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From a medical perspective, Enzo still advised Fiore against holding a standing pose. If he moved from pose to pose every few minutes, however, alternating sitting and standing, then Enzo had no objection whatsoever. And a reclining pose held no danger at all. Which gave Artemisia more than enough to work with.
They began with what Artemisia called “gestural” poses. Standing with limbs sprawled and contorted in all directions, each held for no more than a few minutes, most for mere moments. Artemisia sketched them out with rapidity, a few lines slashed across her page to represent Fiore’s entire body. When she thought she’d warmed up enough to settle in to a longer session, she likewise allowed Fiore to settle in to her studio chair piled high with pillows and blankets. Only then did either of them have breath enough to spare for conversation. Fiore unleashed his tongue to prattle on about the party, the tailor, the cobbler, the haberdasher, the dance lessons, and all else he’d done to prepare for what would be his finest performance yet. In between all of these he shifted his posture several times over, at one point ending up with his left knee flung over the back of the chair and his hair brushing the floorboards. Artemisia took it all in stride. She asked but one question, and that was mere permission to sketch him in all his finery after the ball, which he eagerly granted.
After he had spent all he had to say, he made an enquiry of her in turn. “Anyone interesting come in whilst I was away?”
This was the usual phrase between him and Artemisia to ask after any potential wealthy patrons who might take a shine to a handsome young man.
Which made it all the more odd when she furrowed her brow as if confused. “Thought you’d already found someone interesting.”
Fiore didn’t insult her by asking who she meant. “I find him very interesting, indeed. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still looking.”
Artemisia stared at him. “He’s a duke. Brother to the prince. His meagre portion of the family fortune is greater than any sum you or I could hope to see in our entire lives. Or have you set your sights on something higher?”
Fiore, uncomfortable with the path their talk had wandered down, cleared his throat. “His rank is no concern to me. Nor is his fortune.”
“You don’t like him, then,” Artemisia concluded.
Fiore hesitated. He’d acquired the skill of spinning convincing half-truths to almost anyone in the course of his career. But more often than not he found Artemisia saw straight through them. If he wished to conceal something from her, he did better to keep silent on the subject in question and steer their conversation into a more obliging current.
Yet the way she fixed her gaze upon him now told him she would abide neither silence nor steering on this particular point.
And so to her and her alone Fiore confessed, “I like him very well. Too much, in fact.”
He tried his able best to sound casual, worldly, or at the very least satirical enough to laugh it off altogether. But he heard the horrible note of honesty leak through his words regardless.
Artemisia, to her credit, replied without a trace of mockery. “Then why look elsewhere?”
Fiore swallowed his heart down from where it had unaccountably crawled into his throat. The mere thought of Enzo inspired feelings he’d not experienced since half his soul was torn out, mutilated, and murdered in front of him. The possibility that such might happen again left him with terror that ripped asunder even the softest and most serene recollections of Enzo’s smile, his voice, his touch. Fiore could imagine every blissful moment of their life together.
He likewise knew full well how it would inevitably end.
Perhaps they’d have an enormous fight. Perhaps they’d have a series of small arguments that built up into insurmountable resentments. Perhaps Enzo would simply get bored of him and his eye would wander away towards someone new. Perhaps, as the both of them aged in tandem, Enzo would try to recapture his own lost youth, like so many men did, by seeking another, younger partner.
Or perhaps it would be no fault of Enzo or Fiore, but family obligation would demand Enzo marry. Whether he could produce children or not, an alliance of noble houses through marriage would enrich them both. And Fiore knew of no wife who would suffer her husband to keep a whore. More likely still, Enzo’s sympathetic heart wouldn’t allow him to put his betrothed through the indignity and humiliation of Fiore’s discovery, and he would break it off with Fiore the moment the engagement contracts were signed.
Regardless, Fiore intended to side-step the whole of it.
“When whatever wealthy patron I find casts me aside,” he said, “I intend to feel nothing save the weight of my purse.”
“You keep saying ‘when,’” Artemisia noted.
“Because it always happens,” Fiore insisted. “Remember when Serafina bid us all goodbye forever because her patron was taking her away to a private villa all her own in the countryside where she would live in ease and comfort until the end of her days? And how not two days later she was back crying her heart out because his wife had discovered all and her patron—who’d sworn her everlasting fealty—had chosen his marriage over her?”
Artemisia snorted. “I remember.”
“At best she was pitiful. At worst she was a laughingstock. And still she’s better off than Venanzio. You remember him, as well?” Fiore asked with perhaps more bite than warranted.
That particular tale cleaved closer to his own experience. Too close. Venanzio, a castrato who’d failed to make his mark upon the stage, had instead become the kept creature of a particular pontifex, until he fell prey to the pox and well-regretted surviving it, for it left his face so pitted the pontifex cast him out, and he wandered as a drunken, heartbroken, penniless wretch until the gondoliers found him floating face-down in the Grand Canal one foggy morning.
This time, no trace of humor appeared in Artemisia’s features. “I remember.”
Fiore felt he might have made his point at last. “And they’re hardly alone in the profession. I’m not stupid enough to believe I’m an exception.”
Artemisia looked as if she had her own opinion of Fiore’s stupidity. “He nursed you through one of the more disgusting infections I’ve ever heard of, and you’re still convinced he’ll leave you?”
“Yes, well—ugly as it was, it left no mark on my face. The ravages of time, however…” Fiore gestured towards his still-sharp cheeks, his as-of-yet unwrinkled brow, his undoubled chin, and the jawline which hadn’t yet grown over with jowls.
Artemisia didn’t appear convinced.
