Falcon in the Glass Read online

  “The first . . . You mean, you melt the glass twice?”

  Renzo nodded.

  “Always?”

  “And often more than twice.”

  “Why?”

  “To get rid of impurities, to add certain ingredients, to make the glass more workable and consistent.”

  These were basic questions that she asked — things well known in the glassmaking world, not things a spy would wish to know. Still, Renzo felt his irritation rising. What was this, an inquisition? She was supposed to be listening to him — learning — not questioning the ways of the trade.

  “So many steps!” she said. “I’m thinking you could cut one or two to save time.”

  “No step is too many! You don’t understand. We pull vessels from the fire and shape them with our breath, as fragile as the skin of a bubble. No pits or bumps or nicks must mar them. They must be perfect, without flaw.”

  She quirked an eyebrow, regarded him appraisingly. “So,” she said, “it’s not only your wanting t’ be a big man, like your papà. You crave to make them . . . beautiful.”

  Renzo shrugged, discomfited. He had said too much. Revealed too much. Not of glassmaking — of himself. “So will we do this?” he demanded.

  For the first time he saw a smile flicker across her face. She feinted at him with the blowpipe. Playfully now. The kestrel hissed at him again, flapped its wings.

  Renzo flinched.

  “I’ll ponder on’t,” the girl said. She stood, set the blowpipe on the stand beside the other iron rods. She picked up the napkin of food from the shelf and headed for the door. There she turned to face him. “Next time bring more food. Unless you’re wanting t’ go hungry again.”

  7.

  A Shadow in the Trees

  Pia!” Mama dropped back, away from Renzo, forcing the line of departing churchgoers to bend its course and flow around her.

  Renzo scanned the crowd for Pia. He caught sight of her as she handed a coin to a ragged beggar who hunched against the wall beside the path.

  “Pia,” Mama called again. “Come here!”

  The beggar closed his knobby fingers about the coin. Pia smiled at him, then hurried, half-skipping, half-dancing, to join Mama and Renzo.

  Mama took Pia’s hand and firmly tugged her along the path. “You were supposed to put that in the alms box. If you don’t put the coins where I tell you, I won’t give them to you anymore.”

  “But he’s hungry,” Pia said.

  “The church will take care of him,” Mama said. “If you squander our money on beggars, we’ll soon be hungry too.”

  Renzo recalled a time when Mama had a quick smile and a spare coin for beggars after mass. Now the corners of her mouth turned down in a habitual worried frown, and twin furrows etched themselves between her eyebrows. She never spoke to Renzo of money, and he didn’t know how long theirs would last. But he knew that unless he got himself an apprenticeship, his family would certainly go hungry, in time.

  If only the girl would return to the glassworks! He hadn’t seen her since two nights before, when she’d said she’d consider his offer. He hoped he hadn’t scared her away.

  They turned off the path, squishing across the sodden grass toward a group of somber gravestones standing in a row in a corner of the churchyard. Tree branches sagged with the weight of the chill rain that had fallen earlier. The air was fragrant with the sharp smells of the cedars and the sea, and gravid with rain yet to come.

  It was no longer new, the stone they sought, but showed a year’s worth of weathering — a dullness in the surface from the mottled crust of mud, drips of cedar resin, and tiny pockets of moss that clung to bumps and crevices at the top and sides of the stone — a kind of settling-into-the-earth that made the marker seem permanent and natural, not so raw. The carved words and numbers were crisp, though, as if they had been cut out this very morning.

  ANTONIO LORENZO DORO. 1457 – 1496. RIPOSA IN PACE.

  Papà.

  Renzo’s heart shrank to a hard, sore knot in his chest. Papà’s face, in memory, had grown dim. But Renzo could see his father’s hands as if they were before him still. Large, muscular hands, with patches of thick, yellow calluses, as stiff as the horn in a lantern window and begrimed with ancient dirt. Then there were the burns — one on his left thumb and another a puckered, crescent-shaped scar on the back of the selfsame hand. That time Papà had had to go bandaged for two weeks; he had nearly bitten off the heads of his assistants until the dressing came off and he could work the glass again.

