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Fiore stared at him. A queer curiosity sparked in his veins despite the dampening effects of the anodyne. “Did he, indeed?” At Enzo’s answering nod, Fiore added, “Which one?”
“The large one,” Enzo admitted with unaccountable reluctance. “With the broken nose.”
“How?” Fiore demanded. He had a dim awareness that his captors had all perished—Enzo had told him so when his more vivid nightmares demanded reassurance that those who’d harmed him could never touch him again—but he knew not the full account.
And yet Enzo still evaded. “I would spare you the gory details. Your nerves—”
“I don’t want to be spared,” Fiore insisted. “I want to know.”
Perhaps Enzo realized at last that forbearance would only agitate his patient further. He relented with a sigh. “Very well. The brigand attacked me. And Vittorio tore out his throat.”
Fiore didn’t know quite how he ought to feel. At present he felt a sort of elation, which seemed somewhat wrong, and yet if he could have smiled he knew he would’ve grinned. Grim satisfaction, he supposed. Of all his tormentors, the broken-nosed brute best deserved the fate Vittorio had dealt him. Regardless… “Then Vittorio has proved himself a very good hound. The least we may do is reward him for his efforts.”
A crease had appeared between Enzo’s brows. His lips parted—doubtless to argue, however gently, against allowing Vittorio in—but again he hesitated.
And in that moment of hesitation, Vittorio’s most pitiful whine arose beyond the door.
Fiore fixed Enzo with a pointed look.
Enzo relented and went to the door. The whining ceased as it opened. This time Enzo flung it wide, enough so that Fiore could see how Vittorio quivered with excitement at the sight of his master and yet remained seated in perfect obedience until Enzo pronounced the command.
“Release.”
Then and only then did Vittorio bound up with astonishing agility for a creature of his size and throw paws as large as human hands over Enzo’s shoulders—for, on his hind legs, he stood fully as tall as his master.
A rare and welcome smile graced Enzo’s scarred lips even as his hound’s enthusiasm forced him backward into the room. Only after Enzo vigorously rubbed the hound’s ribs did Vittorio jump down again at last. Then he settled for leaping and bowing in circles around his master, knocking his anvil skull against Enzo’s body to request further pats.
The sight of the hound at play made Fiore feel the nearest thing to a smile since his kidnapping, though he couldn’t quite make his face show it.
Several moments passed before Vittorio even noticed Fiore. His ears pricked as his gaze fell upon the bed. Though evidently reluctant to part from Enzo, nonetheless he took a tentative step towards Fiore.
“Gentle,” Enzo admonished him.
Remarkable beast that he was, Vittorio seemed to take the instruction to heart—though his tail wagged as vigorously as ever. Rather than leap up onto the bed, he settled for laying his chin on the mattress by Fiore’s good hand. Fiore scratched him behind his ears and dug his fingertips into the velvety-soft fur covering his skull. His heart felt a little lighter. It felt lighter still when Enzo sat on the bed beside him.
“He could support your weight, if you’re willing to try standing again,” Enzo suggested.
Fiore would’ve felt content to lay there in his half-waking, half-sleeping state with one arm around the hound and the other around his Enzo. But he supposed it must be that time of day again. He assented with a nod.
This time when Enzo drew him upright, Fiore braced his palm between Vittorio’s shoulder blades. The hound stood firm as iron. And when Fiore took a step forward, one arm entwined with Enzo’s and the other on Vittorio’s back, the latter kept pace—and kept a careful eye cast up at Fiore besides. Vittorio stuck by him even as they reached the window and paused so Fiore might rest. No sooner had Fiore lowered himself into the window seat than Vittorio nudged his head into Fiore’s lap and cast his worried bestial gaze balefully up at him.
“Good boy,” Fiore murmured as he petted the hound’s velvety head.
Vittorio’s tail thumped against the floorboards with renewed vigor.
The tail continued its enthusiastic wagging on their slow and steady return voyage to Fiore’s sickbed. It thwacked the tapestry that hid Enzo’s standing mirror. But rather than a thud or even a crack of breaking glass, it instead produced a curious reverberating twang that struck Fiore’s ears as unaccountably musical.
Fiore stumbled to a halt. “What was that?”
Enzo winced. “A lute.”
Fiore stared up at him. “But your lute is at Wolf’s Head.”
“I brought it with me when I returned here.”
“Why?”
Enzo hesitated. “I thought you might want to play it again.”
