In Bed With Lord Byron

with Tiryns. She confided in me that the father of her baby was Servius, one of the other slaves, but I noticed that he seemed a reluctant father, barely
interested in even conversing with her. Tiryns was obviously hurt by his behaviour and her moods swung rapidly, honey-sweet one minute, stinging the next.
    The job I enjoyed most was cleaning out Ovid’s study, because it meant I got a chance to look at his poetry. As I leafed through his papers and parchments, I winced at the red blisters
that were forming on my hands and thought longingly of home and the tub of hand cream sitting in my bathroom.
    Then I noticed the poem I was holding and I felt a shiver scuttle over me. My God. This was
Metamorphoses
, Ovid’s finest poetic achievement. And it looked as though he had only just
begun it.
    And time without all end,
    (If poets as by prophecy about the truth may aim)
    My life shall everlastingly be lengthened still by fame.
    So he had begun at the end. For these were the final lines of Book XV; I remembered reading them at school. It had seemed such an arrogant ending to me, but the verse was
covered with nervous scribbles and crossings-out. Between the lines, I sensed a frightened sense of his own mortality. Without even thinking, I picked up his stylus and wrote a reassuring
postscript:
    You will be remembered for thousands of years to come; your verse will make you immortal.
    I suffered butterflies for the rest of the day. My moment of inspiration now seemed like a moment of madness. What if he sacked me for cheek? Or had me beaten? Or . . .
    I saw him in the corridor and hardly dared look him in the eye, but he seemed preoccupied and distant.
    That evening, Adrasteia called me to her room to help arrange her hair.
    ‘I am taking my other slaves with me tonight. I am going to Fronia’s house to celebrate Bona Dea.’
    ‘What?’ I asked in bewilderment.
    ‘The Festival of the Good Goddess.’ She frowned and rolled her eyes, as though to say:
The slaves you get these days.
    ‘Oh, right. Is Ovid going?’
    ‘Very amusing, Lesbia. Of course Ovid would be welcome at a festival for women only. Now, you can stay behind and attend to my husband. I shall leave Tiryns here too,’ she added,
wincing slightly.
    The house seemed eerily quiet without Adrasteia and her screeching. But it was a deadly type of quiet – like the pause of a snake before it strikes.
    Evening came and I felt a little irked with Tiryns. I had confessed to her early on that I was a dangerously bad cook, so I normally got the easy tasks like chopping vegetables. She knew that I
really needed a hand preparing supper, but there was no sign of her anywhere. I was terrified that I was going to produce something so bad Ovid would take one mouthful and send me off to the
amphitheatre.
    Finally I cobbled together some sort of meal of bread, vegetables and chicken. In Roman times a fish-based sauce called
garum
was all the rage, so I doused that liberally over everything
in the hope that it would blot out all the other flavours. Not to mention the, ah, burnt bits.
    Ovid normally ate in the atrium with his wife. But as he was alone, he asked for his food to be brought into the dining room. There I found him lounging on a couch.
    I put down the food and turned to go.
    ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I want to eat this.’
    Was my cooking really
that
bad? Then I saw a lazy smile creep across his face.
    ‘I’m not hungry.’
    Oh, how hilarious, Ovid, I thought sullenly, to make me prepare your dinner when you don’t even want it.
    ‘I think I’d like to take a walk.’ He stretched like a cat. ‘And I’d like you to join me.’
    ‘I’m feeling tired,’ I said.
    ‘You forget I’m your master,’ said Ovid. ‘I’m not asking you – I’m telling you.’
    It was a beautiful night. Balmy, a celestial blue twilight. I could hear the sounds of the city in the distance, alive and alight with decadence. Scents wafted from the
flowerbeds, heavy and heady, like the love flowers I imagined in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The garden, pretty but somewhat mediocre in the daytime, now looked mysterious and shadowy.
The Romans had a fondness for topiary, and we passed shrubs that had been cut into the shapes of birds and lions that looked as though they might pounce at any moment. As we strolled past statues
of the gods, it felt as though they were watching us.
    I am not going to sleep with him,
I kept repeating over and over like a