  Now another hand, small and smooth, slid into Renzo’s. Pia gazed up at him.

  As busy as he was, Renzo hadn’t been the comfort to her that he should have been. He squeezed her hand. “Well, Pia. We have work to do. Come with me and help.”

  They cleared away the scattered leaves and branches on the grave; they plucked out the stubborn, withered weeds that sheltered in the lee of the stones. Then Mama spread a folded cloth upon the ground; they knelt there together as she prayed.

  She prayed for Papà’s soul — that he had found his way through purgatory and into heaven, that they would all meet him there one day.

  But she did not pray for Renzo’s uncle Vittorio, who was surely also dead. By now the assassins would have found him.

  The priests, thought Renzo, they say we must forgive. Yet how do you forgive someone who has stolen your father? Someone who has recklessly thrown away all he built up, leaving you pitied or shunned by neighbors, leaving you nearly destitute and wholly bereft?

  How can it be right to forgive such a one?

  Damp wicked up through the cloth and into Renzo’s knees as Mama prayed. Something hard poked his knee from beneath the cloth; he shifted to find a comfortable position, remembering the quarrel in the old glassworks. Uncle Vittorio raging at Papà for taking credit for his designs. Papà bellowing that he was padrone, that everything in the glassworks was made in his name. Vittorio retorting that they should be equal partners, share the burden. Papà shouting that Vittorio had little to contribute.

  Renzo had crouched behind the woodpile, wanting to clap his hands over his ears, but he couldn’t help but listen. Then the pitcher, hurtling across the space between them. The thud as it hit Papà’s brow. The cry of outraged pain, the shattering glass. Then Papà’s curse, ringing out across the glassworks:

  “Damn you, Vittorio! God keep you from me; may I never lay eyes on you again.”

  That night Vittorio had left. Knowing full well that glassmakers were not allowed to leave the lagoon, that they must stay within the borders of the republic to guarantee they wouldn’t spread the secrets of the glass. Knowing full well that by leaving he was risking his own life and destroying the family’s honor. Knowing full well that because of him Papà would be a pariah among the other glassmakers.

  And after that . . .

  No, Mama never prayed for Vittorio. Never mentioned his name.

  Still, Renzo knew, lifting his bowed head to regard the tombstone, that Vittorio had never intended this. He was headstrong, quick-tempered, careless, but never before had the assassins exacted such a price. The one who left . . . Him they would seek out and kill. But never his family. At least never before.

  Renzo recalled how Vittorio used to play his lute for him and Pia, regaling them with silly songs that made them rock with laughter. “Another, Uncle!” they would plead. “Uncle, please?” Vittorio used to sneak them sweets that Mama did not approve of. He had loved sweets, and had the waistline to prove it. Renzo recalled how, when he was small, Vittorio would take him up on his shoulders and let him ride. As if Renzo were a great explorer, like Marco Polo, astride a tall stallion. Both of them — horse and rider — laughing all the way to China.

  “Amen.” Mama rose to her feet; Renzo and Pia did likewise. Mama picked up the cloth, brushed it off, folded it. A wind gust lifted the branches of the cedars, turning up their pale undersides and loosening the frigid rainwater that had clung to them since nighttime. A spray o
f droplets rattled down. Something stirred in there, among the trees, half-hidden behind a wide trunk.

  Renzo stared.

  It was a shadowy figure — a man — not easy to make out in the sun-dappled gloom. Standing perfectly still.

  The hair rose on the back of Renzo’s neck, and the familiar fear came upon him, the fear that came when a man stood too long near their house; or when a footfall sounded behind him in the dark; or when, in the marketplace, someone gazed at him too long.

  The shadow turned, headed back through the trees.

  Something familiar now. Impossible, but familiar.

  “Wait!” Renzo called. He started after the figure, hastening through the wet grass between the graves.

  “Lorenzo!” Mama’s voice was sharp. “Renzo, stop! Stop right now.”

  Reluctantly he did. The shadow vanished among the trees.

