LITMIR.BIZ

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ruler of her own little walled island. Did she turn her discarded lovers into cats?

      “You have a gift, Red. Like any gift, wealth, talent, beauty—you could squander yours.”

      “What is my gift?” I asked after a moment.

      “You are a talented whore.”

      Fucking great, I thought. My eyes twitched, I wanted so badly to roll them.

      “You don’t want to be here. Why else do you think I’ve kept a potential gold mine under house arrest for so long? You despise being a slave. You’re very bad at it. You despise me. You don’t hide it well. Yet when you are a whore, you are a whore. You don’t stint. It’s like a craftsman doing some minor job with care and precision, though no one else will notice. You can’t help yourself, can you?”

      I didn’t despise her—that word implied contempt. But I hated her very much.

      “Why did you call me here? Where is Joseph?”

      She looked ruffled, angry for the first time. “Joseph’s whereabouts are no business of yours unless he requires you. Don’t get ideas. And no, in case you’re wondering, I didn’t put a stop to the lessons. He is perfectly right; an educated whore could be an asset. In fact, he left you a scroll to keep reading while he’s gone.”

      “Gone? When will he come back?”

      “Did I or did I not just tell you Joseph’s business is none of your business?”

      “You did.” I said. If I shed a tear in front of Domitia Tertia, I will find a way to cut out my own heart, I vowed to myself. A soothing thought. There.

      “As for why I have called you here, I swear I have almost changed my mind. I told you to look at me.”

      I did with all the calm of renewed hopelessness.

      “Flavius Anecius is giving a banquet for his son, who puts on the manly toga tomorrow. He is also hosting chariot races at Circus Maximus. He has reserved a block of seats for the Vine and Fig Tree, and he has asked that you be among the entertainers at the banquet. Such occasions can be lucrative. Joseph has told me about doing business with your people. I know you count wealth in cattle. I want to make sure you understand: if you save your coins and bank them with the House, you can buy your freedom within years. Mere years. Do you understand?”

      I’m not stupid, bitch. I know what a coin is worth, but you have no idea what a year costs me. “Yes, domina.”

      “You do know what happens to runaway slaves?”

      “They are killed.” My shoulders wanted to shrug, but I caught them in time.

      “Ha! If they had only death to fear, there would be far fewer slaves in Rome. Listen well, Red. Runaway slaves are publicly beaten; their flesh is branded, and they are sent to the salt mines to be worked to death.”

      No answer seemed to be required.

      “Joseph says you’re too smart to be stupid. I have my doubts about that. You decide who is right. Go now. Be dressed and ready to go with Bone to Circus Maximus at the third hour tomorrow morning.”

      I stood up, looking again from Domitia Tertia to her likeness Circe—what Domitia might have been if she’d lived on a shining isle like my mothers, if she were wild instead of hardened, if she were a goddess, instead of a Roman brothel keeper.

      “Wait. Here is the scroll.” She reached under the couch. “When you are not studying, Bonia will keep it locked in one of the chests. No,” she cautioned, “this scroll is inferior work not worth much money. Don’t even think about trying to sell it.”

      I hadn’t in fact thought about it; I needed to learn to think like that.

      “Thank you, domina.”

      “Thank Joseph,” she sighed.

      And for just a moment she looked merely human and very weary.

      All right. I’ll admit it to you. I was excited to be going beyond the confines of the Vine and Fig Tree. My mind knew perfectly well I would be no freer outside the walls than in, but my body shouted, yes! And my imagination, some fertile mating of the two, whispered, anything might happen. There’s a chance now, there’s a chance. You can imagine my disappointment when I discovered that we were being transported in curtained litters. I wanted to walk. I wanted to know the lay of the land with my feet. But Domitia Tertia conscientiously flouted any law enacted against whores. We had to ride in litters precisely because it was illegal for us to do so. Another reason oral law is better than written; if you have to hold a law library in your head you stick to the essentials.

      Bone and his assistants, three male slaves on loan for the day from Flavius Anecius, escorted us on foot (well, it would have taken a dozen litter bearers to heft the eunuch). They kept an eye out for the aedile, and Bone repeatedly and futilely shouted at us to stop sticking our heads outside the curtains. He could hardly be heard over Succula and Berta’s tour guide patter as they called to me from their litters, “And here is the best place to buy pigeon pie, and look over there. That entire block of insulae belongs to Claudius Appius, and he owns all the shops, too. They say he is richer than Croesus.”

      I didn’t catch all their words, and I didn’t pay much attention, because neither of them was saying things like, “and if you take that street there, it leads to the nearest gate out of the city.” So I just took in the bustle. Everyone was out and about trying to finish errands early. Some vendors were already closing up or packing their wares to sell to the crowds at Circus Maximus where all Rome, rich and poor, would soon be.

      Our route became increasingly hilly and circuitous, whether to keep us disoriented or to find the least crowded approach to the Circus Maximus I wasn’t sure. We were winding down a hill on the other side of the Circus from Palatine Hill with its enormous temples, palaces, gardens, everything on a godlike scale. I was more interested in the sky; I had been starving for it after seeing only a small cut-out square of sky for months. Now here it was, a heaping bowl of blue, enough for everyone, with birds circling it—high up an eagle, lower down the flocking birds wheeling and turning, now invisible, now flashing as the light caught their wings at different angles. Then the sky narrowed as we wound down the hill towards the Murcia Valley.

      “Red,” called Succula, “we’ll be coming to the Temple of Venus Obsequens soon.”

      The compliant Venus, I translated to myself, the accommodating Venus. I had barely become acquainted with Roman deities; they struck me as petty and cruel, like the Romans themselves. You had to wonder about a people who worshipped their emperors as gods. Civic religion has always struck me as both dismal and dangerous to the health of the general population.

      “She’s the protectress of whores and adulterers,” Succula went on.

      I was not impressed. In Rome there was a Venus for everything, including Venus Cloacina, the goddess of the sewer—she helped the Romans maintain the illusion that their shit didn’t stink.

      “What does she protect us from?” I quipped but not loud enough for Succula to hear. If Succula wanted to believe there was a goddess who cared about whores, let her. As for me—I stopped for a moment, not quite prepared for my next thought—I had no gods. I had left mine behind in the wells and groves of Tir na mBan and Mona. Or you could say they had abandoned me, cast me out. I was a slave and an exile in a place where I had no connection with the local gods and wanted none. As for my beloved’s god—the invisible one, the jealous one, the portable one who was any and everywhere—I thought that Joseph was quite right to take refuge in Greek philosophy. I was through with gods, I decided.

      “It’s right down this alley,” called Succula.

      With no warning, the dream I’d had my first night at the Vine and Fig Tree came back to me—only now it wasn’t a dream. I could hear the sound of the water moving through the reeds, the whispering rasp of snakes; I smelled the mud; then the drums started and

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