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Still, it required about double his typical ration of coffee to get him upright and downstairs with a blade in his hand.
Every morning for a se’en-night he spent drilling with Maestra Rovigatti. Every afternoon he spent watching Enzo do the same. Every evening he spent in spoilt luxury with Enzo, soaking in the bath and devouring delicacies—while he’d never lacked for appetite, the fencing regimen increased it tenfold—and Enzo working out the knots in his muscles and caressing the aches from his flesh. Fiore would’ve liked to cap off these adventures by showing Enzo just how enticing he found him with a sword in his hand, but inevitably he fell asleep before he could do anything more than dream of it and awoke to do it all over again the following day. While he by no means felt himself anywhere near Enzo’s equal, much less Maestra Rovigatti’s, he nonetheless noted how with each passing day he could hold out a little longer before his body revolted. Perhaps, he hoped, he might someday feel well enough after practice to put the inspiring sight of half-clad Enzo to good use.
The beginning of the second se’en-night brought a still greater change. When Fiore dragged himself out of bed and quaffed his coffee and tumbled downstairs to the courtyard, instead of handing him his wooden waster, Maestra Rovigatti instead held out a true steel blade.
Fiore accepted it with eager reverence.
He’d never held a real sword before. Like every other child in the city he’d picked up his fair share of sticks or rolled up sheets of paper to play at dueling. But to hold the true thing now, even after a se’en-night of acclimating himself to its weight through leaded wood, was certainly sobering. Blunted, of course, but even so—a sense of power sparked within him. Woe betide anyone who tried to kidnap him with a blade in his hand. He’d not go down without a fight.
The difference proved palpable as Maestra Rovigatti drilled him. The satisfying ring of steel against steel resounded through the courtyard. If this was what Enzo had been raised on, Fiore understood how he’d come to crave the sport.
Then—abruptly, from Fiore’s perspective—Maestra Rovigatti declared their practice finished.
Fiore didn’t feel even half so winded as he typically did after their lessons. A glance at the sundial showed the truth; Maestra Rovigatti had called him off early. He wondered if he’d done something wrong. Disappointed or offended her. While she remained stoic, he’d thought himself a better judge of people than to completely miss so grave a misstep as would provoke her to dismiss him.
But when he turned to go take his place on the marble bench, she halted him with an upraised hand.
“Remain here,” she said, though she herself withdrew. As she did so, she turned to Enzo, who waited as patient as the hound at his feet. “If you would take up your sword, your grace.”
~
Throughout the first se’en-night of their training, Enzo expected Lucrezia to intervene.
The whole city knew of the impending duel. Even if it weren’t whispered in every corridor and alluded to in every gazzetta, Lucrezia would know of it from Carlotta before anyone else heard. Given her disapproval of his dueling, Enzo had anticipated at the very least a sternly-worded note from her the very evening he made his challenge, if not another scolding visit in the flesh.
Yet even now, halfway to the fated date, he’d received nothing. No missive demanding he call it off. No not-so-subtle suggestions that he ought to depart for the countryside or attempts to make him do so by force. Perhaps, he thought, she meant to manipulate matters from another quarter, and knowing her brother would remain stubborn, she would instead either bribe or threaten Nascimbene into fleeing. But he’d heard nothing of the kind.
A queer hope sprung in his mind, that maybe, just maybe, she realized how her refusal to allow him to proceed through the law had forced his hand down a bloodier route. Even to his own optimistic instincts, such prospect seemed faint.
The sight of Fiore training drove all suspicions from his mind, however temporarily. A curious pride bloomed within him to see Fiore had advanced so far so quickly that Maestra Rovigatti granted him the privilege of a steel blade.
All of which meant Enzo shouldn’t have felt even half so surprised as he did when Maestra Rovigatti announced that the hour had arrived for Fiore and Enzo to spar with each other.
Enzo, caught off-guard, staggered upright and clutched at his sword to take up the post Maestra Rovigatti had vacated.
“The most important lesson for you to learn now,” Maestra Rovigatti told Enzo, “is one I’ve endeavored to teach you for some years. And that is…”
She trailed off. Silence reigned in the wake of her words, broken only an unseen lark’s call. Enzo waited with bated breath for what she wished to impart. Perhaps she wanted him to know the answer already and supply it—but whatever it was remained beyond him.
Maestra Rovigatti smiled. “Patience.”
“Ah,” said Enzo.
“That is my advice to you in your duel against Nascimbene,” she continued. “An inexperienced opponent will only grow more nervous if you wait to let them make the first strike. You need but continue to parry and retreat until they are exhausted. And then you may strike at your leisure. With tenfold precision, and, ideally, to tenfold success. You follow me?”
Enzo nodded.
Maestra Rovigatti smiled. “To that end—Fiore! Have at him!”
With that, she slipped away, vanishing from between them swift and silent as a shadow to stand off to the side where Vittorio slept.
Enzo stared at Fiore standing in front of him not three strides distant.
Fiore blinked back at him. He raised his blade in salute.
Enzo returned the gesture out of sheer habit. Everything within him, however, cried out at the mere thought of sparring against Fiore. Even with his own mastery—what if he failed to hold his blows? A blunted blade could nevertheless wreak havoc on the frailties of the mortal frame. What if Fiore were hurt? Or worse, what if—?
Fiore, with a gleam in his eye, dropt into the fighting stance.