  Mama caught up to him, her face tight with anger. “What were you thinking?” she demanded. “Have you gone mad? You mustn’t go seeking trouble — not ever.” She took him by the shoulders, shook him. “Lorenzo, look at me. Do you hear?”

  He pried his gaze from where the figure had disappeared. He blinked at her. “Yes, Mama,” he said. But he turned toward the far side of the churchyard wall, where in a moment the figure reappeared. It climbed over the low wall, crossed the path, and slipped into a dark alley between two houses.

  Renzo had not seen his face. Only his gait.

  Familiar.

  Was it only because Renzo had been thinking of him?

  But surely, even if he had managed to escape the assassins, he wouldn’t return now, bringing danger to the family. No. As reckless as he was, he still wouldn’t do that.

  Still, it struck Renzo with such force of recognition, that gait. The gait of one who in time past had been a great, tall stallion, laughing all the way to China.

  8.

  Letta

  Renzo thrust the stick of alder wood into the fire and was just reaching for another when he stopped, straightened, stepped away from the heat.

  She was here.

  Some disturbance in the air had alerted him, or maybe the sound of breathing, masked by the roar of the fire. He could not have said what told him, only that the back of his neck began to prickle, and he knew.

  A shadow glided across the floor, and halted. Renzo sought along the flickering darkness to the root of the shadow, and there she stood — the girl — the little kestrel on her shoulder.

  “Did you bring food?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Show me.”

  Renzo led her to a cool, dark corner of the glassworks, away from the heat of the fire. The napkin lay on the small shelf where he always kept his dinner. He opened it to show her the hunks of sausage and cheese, the small loaf of bread. He had told Mama that he grew hungry in the small hours before the others came; she’d been giving him more food than before. He’d felt a pang of guilt; Mama would likely eat less herself to compensate.

  But he would make it up to her, he told himself. If this girl would help him. If he could pass the test.

  “I’ll be needing more,” the girl said.

  “It’s all we can spare!”

  “I need more, for true!” The girl picked up the ends of the handkerchief, knotted them together, then set the food on a shelf by the door. With a quick flick of her eyes, or perhaps some signal unseen by him, she sent her kestrel fluttering up to perch on a high rafter.

  He would have thought that a hungry girl would eagerly snatch at the food, gobble it down. But she didn’t eat a crumb.

  “Well?” she said. “What now?”

  He breathed out a silent sigh. He hadn’t been sure until that moment if she was going to run off with the food or if she’d come to work.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “What’s yours?”

  “Renzo.” He took off his gloves. Held them out to her.

  She hesitated. Then, taking the gloves, said, “Letta.”

  He waited while she pulled on the gloves, which were way too big for her hands. He gave her a few sticks of wood and walked beside her to the furnace. She had watched him feed it before, but she’d never gone in close. Now she would feel the heat licking at her in waves so ferocious, it would seem as if flesh were melting off her bones. She would feel the moisture being sucked from her eyes, feel her eyeballs grow granular and hot. He was accustomed to it, but she . . .

  Her eyes set to blinking; the sticks wobbled in her hands. She thrust them into the opening and quickly backed away.

  She turned to him, her face set, determined. “More?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Until the fire is hot enough.”

  Renzo watched at first, but after a while left her to her work. He cut up more wood. Added it to the pile.

  When there was sufficient wood to last, and the fire well stoked, Renzo began to school her in the proper role of the assistant. He wanted her to affix the end of the long, iron pontello to the bottom of a glowing-hot glass vessel he had shaped with his breath. He wanted her to hold the pontello until he took it from her, so he could shape the vessel. He wanted her to bring him new molten glass to attach, so he could make handles, or a stem, or a base.

  Though Renzo had practiced with his father, there were many skills he’d never mastered. He made a point to study the padrone at work whenever he could. But it was one thing to watch others create and another thing entirely to create on one’s own. The mind may grasp the work, but the body must know it too, know it without thinking — in the memory of the hands, in the wisdom of the eyes to judge from the color of the glass when it’s time to blow it, to spin it, to warm it again in the furnace.

