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Fiore forced his fist to unclench so he might entangle his fingers in Enzo’s own. Though he grasped Enzo’s hand perhaps a touch too tight, he felt nothing but a firm-yet-gentle clasp in return. He swallowed hard and continued his tale.
“They had a proper chirurgeon this time. Mask and all. Because this wasn’t just some poor family pinning their hopes of clawing their way out of poverty on the mutilation of a younger son. This was the conservatorio proper. They’d spent years training me to sing already. They’d lost one just like me in the past month. They couldn’t afford to lose another. So they wanted the maiming done properly, and got a proper chirurgeon to do it. I didn’t know exactly what they’d done to Elio. Just that it’d killed him. I think they hoped I’d assume whatever sickness they pretended he had did the mischief. Regardless, they knew better than to try the same trick on me. They didn’t bother pretending I was ill or injured. They just gave me opium in wine and then pounced.”
The taste of it seemed to cling to his tongue even now. Bitter. Cloying. A drink that seemed to wrap his head in cotton even as they gagged him with a belt and tied him hand and foot with another.
“I wanted to struggle,” Fiore heard himself say as if from a distance. “But my limbs wouldn’t move with any strength. It’s like all those nightmares where you need to run but can’t. I used to think I was the only one who had those and that they stemmed from this.”
Enzo squeezed his hand. As if this gesture imbued him with vitality, Fiore found his voice again, amidst breaths which had no reason to ring so ragged in his own ears.
“My vision became a haze,” Fiore went on. “The only thing I saw with any clarity was that damned mask looming over me. They brought the knife in. When the blade bit into me—something about the pain seemed to cut through my stupor.”
“Adrenaline,” Enzo intoned.
“It’s a known phenomenon, then?”
Enzo nodded.
“Very well,” said Fiore. “Then I suppose it was that which let me twist my stick-limbs out of joint and wrestle free. It took them all by surprise. Doubtless that’s the only reason I succeeded. The blade went—well. You’ve seen the scars. You know. It flew quite out of the chirurgeon’s gloves. As did I out of everyone else’s.”
“Everyone else?” Enzo echoed in enquiry.
“The singing maestro,” Fiore answered him. “And a particularly burly ballerino—they’re absurdly strong, they have to be, hoisting each other up and flinging themselves about—more than enough to hold down a mere boy, or so they all thought. None were fleet or flexible enough to catch me. I was smaller and swifter than the lot. Slipped out through a gap in a window none but an alley-cat would’ve attempted. Stole a pair of breeches off a laundry line. I still had my shirt and hose, at least. Then spent the following years dodging the city guard and avoiding the orphanages.”
“Why avoid the orphanages?”
Fiore didn’t resent the questions in the least. Enzo finding his voice again meant Fiore had a trail to follow, linking his own history up to match the thread laid out by the enquiries. No longer did all depend on his own force of will. “Because they all train up their charges musically. Just like the conservatorio. How was I to know they wouldn’t want to mutilate me just the same?”
There was more, of course. Much more. Between the conservatorio and theKingfisherlay years that didn’t bear remembering. Certainly nothing Fiore could bear to reexamine beneath Enzo’s gaze. He attempted to leap over the gap and land on the other side so perfectly that Enzo wouldn’t notice it. “After a while I fell into the line of work you find me in now. And then a few years back I found a place here. My condition has improved steadily since. I’ve a good reputation for good work. Captains make port specifically to see me. To say nothing of the gentlemen already in town.”
Fiore pulled his face into a smile and forced himself to raise it towards Enzo.
The look he found on Enzo’s face—brow furrowed, lips thinned, eyes whose depths contained all the darkness Fiore didn’t wish to dwell on—spoke plainly that Enzo had, indeed, noticed the gap. Yet he made no mention of it, nor any further enquiry, for which Fiore withheld a sigh of relief.
“I stopped singing,” Fiore went on. “Even though my voice is unrecognizable these days, I don’t want to risk it. So I draw instead.” A queer smile twitched across Fiore’s lips. “There’s no one to whip me for it now.”
Enzo didn’t return the smile.
Fiore continued. “The work I do now is much the same as what most of the castrati do, anyways. Opera-goers will pay handsomely to fuck the hero of their favorite piece. But in my case, I didn’t have to suffer mutilation for the privilege, and theKingfishertakes a far smaller cut of the profits than any opera house. And theKingfisheris far safer than working on the street. I’m not tall enough to be a gondolier. Not that they’d let me into the guild, anyway.”
Still, Enzo said nothing. His brow remained furrowed. Fiore supposed that was understandable; he’d dumped rather a lot of unfamiliar and uncomfortable truths on his head all at once.
“I’m happy for those who’ve met with success,” Fiore went on, unable to stop himself now that the dam he’d spent a decade building had burst. “But I don’t know if any amount of fame or fortune could repay what they’ve sacrificed. And those who’ve found neither, despite the sacrifice forced upon them, are too numerous to name. Not every castrato gets an opera career,” he added, as Enzo’s brow furrowed in confusion. “There’s a surplus of geldings for every one that makes it onto the stage. The rest end up as music teachers if they’re lucky. Most just perish in obscure poverty.”
A soft and startled, “Oh,” escaped Enzo.
Fiore didn’t begrudge him it. How was he to know, when he never attended an opera if he could avoid it, what became of those who never appeared in front of the curtain. “So, that’s why I’m not over-fond of the opera.” Which wasn’t the question Enzo had asked, and Fiore had already said more than he ought, far more than anyone cared to hear, and yet he couldn’t halt his tongue. “It’s not just the sight of the house, although that’s bad enough. It’s the sound of it. The music in general and the castrati in particular. They all sound like him, and I…” His eyes burned. “I can’t abide the memory.”
Enzo tightened his clasp on Fiore’s hand. This alone prevented him from falling into the howling void within his own heart.
Fiore forced more words out; the alternative was to let the lump in his throat grow large enough to choke him. “Some of my gentlemen callers wish to take me out on the town. To the opera, specifically. Whether to show off or because they think it’ll amuse me I know not. Regardless, I took one of them up on the offer. Once.” The memory alone seized his chest in a tight grip that threatened to preclude breath. “I didn’t even make it to the end of the first act. I slipped out and ran.”
“And the gentleman?” Enzo asked, his low voice soft as lambskin.
“Never returned. Which is a shame,” Fiore added. “For he was almost as rich as he was old.”
Enzo didn’t laugh.
Fiore couldn’t bear the silence. His rambling thoughts fell from his tongue. “Sometimes I wonder if I ought to have let them finish maiming me after all. I’m not the breeding kind anyway. And some gentlemen prefer their paramours without stones and are disappointed to discover I still have even just the one remaining.” How fortunate Fiore had felt to discover Enzo was not of that sort. “And yet… I know I’m happier as I am. Even if I don’t fulfill the purpose society expects of me.”
