![]() ![]() Jacob witnesses a slave auction in which a young girl escapes and the seed of freedom is planted in his mind. We learn that the brothel’s owner, a sinister nobleman, has other, darker plans for Jacob. The Christians look down on him, other boys taunt him, Audo showers him with slaps and abuse. The lens of the novel gradually widens: Jacob is sent out to run errands in a town that is full of threats. We learn that Carthago Nova is a centre of the slave trade, and that Jacob himself was purchased in error, thought to be a girl. He sees Audo, the brothel’s pimp, who bullies and hectors the girls he grows particularly close to Euterpe, who becomes a second mother to him. For the first 50 pages of the book, Jacob doesn’t step outside the kitchen. ![]() The prostitutes, known as wolves, are named after the muses: Euterpe, Urania, Clio, Thalia and Melpomeni. He’s initially under the kitchen table in a brothel called Helicon, watching the woman he thinks of as his mother, Focaria, cook and clean. We first meet Jacob in the town of Carthago Nova in Hispania. ![]()
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