  He looked at Letta — ragged, skinny, dirty. She did not demurely avert her eyes like a good Venetian signorina but glared back at him, as if to say, What are you staring at? Could he train this contrarious girl so that she would be of use to him? Or was that too much to hope for?

  “Listen,” he said. “When I tell you to do a thing, you have to do it at once. No questions. Just do as I say.”

  She shot him a skeptical glance.

  “There’s no time for explanations when the glass is hot. You’ve got to watch me closely, be alert to whatever I need.”

  “Be your slave, you mean,” she muttered.

  “The glass gets hotter than you can imagine! You have no idea how dangerous it is!”

  She shrugged and turned away.

  Clenching his jaw, Renzo laid out the tools he would need to make an urn with handles. He told Letta their names and functions. At last he picked up the blowpipe. “Are you ready?” he asked.

  She nodded.

  Renzo gathered the molten glass on the end of the pipe, and began.

  But she did not stand where he told her to stand, not even when he reminded her, not even when he shouted. She knew a better place to stand, she said. He bumped into her; she trod on his heels and toes. She did not hold the pontello as he told her to, nor affix it to the bowl in the instant he asked. “I do it in my own time,” she said. “It can wait.”

  “No. It can’t! That’s what you don’t understand!”

  Again and again she ignored him — when he told her to hand him the pontello, when he told her to affix the molten glass just here, when he told her to step away pronto so he could rewarm the vessel above the fire.

  And so it went — six times, seven times, eight.

  After the twelfth time, Renzo set down the pipe, slumped onto a bench, and buried his face in his hands. She was willful, stubborn, unmanageable. He should just send her away.

  A tapping sound. He sat up, looked at Letta. She was drumming the pontello against the floor, lips pinched in impatience. “What now?” she said.

  Renzo shrugged.

  “You’re just going to quit?”

  “If you won’t listen, you’re worse than useless to me. You might as well take your food and go.”

  The tapping stopped. “Don’t be shouting
at me. I’m not deaf. I hate when people shout.”

  “I’m not shouting!”

  “You are!”

  “Because you refuse to hear me!”

  “You confuse ‘hear’ with ‘obey.’ Maybe I heard but had a better idea. Did you think of that?”

  “A better . . .” Renzo stared, stunned at her ignorance, at her audacity. “What do you know of glass that you could even dream of having a better idea than the masters, after they’ve poured their very lives into the glass for centuries!”

  “What d’you know of it?” she retorted. “You’re a drudge. A wood chopper. A fire feeder. If you knew anything howsoever, you wouldn’t be playing with glass in the middle of the night. They’d let you help them in the daylight, for true.”

  Rage struck him mute. What did he know? Well, he’d show her.

  He picked up the blowpipe, thrust it into the crucible, and gathered an orange-hot blob of molten glass. He rolled it on the malmoro, then huffed gently into the pipe. The glass bellied out, just so. He leaned again toward the furnace, into the wall of blistering heat, and spun the glass above the fire, feeling it grow more fluid. He brought the glass out, wheeling away from the heat, and filled it with his breath. He spun it in the cool air to shape it, spun it in the furnace to make it supple, breathed into it, spun it in the air again.

  Now he reached for the familiar tools to shape it — magiosso, tagianti, borsella, supieto — all the while spinning, spinning, spinning. His hands and arms and feet all had the dance of the glass inside them. His eyes knew from long practice when the glass desired the softening of heat, or the firming of cool air. Knew when it was ripe to be pinched, or pierced, or stretched.

  And now the glass, spinning overhead at the end of the pipe, had turned into a bowl, small and smooth and curving. Renzo stilled it. Cracked it off the end of the pipe. Smoothed its base and mouth, and set it on the marble shelf.

  It was a simple thing. No handles or stems to connect. Easy enough to make without an assistant. Renzo had made such bowls for years. Yet still . . .

  It shimmered in the light of the fire, the bowl — a lovely, gleaming, graceful thing. Like a poem. Like a song.