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“Artemisia deals exclusively with wealthy patrons,” Fiore countered.
“Yes,” Serafina conceded. She dipped an arm beneath the bar and emerged with a glass, which she filled from one of the tapped wine-barrels stacked high against the outer wall of what had once been the captain’s quarters. “But are they there to patronize her or to patronize you?”
Fiore tamped down his rising impatience. He’d modelled for Artemisia’s work many times. Some of her best pieces showed off his finest features. More than a few had entered her studio and beheld a marble Bacchus or Mercury so beautiful they could hardly bear it—and turned to find that very same creature standing before them in the flesh. Granted, none of them had remained with Fiore for more than a few months, but the strategy had worked thus far, and Fiore hoped it might secure him a more permanent patronage in the near future.
Of course, Serafina already knew all that. But because it wasn’therstrategy, she gave it little credence.
“You might try the opera,” said Serafina. “Filled to bursting with nobles, aristocrats, patricians. All devouring drama of the highest degree for hours at a stretch, only to be disgorged onto the streets with enflamed and unrealized passions. Easy pickings. I could show you around, if you’d like.”
Fiore kept his smile pinned in place even as his veins flooded with dread. The opera. Always the damned opera. Serafina liked to tell everyone she’d almost been an opera singer. She sang sometimes in the tavern. By Fiore’s estimation, she sang well enough but not operatically. He would know. He preferred non-operatic singing himself, for reasons he didn’t care to divulge to her or anyone else. “Are you suggesting Artemisia’s work doesn’t enflame the passions?”
“In her studio, the passions are enflamed by something they may purchase from her direct,” Serafina retorted. “Whereas at the opera, their passions are enflamed by the unattainable—until you arrive to show them precisely how they may attain it.”
If Serafina thought the objects of opera-induced passions remained unattainable, she had some serious misconceptions about the enterprise. Her own line of work had far more in common with that of a prized prima donna off the stage, whether in the wings, in the dressing room, or in the refined apartments of a noble patron.
Perhaps Corelli noted the rising tension between her tenants, for she interceded. “The dueling Duke of Drakehaven has returned to the city. They say he fancies lads like yourself. Perhaps you’ll find him out at the opera.”
“Perhaps,” Fiore conceded.
Serafina smiled as she sipped her wine. “Go on, then. Just be sure to come back and tell me what you’ve found.”
Fiore forced himself to mirror her smile and descended, at long last, down the rope-ladder off the port bow of the ship.
The worst part of it was, as his simmering sour mood drove him onward, he knew Serafina was right. By the numbers alone—hundreds of wealthy knobs crowded the theater district every night, compared to perhaps a half-dozen potential clients dropping into Artemisia’s studio in the course of a full day. Only a fool would bet on the latter over the former. And Fiore hadn’t survived this long by being a fool.
He did, however, attribute much of his survival to going nowhere near the theater district.
Perhaps, he thought as his steps drew ever nearer to the center of the city and the gleaming dome of the temple to Bellenos rising high over the piazza, he could make an exception. Just for today. He could go to an opera house—not inside it, of course, but just linger outside around intermission. And when he inevitably came home empty-handed he could shut Serafina up once and for all. Or at least for another fortnight or so.
And thus, though every instinct screamed for him to continue on southward out of the square towards Artemisia’s studio, his steps turned northward towards the theatre district.
His nerves increased as he went along, though he kept a placid smile on for everyone he passed by. Said nerves reached a fever pitch when at last he alighted in the theatrical piazza and settled himself into leaning against one of the marble plinths at the base of Teatro Novissimo’s sweeping front staircase. Faint echoes of the music within reached his ears, though whether he imagined them or no he couldn’t say for certain. They unnerved him nonetheless. He told himself his fears were unwarranted. Even if they caught him now, it wouldn’t do them any good. His voice was already ruined.
“Pardon me.”
Fiore whirled toward the sudden speech, half-expecting to see the chirurgeon with knife in hand.
The figure who’d spoken did wear a mask. But not the glass-eyed, bird-beaked mask of the chirurgeon. Instead, the black bauta stood before him. The self-same lithe gentleman who had watched Fiore pleasure himself, now gazing down at Fiore with enquiring and enchanting eyes.
The voice—a deep, sonorous burr which Fiore recognized when combined with the familiar figure and no longer lost in the labyrinth of horrible recollections—continued. “I believe we are acquainted.”
Sheer relief had already brought a smile to Fiore’s lips. The understatement made him grin. “Intimately.”
The eyes beneath the mask smiled likewise.
“Do you enjoy the opera?” Fiore asked, affecting a tone of indifference.
The gentleman hesitated. “May I be honest with you?”
A rare commodity from folk of the gentleman’s apparent rank. Fiore wondered if he would actually receive it. “Of course.”
“I do not.”
Fiore expressed his astonishment at both the candor and the content of the gentleman’s answer in a blink. “And yet you attend.”
“I was asked to provide an escort.”
A wry smile tugged at the corner of Fiore’s mouth. “And you abandoned your charge.”
