Small heart tattoos on the wrists

The locket is finished and I have hung it in the shop window so the carters can see the work before they haggle over it. Your father would have sworn at the price I put on it, but the gold is good and the hinge closes with a click you can hear across the room. I pressed the lid shut a dozen times this morning just to hear it.

You asked in your last letter whether I still have the little hearts we pricked into our wrists the summer we were twelve, when Mother said we had both gone mad. I do. Mine has faded to the colour of an old bruise and yours, the one in blue-black soot, has gone soft at the edges, but both are still there. Pollio laughed when he saw them and said no ring could ever be worn that way. He was right, and I still think he was missing the point.

The chain you sent is for the buyer from Ostia, a man with rings on every finger who wants his wife's name cut inside the lid. I told him I would do it for two loaves and a jar of wine, and he agreed too quickly, which tells me he will not pay on time. I have written the name on the wax tablet: Lucilla. I will cut it tomorrow, when the light comes in from the east and the letters will show clean.

Tell me the sea was kind on the crossing and that the boy who carried your box did not steal from it. Write soon, and do not let the grain merchants cheat you the way they cheated me last spring.

Your loving sister, Dido