it over, and she closes her eyes.

  JULIUS

  20

  All the girls fancy Celadus the Thracian gladiator!

  Pompeii graffiti

  The sun overhead is so hot Amara feels she will faint, only the crush of the crowd and Victoria jabbing her excitedly in the ribs are keeping her upright. This is not how she would have chosen to spend her first proper day off in Pompeii. Up at dawn, trooping to the far end of town, standing out in the cool darkness, watching the sun rise and, later, wilting in the baking heat, all to get the best view of the gladiators’ parade into the amphitheatre. It is the first of July, the day the town’s new elected officials take office and, more importantly, the day free games are held to celebrate it.

  Amara wonders if Fuscus is already in the arena, sitting at the front, fretting about whether this extravaganza will overshadow the games he threw last year. He was quite peevish on the subject last time she saw him. Egnatius has done her many favours, but none perhaps as great as introducing her to the duumvir. She and Dido perform regularly at both his and Cornelius’s houses, though Fuscus is a less demanding host. There, they are rarely expected to do much more than sing, mainly because Fuscus’s wife holds greater sway over her husband. It feels strange, how intimate she is now with powerful men. At Cornelius’s house, Fuscus will tell her little details about his life – the fountain he has ordered for his father-in-law, the books his two sons are reading – and of course, she knows exactly what he likes in bed. At his own home, he takes the role of a distant employer, bestowing her on his guests, part of the service to be enjoyed along with the fruit platter. In the street, should they bump into one another, she has no doubt he would ignore her. In that sense her life has not changed at all.

  “There he is!” Victoria shrieks. “It’s Celadus!”

  Amara would never have heard her if Victoria were not yelling right beside ear. The blast of trumpets as the gladiators approach, the wall of sound from the crowd, makes her feel as if her skull might split open. But at last their long, tedious wait has paid off. They are rammed in, right at the front, just
by the amphitheatre entrance.

  “Celadus!” Victoria screams. “Celadus!”

  He cannot possibly have heard one scream above any other, and yet, at that moment, the Thracian giant turns, as if impelled by the force of Victoria’s will. He takes two strides towards them, lifts Victoria off her feet in a single sweep, and kisses her. She is so astonished that, for once, she doesn’t respond. The crowd around them erupts. Amara is smacked hard on the head by a girl wedged behind, thrusting her arms out, trying to grab at the gladiator’s leather harness, touch his oiled chest.

  “Celadus! Celadus!”

  The gladiator sets Victoria down, says something in her ear then rejoins the procession, waving both arms at the crowd.

  “He would have kissed me,” Beronice shouts at Amara. “He would have kissed me, if I’d been at the front!” Her face is wild, almost unrecognizable in its rage and disappointment. Amara is glad Victoria cannot hear. Instead, she is standing uncharacteristically still, feet rooted exactly where Celadus placed her, buffeted by the passing flow of people now cramming to get into the arena.

  “Come on!” Amara yells, grabbing her arm. “Or we won’t get a seat!”

  All five of them hold on to each other, clasping hands, grabbing one another’s togas, anything to prevent themselves from being separated. They know their place at these games; they will have to climb all the way to the back row at the very top.

  It’s a long queue. They join a slow-moving column of women, all waiting to sit wedged into the worst seats in the arena. Amara’s legs feel like they might give way by the time they get to the top. The back row is filling up fast and there’s a lot of irritable shuffling around until Cressa spots a space where they might all be able to cram together. After a heated exchange with another group of women, they finally manage to sit down, though as the slightest out of the five, Dido is forced to sit half-perched on Amara’s knee.

  “You have to tell us what Celadus said,” Amara says to Victoria, who has been resisting answering that question the whole way up the steps.

  Victoria smiles, enjoying the secret. “Imagine what it would be like to have a man like that! Just imagine.”