AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Society,” Enzo intoned with enough venom to make Fiore flinch, “can go and choke to death on its expectations of you.”
Some might have felt cowed. Fiore found himself emboldened to hear his own unfounded rage echoed in Enzo’s deep commanding tone. To have such a power raised on his behalf… well, that was certainly something. Something which stirred his heart to quicken its pace and bid his mind consider depths which he hadn’t dared fathom in years. He did his best to shove these feelings back down where they belonged. While Enzo had shown him more empathy than most, he needn’t debase himself in return.
Fiore forced a smile over his turbulent thoughts. “I suppose the shorter version of it is, I fear chirurgeons because I’m a coward.”
“Hardly,” Enzo scoffed.
“No? I fled the gelding table without a backward glance and have been left hiding ever since. What d’you call that but cowardice?”
Still, Enzo shook his head. “Can’t say as I blame you. I’d’ve run, too.”
“No you wouldn’t,” Fiore insisted. “You’d have skewered the chirurgeon with his own scalpel.”
Enzo chuckled. “Aye—and then run.”
Fiore wished he could share his mirth.
“Your courage in the face of adversity,” Enzo began.
“Is nothing,” Fiore hastened to cut him off. And, when those beautiful, scarred lips remained parted as if to argue, he further added, “Pray don’t speak of it.”
To Fiore’s astonishment, alongside some other emotions which were best left unexamined, Enzo’s mouth closed at his command.
Fiore cast around for something—anything—to change the subject. “Your manservant brought you some books, did she not?”
Once again, Enzo took the hint immediately. He leapt up to retrieve the threefold stack from atop Fiore’s desk.
“Whichever one is your favorite,” Fiore said after Enzo parted his lips but before he could actually ask.
As it so happened, Enzo’s favorite was the legend of a fae knight carving his way out of a treacherous realm of spider-silk. The tale was well-crafted and in another place and time Fiore would’ve heard it with rapt attention. But on this particular afternoon with his wound scourging his body and his memories scourging his mind and the anodyne battling both, he hadn’t the strength of will to follow all the finer details. He did retain an appreciation for the smooth sonorous bass of Enzo’s voice. The mellifluous flow of words from his tongue soothed Fiore down into sleep.
~
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Should we consider this a second residence?” Carlotta enquired the following morning. She’d just arrived with the day’s provisions from the kitchen of Ca’ Scaevola.
Enzo, who’d met her at the door to Fiore’s quarters, balked. “I don’t think so. Why d’you ask?” A chill ran through his blood as a horrible suspicion took root. “Did Lucrezia…?”
Carlotta shook her head. “The tavern-keeper gave me a gentle reminder that there’s an additional fee for double-occupancy.”
“Oh.” Enzo’s bated breath left him in a sigh of relief. “I suppose it’s rather up to her, then, whether my presence here counts as an occupancy.”
“From what she said, I gather it depends upon the duration of your stay.”
Some of Fiore’s other gentlemen must have stayed overnight before. Perhaps even several nights. But likely none so long as Enzo intended to remain—if Fiore would indulge him in a continuous visit. He’d have liked to stay until Fiore had recovered enough to return to business as usual. Which could be as soon as a mere fortnight. Yet even this prognosis gave Enzo pause. He’d never met any of Fiore’s other paramours, and he didn’t trust them to be sufficiently gentle with him during his convalescence. Instinct bid him glance over his shoulder at Fiore, still abed and asleep. His condition had improved, certainly, but still… “Let’s say a month.”
Carlotta raised her brows but made no further comment. With a bow, she departed.
Enzo shut the door behind her and brought in the basket she’d carried. Unpacking it released tempting aromas. These sufficed to rouse Fiore from his slumbers.
Fiore had slept well, so far as Enzo could tell. Pain hadn’t awoken him in the night and he’d remained asleep for some hours after Enzo got up at sunrise. This offered Enzo some small reassurance. His patient’s recovery had proceeded smoothly thus far and showed no sign of relapse. So it was with just the background hum of concern rather than overwhelming worry that he’d spent the early morning with his fingertips laid against the inside of Fiore’s wrist and counted his breaths as he’d slept.
Even as Fiore had fallen asleep curled up alongside him whilst he read to him the evening prior, Enzo had half-expected him to bolt awake with the nightmare. As for himself, all Fiore had confided in him whirled in his mind well after waking.
Enzo had possessed a dim awareness of what the opera required to create the unique sound of its heroes. While he’d never encountered a castrato himself, certain professors and colleagues at university had treated them as patients. And as one with a physical peculiarity of his own, he’d read up on the available literature concerning the medical symptoms occurring after castration. He knew how the larynx of a castrato was even shorter than that of an adult female, creating a unique tone that couldn’t be achieved by any other kind of performer. He knew how the loss of the testes impeded the growth of beard and body hair. And he knew how the castrati could never sire children, unless their castration proved incomplete like Fiore’s. But he had not known, until now, what was felt by those who underwent the chirurgy. And though by his own admission Fiore didn’t speak for all, still Enzo had remorse for his own total lack of consideration for their condition.
For Fiore in particular Enzo felt still more. The suffering he’d endured as a mere child had borne out on his body as an adult. The loss of only one stone had nonetheless shown itself in his diminished stature and comparative lack of body hair. The scar left behind was painful enough to look upon; Enzo could scarce imagine what agony and terror had seized him as a boy. And the self-same fear had followed him throughout the years until he’d preferred almost certain death to confronting a chirurgeon’s mask again. Enzo had wondered at Fiore’s desperate plea not to let the chirurgeon maim him. Now that he knew the reasoning behind it, it would echo in his mind for years to come.
