The one that sings before Atia and collapses?
At first I thought she was ''in on'' the poisoning, but then she appears to take a sneaky taste of the food before serving it?? So she was innocent.
THEN, she acts strangely as she's asked to sing, as if somehow oddly guilty?
Good question...
shareThe thing I thought was oddest was the first few notes were barely squeaks and two bars later she's belting out the tune like a semi-pro trained mezzo-soprano. RE: guilt, there was a previous scene where she tells the new boy she would get in trouble for letting him in the kitchen (and for good reason). Her awkward behavior may also be explained that until that moment, she was essentially a nameless kitchen slave whose existence Atia likely barely acknowledged, but since Atia is uncharacteristically dining "alone," she puts the girl on the spot as her sole source of entertainment and has likely whipped slaves for more inconsequential slights, so she had a really bad case of stage fright. Oh yeah, and the poison...
shareI believe she was starting to feel the effects of the poison already, but soldiered on as not to anger her master.
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