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Fiore gladly led him down and away from the wretched opera house. His heart lightened with every step they took out of the theatre district. They caught eyes as they went. While the sight of a bauta mask sailing through the crowd was by no means an uncommon occurrence in Halcyon, a black bauta remained unusual. And, Fiore supposed, the disparity in height between himself and Enzo must appear comical. He smiled to think on it.
The coffeehouse, called the Crooked Anchor, lay south-east of the theatre district, just north of the painters’ and sculptors’ guildhalls. This made it a convenient and popular watering-hole for the artistic set. Despite the name, its signage showed no anchor, crooked or otherwise, but rather a generation or so ago one of the owners had something like a ship’s bow built over the entrance, made from a rowboat with a false prow added on its front and painted a gleaming white to match the marble edifice, with seafoam-green trim to catch the eye. Within, amidst the customary bar, benches, and booths of the interior were seafoam-green walls and ceiling adorned with sprigs and effusions of sprawling gold gilding, like the sun’s own rays beaming forth from every corner. Some of the gilt had chipped, true enough, and the effect rather dwindled as the eye descended the walls to the point within reach of the tables, for at this pseudo-water-line the drawing began, years of artistic customers taking their creativity out on their surroundings. Most were done in red chalk, this being the most charming yet contrasting shade against the pale blue-green, which gave the whole chamber a rather sunset-like effect. Fiore saw some familiar faces scribbling even now, leaning back in their chairs with coffee cups in one hand and the other scrawling the beginnings of some splendid nudes.
Fiore gave Enzo a moment to take it all in before he suggested, “Shall we?”
Enzo required no further prompting to stride up to the bar and procure two coffees. This done, Fiore led him through the crowd to the back door, beyond which lay a patio filled with tables and chairs that offered a charming view on the corner of two intersecting canals.
Some fellow regulars recognized Fiore along the way and acknowledged him with nods. More turned to look at the black bauta sweeping through them. But Fiore was used to attracting interest with his own appearance, and if Enzo didn’t mind the stares, then neither did he. Besides, most returned to their own matters after a glance or two. In an establishment replete with artistic temperaments, a dark masked figure hardly warranted any focus. Particularly when contrasted against the vivid wrapping-gowns several of the patrons wore. A far cry from a theatre-full of audience members gawking through their opera glasses.
Yet as they stepped out into the sunshine, Enzo paused.
“Something wrong?” Fiore asked.
“No,” Enzo replied. “Something familiar. Is this where you come to sketch?”
Fiore blinked.
A bashful smile reached the eyes beneath the mask. “The ones in your room are your own handiwork, no?”
“They are,” Fiore admitted, still a touch stunned. Most gentlemen didn’t notice the artwork adorning his walls.
Enzo gestured to the canal, with gondole and sandoli drifting past, the lanterns gently swaying in the archways of the storehouses across the way, and an aedicula—venerating Bellenos and beseeching his protection over this particular corner of the city—set into the wall beside a bridge replete with wisteria vines. “You’ve captured it well.”
A smile wound its way up Fiore’s cheek.
He led Enzo to his favorite corner table. Enzo remained standing whilst Fiore slid onto his customary chair, then set his coffee before him, only seating himself after Fiore had settled. A perfect gentleman, Fiore observed.
Fiore further noted how Enzo chose to arrange his statuesque frame. While he laid it out to its full and considerable extent as he took his place in the chair across from Fiore, not so much as one slender finger at the end of his long arm entered Fiore’s sphere. Not even his legs, stretched as they were beneath the table before crossing delicately at the ankle, intruded upon the space Fiore already occupied.
Which left it up to Fiore to intrude upon Enzo’s sphere by stretching out his own legs and laying the exterior of his own right foot against the interior of Enzo’s left.
Enzo went stiff again for a moment—at which Fiore prepared to retreat—but then relaxed still further than he had before, and contentment warmed his masked eyes.
“Come here often?” Enzo asked, his smile evident in his sonorous voice.
Fiore smiled likewise into his coffee. “I suppose the sketches gave me away.”
Enzo took a sip. The coffee cup appeared miniature in his strong yet elegant hands. It vanished altogether beneath the jutting chin of his mask, returning in the wake of the long swallow that travelled magnificently down his throat. “The two trades seem rather entwined.”
“Brewing and drawing?” The wry half-smile returned to tug at the corner of Fiore’s mouth. “Or drawing and whoring?”
Enzo blinked. “Both, I suppose. Did you pick up one through the other? Or is that too bold to ask?”
“None too bold in the least,” Fiore assured him. “And yes. I modeled and more for a particular painter. He wished to pay me in portraits. Alas I proved not quite so vain as he’d hoped.”
Enzo’s laugh choked in his coffee.
Fiore hid his smile behind his own cup. “Since he had no coin, I demanded payment in materials. Reams of paper, red chalk, black ink. He taught me a little, as well.”
“Does he still?” Enzo enquired.
Fiore studied him. From another man, the question might come with a tinge—or more—of jealousy. But Enzo sounded merely curious. Earnest, almost. “No. He acquired a wealthy patron inland. He does well there, from what I’ve heard.”
Enzo raised his cup in salute to the artist’s success.
“And you?” Fiore asked. “What do you do when you’re not suffering an opera?”
The low chuckle rumbling up from Enzo’s throat sang through Fiore’s heart-strings. “Fencing. And,” Enzo added, in a more bashful tone, “I draw a little as well.”
