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Of course Enzo could bid whoever he liked to enter Fiore’s room. He was, at the very least, a patrizio. The chirurgeon had come here at his behest. Fiore’s wishes in this regard mattered not.
But as Fiore forced a smile and turned it upon Enzo, he beheld his scarred features harrowed by remorse, and no sooner did he see the sorrowful cast of those dark brows than his heart forgave him.
The chirurgeon, meanwhile, had no such human feeling. They offered a perfunctory greeting before announcing the hour had arrived to change Fiore’s wound-dressings. Fiore submitted to this indignity with a clenched jaw. The anodyne reduced what would otherwise have been a painful episode to mere aches and twinges. It helped to have Enzo’s hand in his own, soft fingertips kneading his knuckles and scarred lips murmuring low words of encouragement. The distraction kept Fiore’s eyes off the horrible glass lenses and his mind off of remembrances that didn’t bear dwelling upon. The old dressings were cast off, the fresh linen sewn in place, and the chirurgeon withdrew—not a moment too soon, by Fiore’s reckoning. No noise could’ve possibly sounded more welcome than the door thudding shut on the chirurgeon’s departure.
And then Enzo, who’d sat beside Fiore all the while, dropt to his knees before him.
“Forgive me,” Enzo said while Fiore blinked down at him in astonishment. “I should never have bid him enter without your leave. I quite forgot my place.”
“Nothing to forgive,” Fiore lied.
Enzo gazed off into the middle distance, worried his scarred lip, and at last, spoke. “May I know something more of you?”
All calm and comfort fled from Fiore’s veins. He worked to keep his smile in place and his voice level as he replied, “Depends what you wish to know.”
“Why are you afraid of chirurgeons?”
Fiore’s smile died on his face.
A long silence ensued.
“You’ve seen my scars,” Fiore said at last.
Enzo furrowed his brow in confusion.
“Below the belt,” Fiore elaborated.
“Oh. Yes.” Despite this, Enzo still looked confounded. “In truth, I hardly noticed them.”
Fiore doubted that—although, when contrasted against Enzo’s face, he supposed his own scars appeared minimal. And yet, they remained ever at the forefront of his mind. It seemed almost impossible to believe they didn’t loom in the thoughts of another, particularly one who’d glimpsed them so oft of late. “I suppose it won’t make much sense piecemeal. I may as well tell you the whole.”
“If you’re willing to speak,” said Enzo, “then I’m eager to listen.”
Even so, Fiore hardly knew where to begin. At the beginning, he supposed. He drew a deep breath that tugged against his throbbing stitches. “I was born in the countryside. My mother and father tended a flock. If the plague hadn’t taken them from me, I’d probably have grown up to become a handsome goatherd. Instead I became an orphaned ward of the temple. They made us all sing in the choir. I sang better than most. A visiting pontifex heard us perform and picked out my voice from amidst the throng. He took me back to the city with him and brought me to the conservatorio. There began my education. Mostly singing and lute-playing. Some literacy. Not drawing,” he added with a smile. “They whipped me for scrawling in the margins of my sheet music.”
Enzo did not return the smile.
Fiore supposed it was the sort of funny where one had to be there. “And for several years it all went rather well. I learnt quick. I had a roof over my head, clothes on my back, food in my belly. And…” He hesitated; having kept this part of himself silent for so many years, it felt sacrilege to speak it aloud now. Still, Enzo had asked. And Fiore realized he’d do almost anything if Enzo asked. “I found a friend.”
A glance at Enzo’s face showed he knew precisely what Fiore meant by that word.
“His name was Eliodoro.” Fiore hadn’t spoken it aloud since… well. “It was he who comforted me after the whippings. He was the better singer by far, but as sweet as his voice sounded, his nature proved even sweeter. We doted on each other. Nothing came to either of us that wasn’t shared with the other. We split many an orange stolen from the kitchens, and more besides.”
Fiore would’ve liked to dwell in those memories. He didn’t oft let himself wander back so far. Even the sweetest memory of his Elio led to the same end. And it was that very end which he was forced to divulge to Enzo now. He swallowed down the soreness in his throat and forced himself to speak on.
“You’re aware of how musici are made.”
The sentence hung in the air for a long and horrible moment before Enzo at last served him a solemn nod.
“Both Elio and I were destined for that fate.” It felt easier to say his name a second time, though Fiore’s heart hurt nonetheless. “The singing maestro liked our voices and wanted to preserve them for the stage. Elio, being the sweeter singer and thus risking the greater loss if they delayed too long, was chosen for the operation first.” Fiore’s heart beat in his throat. He choked it down. “They had a barber do it. Easier to find than a chirurgeon willing to overlook matters.” The words came faster and faster, spilling over his lips like blood, as if it would hurt less if he got it over with quick. “I wasn’t there for the mutilation itself. They tried to keep our fates secret from us, lest they lose their investment. We were as cloistered as the figlie di coro and easy to keep in ignorance. One day just like any other they simply declared Elio was sick and required treatment. He went away with the barber and the singing maestro as quietly as a lamb. And to no less bloody a slaughter.” Fiore halted. Visions he’d long suppressed roiled up from the deepest pits of his mind. He drew a steadying breath as he told himself to just get through it, get the words out and get it over with. “As I said, I didn’t witness the act. But I beheld the aftermath. He fell into a fever. Cried out for parents he’d never known. In his more lucid moments, he cried out for me but could neither see me beside him nor recognize my hand clasping his own. He faltered between sleeping and waking. In the end he awoke only to sob. He breathed his last in my arms.”
A silence fell. Fiore’s throat ached. From talking so much for so long, or so he told himself. That didn’t explain the burning in his eyes or the pulsing behind them or how his own breath resounded ragged in his ears. He dared a glance up to see what Enzo made of his narrative.
Enzo looked about as horrified as Fiore had wished anyone besides himself had felt all those years ago. Worse still, he looked on the verge of speaking.
Fiore hastened to avert his gaze and clear his throat. “Then it was my turn.”
Something nudged his knuckles knotted in the bedclothes. Against his better judgment Fiore flicked his gaze toward it. He found Enzo’s hand beside his own, palm-up, a quiet and patient invitation.
