When Blaine announced his intention to Wesley and David after the opera, he gritted his teeth to endure their teasing. But instead, the shared a worried look before David said, gravely, "Be cautious, Blaine. Your parents think that it is because you are studious and modest that you do not make a name for yourself pursuing women. If they learn that you are pursuing Hummel..."

Blaine laughed. "Pursuing him? That I shall, if only to learn more of his voice and perhaps to compose for him. As for falling in love with him-"

"Ah, you said the fatal word yourself. A woman like La Bella Mercedes is wealthy and independent in her own right. If she chooses to love, there is no harm, why, loving a castrato is the fashion for many women. But should you love him seriously..." Wesley sounded equally concerned.

"Why do you think I should love him at all? As artists, we are equals, but he is only part of a man. How could he mean anything to me in matters of the heart?"

"A fair face and a sad story have won more hearts than yours, my friend." David frowned. "Be careful of yours, Blaine, for fear of putting it into cold hands."

Blaine laughed again and stepped on his father's gondola, which had come to take him to his family's palazzo. As the poles pushed it through the water, instead of the rippling of the canal against its walls, he heard Hummel's voice, and instead of the finely worked stone of the grand homes or the dark, wrinkled water, he saw the singer's face.

That morning, after a restless night, he enthused to his parents about the opera. He did not notice that he made special attention to avoid describing Hummel's appearance, merely his voice. When he said, casually, that he would consider composing a cantata for Hummel, his parents voiced their approval. Music was a more than suitable hobby for a wealthy aristocrat and could even attract the favorable attention of the even more wealthy and powerful, even an invitation to a royal court. This undertaking would be pleasurable and potentially very profitable for Blaine. His father added, "Take a note from my banker to make him a gift, most of these singers earn their wealth that way." He chuckled, "Like courtesans, though a far cleaner pursuit. Better a lost note than a lost nose," he added, referencing the many clients of Venice's prostitutes who lost noses or fingers to the ravages of the French disease.

Approval won, Blaine dithered for nearly an hour over what to wear when he called upon Hummel. It could not be gaudy, lest Hummel take him merely for a peacock, but must not be too serious, lest Hummel think him a dull pedant. He settled on a red coat, trimmed with gold, over a white waistcoat with navy blue stockings and breeches. As he would take a gondola, rather than the streets, he was able to wear fine shoes, but he hesitated there. Sensitive about his height, he knew that the red would shorten him, but they were handsomer shoes than the blue that matched his stockings and breeches. He decided on the red, since he wished to impress Hummel with his taste rather than his appearance. A servant admitted him into Hummel's house and instructed him to wait. "I will see if he will see you, signore." Blaine was taken aback at the thought that a singer might choose not to see an aristocrat, but had no objections to contemplating the room where he waited, trying to discern Hummel's other tastes from it. It was far simpler than he had expected, as one thought of castrati as being as florid and exotic as their voices. While there were a few exotic touches, a screen that was either from Persia or a close imitator, and a set of enameled boxes from India, the rest was comfortable. The servant returned. "He will see you, signore. Come with me."

He followed the servant to a music room, where Hummel was standing at a desk, reading over a score. He turned and bowed his head slightly, just enough to avoid giving offense, but Blaine was too much in awe of the singer to consider it discourteous in the least. "Signore Anderson."

"Signore Hummel. I heard you in Orfeo last night." He was unable to remain formal. "Signore, you were magnificent. I've never heard such a voice, such a performance. I would have thought a composer could only dream of such a singer as you. I sat with friends and we were all astonished, even the most jaded of us. Tell me, the cadenzas after 'Cor perduto,' how ever did you sing those, they seemed impossible, you seemed never to breathe!"

"Much practice," Hummel answered, dryly. "At first I thought the composer meant to kill his Orfeo in the first act, to join Eurydice all the sooner." He looked at Blaine sharply. "You noticed the passage that is truly the most difficult in the opera, not the most ornamented or showiest. You yourself sing?"

"Yes, a little."

"Let me hear you, then." This was a demand that only an equal could make of another, or a more powerful to a lesser one, but even while he recognized this, Blaine determined to take no offense. Despite his association with the aristocracy, perhaps Hummel had not learned their ways. He seated himself at the harpsichord that stood in the center of the room, struck a few chords to get the tone of the instrument and to warm up his fingers, then began. He selected a solo cantata, "Lagrime mie, a che vi trattenete," by Barbara Strozzi, not daring to choose a more ornate or more recent piece that would stand in even poorer comparison to Hummel's singing.

At first, he didn't dare to look at Hummel's face, since he doubted that he would bother to conceal any scorn he might feel, but after he completed the first phrases, he glanced quickly at him and was astonished to see an open smile, the first he had won from the singer. When he finished, Hummel even applauded, lightly but no less sincerely.

"Bravo, Signore Anderson, you slight yourself when you say that you sing 'a little.' Will you not have coffee with me?"

"It would please me greatly. Where shall we go?"

"I prefer to take mine here." Hummel's face became closed again. "I dislike the coffee shops and their peering and chatter."

"Oh, oh, of course. To be so famous-" Hummel's face did not change at the praise and Blaine thought of a different approach. "Have you heard Bach's Coffee Cantata?"

