Page 115 of Fiorenzo
“No,” Fiore forced out. He raised his head. Against all odds, it remained upright. The room no longer swam before him. Which made his ensuing lie more believable. “I can walk.”
“Shall we try to the window and back?” asked Dr Venier.
Fiore turned his head—slowly—toward the window. Three of Enzo’s paces would reach it. He knew not how many of his own it would require. Particularly in his present state. Still, the sea breeze and sunshine called to him. “Let’s.”
The first step felt the worst. However many hours his captors had left him tied up in a knot hadn’t done his joints any favors. Ankles, knees, hips, and spine all protested as he staggered forward and gained but half a foot.
“Well done,” Enzo murmured above him. “Another?”
With such gentle enticement, Fiore could hardly refuse him.
It seemed to take hours to reach the window. Judging by the sunbeams shining across the floorboards, however, and more specifically by their lack of movement, Fiore realized no more than a quarter-hour could have possibly passed.
The window’s marble frame held a bench long enough for Enzo to stretch his legs out on if he so chose, cushioned with aquamarine velvet. Beyond its tall glass panes lay a splendid view of the lagoon over the roofs of far smaller edifices.
Enzo shifted his stance as if he meant to turn away from it.
Fiore stood firm.
Enzo shot an enquiring look down at him.
Fiore lolled his head back against Enzo’s shoulder to stare up into his eyes direct. “May we rest here a moment? Please?”
The last word slipped out unbidden and came cracked besides. Pathetic, Fiore thought, disgusted by his own weakness.
Enzo, however, appeared more concerned than repulsed. He turned to the chirurgeon for approval.
“He may,” said Dr Venier.
Fiore had never before heard anything so agreeable from one of her profession.
Enzo softly lowered him down to the window seat. Fiore leaned back, letting his skull come to rest on the marble pillar. The cool stone soothed his fevered brow. He gazed out over a familiar view from an unfamiliar perspective. The gondole and sandoli slipping up and down the canals and the people wandering through the streets and over the bridges brought him a long-missed sense of normality. Even the simple sight of sunshine glinting off the sea, after hours trapped underground with no assurance that he would ever see the sun again, filled his heart fit to burst. He could’ve stared for hours more. But a shiver passed over his skin. Another followed it, then another, until he trembled like a leaf in a storm.
Enzo’s hand, which had never left his shoulder all the while, clasped him firm. “Back to bed?”
Fiore looked up to find him wearing an encouraging smile.
More than anything, Fiore wanted to mirror it. But his face felt as if carved from marble and seemed like it would move for nothing less than a sculptor’s chisel. With an effort, he returned Enzo a solemn nod.
Standing for a second time went much the same as the first. He clutched Enzo’s arm like a drowning cat.
“Steady,” Enzo murmured, supporting him with no apparent effort. “Nearly there.”
Fiore forced his legs to stagger. It seemed an impossible distance, but each clumsy step brought him nearer and nearer, until, at last, Enzo set him down again, then bent to lift his legs up onto the mattress and drew the bedclothes back over them.
Dr Venier, meanwhile, scrubbed her hands at the washstand. Then she approached, much to Fiore’s chagrin, and plied her termometro and stetoscopio again. She did so in a gentle and considerate fashion, but Fiore felt too drained to appreciate it. All he wanted was to be left alone with his Enzo.
Alas, rather than departing, Dr Venier announced, “The bandages ought to be changed.”
Fiore failed to suppress an exhausted groan.
Enzo fell upon him at once, which was almost what Fiore wanted. Strong hands softly brushed through his hair and stroked his cheek. Into his ear Enzo murmured, “Just a little while longer. Then you can rest.”
Fiore caught Enzo’s hand in his own good one and clasped it tight.
On the surface, the changing of bandages seemed to require very little from Fiore. All he needed to do was sit up in bed. In practice, it felt almost impossible—that is, save for his Enzo sitting beside him and propping him up with his arm beneath his shoulders, whilst Fiore flung both his own arms around Enzo’s neck and held on for dear life. Why Enzo didn’t cast off the anchor of Fiore’s weight upon him, Fiore couldn’t fathom.
They began with the linen swathed ‘round his middle. The chirurgeon cut it away with a pair of silver scissors. Enzo told him not to look. Fiore felt he had no choice but to watch. As the linen came free, his stomach seemed to plummet into an abyss, as if without the bandages to support his wounded flesh it threatened to all spill out. The linen itself came away as scarlet as his trade sash. He wondered what had become of his sash and the rest of his clothes besides. What he wore now, he realized, drawn up under his arms and tucked secure in place by Enzo’s hands, was a nightgown made for a much larger man’s frame, the seams of its broad back continually slipping off his own narrow shoulders. Perhaps one of Enzo’s nightgowns. If so, Fiore hoped he hadn’t bled on it.
