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“Medicine?” Fiore asked before he could stop himself from demanding answers of one who could hardly draw breath.
Enzo shook his head and creaked out, “Water.”
“Oh,” said Fiore.
Enzo fumbled with the flask. His frame trembled as he withdrew from the tree’s support to set both hands to the stopper.
Fiore—equal parts eager and relieved to do something for him at last—gently plucked it from his grasp and opened it.
Enzo gave him a pale yet courageous smile of thanks as he accepted it back from him. The water seemed to help. He breathed a little easier afterward. The faintest hint of color returned to his hollow cheeks.
“Ought we to turn back?” Fiore suggested, keeping his voice low lest his words wound Enzo’s pride.
Enzo shook his head.
“Coughing is good,” he insisted in a voice barely more than a wheeze.
Fiore didn’t bother trying to look as though he believed him.
Enzo cleared his throat and took another draught from his flask. When he spoke again he sounded almost hale. “I’d like to show you the stables at the very least—if you’ll indulge me,” he added with another self-deprecating smile.
Fiore would indulge him in anything if it would keep him breathing. He offered Enzo his arm. To his great relief, Enzo accepted it with a smile. The ever-so-slight weight of a fraction of Enzo’s bulk leaning against his shoulder eased Fiore’s nerves further still.
The stables, as it so happened, lay on the opposite side of the garden. They passed a great deal of greenery on the way. Fiore could see how Enzo bit his tongue to keep from divulging all he knew of the plants and provoking another coughing fit. He made a note to ask after all of it when Enzo had regained his strength. Assuming the duke let him remain that long.
The brief acquaintance with the horses that drew the carriage through the woods had not prepared Fiore for the sight of a herd some two-dozen strong gallivanting about a fenced meadow. All wore coats of gleaming jet black. A few looked small enough for a child to ride. Most were enormous, ranging from lithe elegance to brute strength in build, but all standing taller than Fiore at their shoulders. He’d seen horses before in paintings and sculpture—Artemisia had a full equine skeleton she’d bought whole from a butcher and wired up so she might articulate it for reference—but all artistic representation belied their true size.
Enzo approached the wooden fence—painted as black as the horses—and leant against it with an ease that defied the monstrous enormity of the creatures penned within it. Fiore endeavored to match his poise in appearance if not in spirit. He didn’t wish to look half so awestruck as he felt, lest Enzo know him for a charlatan.
They’d not paused there long before one particular horse approached them. Fiore fought the urge to back away as it drew nearer, for with every thudding step of its anvil hooves it loomed larger in his vision. Its shoulders stood taller than Enzo himself by a full head—and its head ran as long as Enzo’s torso. Enzo himself remained unmoved, a serene smile gracing his scarred lips. The horse stuck its head over the fence and bent its sinewy neck to nudge its nose against Enzo’s shoulder. Enzo scratched its brow as easily as he would’ve patted Vittorio’s head.
“This is Fabio,” Enzo told Fiore as if he were introducing a human acquaintance. “My steed in the hunt.”
The gentle waves of its midnight mane tumbled down in an echo of Enzo’s own. This, combined with its black coat in imitation of Enzo’s bauta costume and its long, lean frame capped off by a long, lean face reminiscent of its master’s, made Fiore think rider and steed peculiarly well-matched. Furthermore, as he glanced upon Enzo’s countenance to find only unsuspecting serenity, he inferred this was all an unconscious coincidence on Enzo’s part—which made it all the more amusing. He bit back his smile lest he give offense. “I suppose I ought to thank him for bearing you safely home.”
Enzo hesitated. “He didn’t do that, exactly…”
“He abandoned you?” Fiore asked before he could think better of it.
Fortunately Enzo seemed to take no offense. “I abandoned him first by swinging out of the saddle. And in bolting back to his herd—that is, the remainder of the hunting party—his riderless state alerted them to my peril and allowed them to rescue me all the sooner.”
In light of that, Fiore supposed he could forgive the horse.
“We might go riding, if you’d like,” Enzo said apropos of nothing. In response to Fiore’s startled glance, he continued, “Not today, I’m afraid, but Dr Zoccarato says I might return to the saddle in as little as a fortnight if all goes well. That is,” he added as a rosy tint bloomed beneath his high cheekbones, “if I could persuade you to stay so long.”
Fiore would’ve gladly remained for years if Enzo would permit him. Still, he couldn’t help pointing out with a smile, “I should have to learn to ride first.”
Enzo blinked down at him in surprise.
Fiore didn’t see why. No one rode horses within the city bounds of Halcyon, and Fiore was hardly of a class who could afford to withdraw to the countryside and ride for pleasure—until now.
But before Fiore could say anything further to banish the threat of awkward silence, Enzo spoke on. “I’d be delighted to teach you.”
Fiore knew he ought to feel some form of gratitude. Enzo’s offer entailed not just his horses but likewise his time and patience. A generous proposal by any reckoning. Yet as he gazed out over the paddock at the mighty muscled beasts within, he felt more than a twinge of apprehension.
“They’re all… rather large,” he heard himself say before his mind could catch his tongue.
Enzo looked from Fiore to Fabio and back again as if the disparity in their size had only just occurred to him. Despite this, he proclaimed, “You needn’t fear them.”
