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“I am resolved,” Fiore told her—truthfully. He’d made the same bargain before. And even knowing its true cost, he wouldn’t hesitate to do so again.
She gave a nod as graceful as any bow. “Then I may teach you.”
“Not just yet,” Enzo broke in. At Fiore’s astonished glance, he added, “Fencing is rigorous exercise—doubly so for one just beginning to practice it. You would risk wound dehiscence. Incisional hernia,” he continued in response to Fiore’s ongoing bewilderment. He drummed his fingertips against his thigh, evidently searching for the correct term, and landing upon, “Evisceration.”
“My insides would become my outsides, you mean,” Fiore concluded.
“Precisely so.” A smile flickered across his scarred features—which Fiore recognized as joy at being understood at last—fading quickly to reflect the more somber tone of the subject at hand.
Which only made Fiore smile to see it.
~
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The summons from the princely palazzo arrived at Ca’ Scaevola on an otherwise uneventful morning.
Even Fiore, who’d never seen anything of its like in his life, knew from the quality of the parchment alone—thick, smooth, crisp—that something beyond the typical flood of invitations had arrived atop the pile of Enzo’s post. The wax crest Enzo broke through to read it was as broad as Fiore’s palm.
“Glad tidings?” Fiore ventured with more optimism than he felt as Enzo’s eyes ran across the page.
“Routine tidings,” Enzo replied. “The Wedding of the Sea is nigh.”
Fiore had known that already without requiring a royal summons to remind him. Every citizen of Halcyon did. On the summer solstice of every year, the reigning prince commemorated the occasion of Bellenos seducing Neptune and forming an alliance between his islands and the sea, sailing the flagship out into the lagoon to renew the vows spoken by the gods themselves. The whole city turned out for the ceremony and its accompanying festival; aristocrats vying for an invitation to the former at sea, and the common folk reveling at the latter ashore.
“The flagship is filled with the senate and those Lucrezia wishes to reward or impress,” Enzo continued. “My attendance is mandatory as the prince’s brother.”
“May I wear my green suit?” Fiore asked.
Enzo hesitated.
Fiore thought he knew the problem. “Or would it offend the prince to not have a new one made for the occasion?”
Still, Enzo hesitated.
And Fiore at last realized the true issue at hand. “It would offend the prince to have me attend at all.”
For while he might be welcomed behind closed doors into the hallowed halls of Ca’ Scaevola, it would be quite another thing for the prince’s brother to parade a courtesan on his arm on the most sacred date of the city’s calendar.
Enzo looked deeply uncomfortable with this unspoken truth. But to his kind-hearted and selfless credit, he said only, “I will ask Lucrezia—”
“Don’t,” said Fiore. “Please.”
Enzo balked. “If you wish to attend then there’s no reason—”
“I don’t wish to attend,” Fiore lied. “Does that settle it?”
Enzo didn’t look as though he believed him.
“I’ve no desire to rock the boat,” Fiore insisted. “Figuratively or literally.”
While he’d by no means earned Lucrezia’s approval, he hadn’t yet earned her ire, either. Fiore didn’t wish to push his luck by drawing her notice—much less forcing himself on her sphere or being thought to do so by others.
A tense silence drew out between them.
“The ceremony itself is very dull,” Enzo said after a lengthy pause. “There’s no real celebration to speak of until the flagship returns to the city.”
Fiore smiled. “Perfect. Then I shall alleviate your boredom on your return and regale you with tales of the revels conducted in your absence.”
