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Enzo slipped out into the corridor. A conversation with someone ensued, too low for Fiore to discern the words. But he returned shortly, which was all Fiore wanted in that moment.
Fiore caught him by the hand and drew him down to sit beside him. Enzo put an arm around him; Fiore leaned his head against Enzo’s shoulder, and Enzo smoothed his curls across his scalp in soft, soothing strokes, which almost sufficed to lull Fiore into sleep despite the stabbing pain in his gut.
All feelings of comfort vanished with a knock on the chamber door.
Enzo arose to answer it. Fiore resisted the urge to seize him by the wrist and hold him back. He stared in mute dread as Enzo opened the door and ushered a looming figure over the threshold.
A long leather beak obscured the whole face. Green glass lenses gleamed in place of eyes. A flat broad-brimmed hat covered the head. One gloved hand gripped a leather case; the other, a long silver-capped cane. Any further detail remained hidden beneath the formless waxed-canvas robe, the same black shade as mask, hat, gloves, bag, and cane. The stench of vinegar wafted off the whole. It stood not so tall as Fiore recalled from his childhood, but then again, he was no longer a child. Still, the past ten years had not sufficed to rob the sight of its horror.
Enzo welcomed the chirurgeon in with a smile.
Fiore’s fists tangled in the bedclothes as he fought the impulse to bolt for the window.
The chirurgeon approached his bedside. They doffed their hat, which revealed just the hood of their robe and the dome of their mask. A muffled voice emerged from the beak. “Signor Fiore, I presume.”
Fiore forced himself to nod.
The chirurgeon took up the post Enzo had vacated and set their bag on the nightstand. From this they withdrew stetoscopio and termometro.
“Hold this under your tongue,” they instructed, holding the termometro before Fiore. “If you would.”
Fiore supposed he’d already taken more questionable things into his mouth. He pried his lips apart and accepted the cold glass tube.
The chirurgeon brought up their stetoscopio. “If I may.”
It didn’t quite carry the tone of a question. Still, Fiore nodded. Panic seized him as the chirurgeon raised their hands toward his throat. He fumbled open his own shirt-ties to pull down his collar so they needn’t touch him any further than absolutely necessary.
The stetoscopio’s brass bell felt colder than ice against his fevered chest and sent a shiver over his skin. Fiore didn’t think the chirurgeon needed the instrument to hear his heart flinging itself against its ribcage with the frantic ferocity of a trapped bird. Whatever they thought of his pounding pulse, he could read nothing of it in the blank glass eyes of the beaked mask.
Enzo, meanwhile, had gone ‘round to the opposite side of the bed. He perched on it with a tentative delicacy that belied his enormous frame and laid his gentle hand over Fiore’s fist tangled in the bedclothes. His touch alone dissolved the Gordian knot of Fiore’s knuckles.
The chirurgeon withdrew the stetoscopio and termometro without commenting on the results of either, though they did examine the latter closely. They set their instruments aside and reached for Fiore’s waistband before halting.
“Shall you draw it up, or shall I?” they asked him.
Fiore hastened to tear his shirt free from the waist of his breeches, holding it up out of the way above his navel. Then he steeled his nerve and unbuttoned the fall-front.
Much like Enzo had done before them, the chirurgeon took two fingers and tapped just above the crest of Fiore’s left hip-bone, then below his navel, then over on the right-hand side. It felt worse than before. Fiore’s scream threatened to tear his throat apart as he choked it back.
“Appendicitis,” the chirurgeon confirmed. “We must have it out at once.”
Fiore had expected nothing less. He still didn’t like to hear it.
The chirurgeon picked up their leather case and took it off with them further down towards the bow of the bed. Enzo deftly maneuvered around them to return to his place at Fiore’s bedside.
Before he’d even sat down again, Fiore caught him by the elbow.
“Don’t let them maim me,” he hissed, knowing all the while how ludicrous he must sound.
Enzo replied with solemnity, “I won’t.”
“Can you undress yourself?” the chirurgeon asked, heedless of their conversation. “Or do you require aid?”
“Must I?” Fiore despised the rising pitch of his own voice.
Not an ounce of pity entered the chirurgeon’s tone. “Any lint in the wound will worsen the infection.”
Fiore looked to Enzo, who might at least care whether he lived or died. He fought back his desperation even as he begged. “Let me keep my breeches on, at least.”
