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eyes. He fell into the blackness, roaring like a wounded bull. Ratface, caught half-in and half-out of his loin cloth, seemed undecided. Claudia made up his mind for him and rammed her head straight into his genitals. His breath came out in a long, low moan and he fell to his knees, writhing in agony.
    ‘Quick!’
    Grabbing Sabina, she raced down the alley, heading for the first lighted street they came to. Outside a tavern, she paused to pin the woman’s torn tunic with her brooch then ran as fast as she could in the direction of civilization. Finally, she fell puffing and panting over a balustrade.
    Below lay a bed of wild papyrus, their feathery heads nodding gently in the breeze.
    Sabina smiled serenely. ‘Isn’t it lovely here?’
    Claudia looked up sharply. ‘Don’t you have any conception of the danger we were in?’
    ‘Don’t be silly,’ she replied. ‘I made myself invisible.’
    You did not, Claudia wanted to scream. You did not make yourself invisible, you stupid, selfish bitch. You stood there while I saved you from those animals and you’d have watched them rape me, you callous, egotistical cow.
    She couldn’t trust herself to speak, and when Junius came running up, his face pinched and white and anxious, she had to stop herself from falling on his shoulder.
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘Just boys wanting for free what they can’t afford to pay for,’ she said flippantly, but he couldn’t make out the words because her teeth were chattering.
    ‘I’ll summon a litter to take you back,’ he said, but Claudia shook her head.
    Not yet. She needed to calm down, recover her senses.
    Minutes passed. Within the tall stems, a duck honked out two rapid notes then the deep pool fell silent once more. A couple of bats (or were there three?) flitted over the surface of the purple waters. Strange to think that here you are, only twenty paces from where the salt sea laps the rocks and you’re dipping your fingers in a spring of fresh water. Claudia splashed her face, washing away the dust and the blood and the memory of Ratface. She lifted her head. It was a fine night. The storm had moved on and was nothing more than a distant memory, as a million and one stars twinkled in the blackness above.
    ‘There’s fresh water out there.’ Wouldn’t you just know Sabina would spoil it?
    ‘It’s here.’ Claudia pointed with her toe, too tired, too weary to be angry any more. If skies are pools which drown you and rape makes you invisible, why should fresh water in the sea be a surprise? ‘Poets say the nymph Arethusa was pursued by a lecherous river god, and it was only when she was turned into a spring herself that she could dive underground and escape him.’ She spoke because she needed to get her vocal chords operating normally. ‘Pity Artemis didn’t turn us into water back in that damned alley, eh?’
    She could have saved her breath.
    ‘No, there .’ Sabina waved a languid arm across the bay. ‘That’s fresh water. You can drink it, but it turns you white.’
    It would be easy, of course, to forget all about Collatinus and the holiday. To leave flaky Sabina with her brother, take the next ship home (poor Junius!) and…and what? More schedules, more meetings, more talk about vines and vintages and heaven knows what. Not to mention earache from the moneylenders.
    Claudia gazed up at the fattening moon, lighting the way for the watermen and showing clear the sacks and barrels stacked along the quayside. With a gentle sucking sound, a trireme shipped its oars and the bark of her bosun’s orders carried high over the babble of foreign tongues clamouring to make themselves understood on the wharf.
    Easy, but not viable. She needed to travel under the Collatinus party’s name for a bit longer, which meant she needed to stay with Sabina for a bit longer.
    At least until she’d eliminated the threat which hung over her future. After that, Sabina could go to hell, and good riddance.
    It was only much later,