"I had the music sent to me from Leipzig," Hummel laughed, his mood lightening. "Signora Mercedes heard it in her travels and insisted that I must." He casually sang the phrases that translated, "If I don't have my coffee three times a day, I'm just like a piece of old dry goat meat," then added, "La Mercedes insists that she intended only that I hear more Bach, but I suspect her of motives other than that."

Hummel rang for a servant to bring coffee and the Turkish cups and Blaine asked, "You have heard much of Bach's music?"

Hummel nodded. "I have, and my respect for him grows more with each new composition I hear. Elegance demands both ornament and simplicity and he masters both, though some find him heavy. He is perhaps less cosmopolitan than Herr Handel, who writes in the English, Italian, and German idioms equally well, but makes no pretenses of being other than he is. He has written no operas, which I regret, but I find great pleasure in singing his works for myself, or with my brother or La Mercedes." He chuckled. "My father finds him painfully modern and unfamiliar, and I see him longing to ask whether we really consider such sounds to be music. He also deplores Bach's reputation as a brawler."

Blaine shook his head in commiseration. "I found the true proof of my parents' love that they permitted me to live through the time when Gesualdo was my musical idol. They feared that his life would lead me astray and dreaded the times when I and my friends sang his madrigals. I heard them say such words amongst themselves as 'morbid,' 'dreadful,' 'emotionally overwrought,' and pray that it would pass without causing harm to me or my immortal soul."

When the coffee came and Hummel poured, the sleeve of his banyan fell from his wrist, revealing how slender it was. Blaine stared for a moment; from the bulky costumes in the theater and the heavy fabric and embroidery of the large robe, he had thought Hummel a larger man, but instead he was very small-framed, though taller than Blaine himself. The exposed wrist was so small that Blaine was certain he could encompass it between only two fingers of his own hand and even yearned to try.

"Signore Anderson?"

He realized that he had been lost in his contemplation and smiled an apology. "My thoughts were lost, I make my apologies."

"Will you take sugar?"

"If you please." Blaine looked at the coffee cups. They were beautifully painted in red, varying shades of blue, and gold, on pure white porcelain. The pattern was of several different kinds of flowers, tulips, roses, peonies, and other flowers he could not identify. "How delicate and yet vivid, how it catches the eye," he admired, softly. "They would seem so easily shattered, and yet even broken, they would be of great beauty. But they are strongly made and would withstand much."

"A gift from a Constantinople merchant. I rarely show them to guests but it seemed you would appreciate them. Your coat is handsomely made, it caught my eye immediately." Blaine felt unexpectedly deep pleasure that he had chosen the right outfit and that it had impressed Hummel.

"You have been there?"

"No, he was visiting all of Italy, seeking art to bring back to the Sultan himself. His host brought him to the opera, thinking to impress him. He called upon me the next day and said that though he rarely understood the libretto, he understood my singing at every moment." Hummel smiled reminiscently, clearly savoring the compliment, but added, laughing, "He also told me that he greatly enjoyed the moments when the orchestra tuned."

Blaine laughed as well. "A moment we do take for granted, but for one unused to our music, it must have seemed wondrous." He suddenly remembered something. "Ah, Signore Hummel, your story reminded me that I have been remiss." He took the banknotes from his pocket and handed them to the singer, who looked at them for a moment uncomprehendingly. "These I forgot to give you."

Hummel's face grew icy and he rose. His voice again haughty and overly-precise, he looked down his nose at Blaine, who gaped in shock. "Signore, I have no need or wish for another patron and you mistake me that you thought I solicited one. It will please you to finish your coffee and leave my home. I shall leave so you will not further offend me."

He started to stalk from the room as Blaine sputtered, "Signore, I meant no insult." He rose and dashed to block Hummel from leaving. The scornful look he received nearly made him retreat, but instead he continued. "I had thought no harm, is it not the custom to make gifts to artists? Signore, I would not have offended you willingly, I beg you to believe me. I often err in what I say or do, especially where it most matters to me, and I would not tolerate another insulting you, let alone insulting you myself. Signore Hummel, you must believe me. I shall leave, of course, but I beg that you not believe that I had the least intention, in my heart or my mind, of wronging one I so admire and whose company I have so enjoyed."

Hummel's face changed from icy contempt to wariness. "I would believe you," he said, slowly. "We have shared intelligent talk of music and laughter, two things far too rare in my life." He continued to the door, but turned as he put his hand on the handle. "You may call upon me again, if you wish."

The last words were cold but Blaine thought that he did not imagine that under the distant mask, Hummel's expression held no little wistfulness, as Blaine bowed, as deeply as he would to a man of far greater rank, and left.

Author's notes: Gesualdo (whom I decided to make a contemporary) was definitely the emo composer of his era and led a shocking life that included murder of his unfaithful wife, her lover, and possibly her second son, whose paternity he doubted. His music was bizarre and roughly three centuries before its time. I couldn't resist making Blaine's parents worry about Blaine liking his music or Blaine going through a Gesualdo phase.

Bach did have a reputation for getting in fights as a young man. Again, I couldn't resist the idea of a parent wondering how their kids can consider that crazy new stuff to be actual music, and suspect that it's the "musician's" bad boy reputation that's the real appeal.

Bach really did write a Coffee Cantata and those really are the lyrics.