Falcon in the Glass

by Susan Fletcher

  Still, there was no one else he could ask. A grown beggar would be dangerous, and there were no other homeless children that Renzo knew of. And, among people who lived here — impossible. In the world of glassmaking in Murano, everyone knew everyone. Word would get round to the padrone that Renzo was asking for help, which the padrone had expressly forbidden. But this girl . . .

  She was a stranger, an outcast. She had come to the glassworks for warmth, for a safe place to shelter. If he offered food as well, in exchange for work . . .

  Surely she’d leap at the chance!

  Wouldn’t she?

  From outside the window he heard a rippling of water and the scrape of a boat against the wall of the canal. Then voices: a wife greeting her husband, children greeting their father. The weariness pressed down on him again — seeping through his scalp and into his shoulders, into his heart. The sunlight had shifted away from the table to huddle in a small corner of floor. He looked at the goblet at Papà’s place — a goblet Papà himself had wrought. It stood gray and dim and cold.

  Renzo remembered rising with him before sunrise every morning. They’d break their fast and walk together along the quiet, dark canals to the glassworks where Papà had been padrone. Renzo had labored over one pitiful artifact after another, not keeping any but returning them to the pail when they were done. Listening to Papà tell him that there would never be a greater glassmaker than Renzo himself would be, that he had the eye and the hand and the heart for greatness, that he would bring honor to the family, that they would build on Renzo’s legend for centuries.

  And Renzo had believed him. The maimed little things he’d returned to the pail troubled him not at all, even though he could see that they were abortions. Because he’d believed his father, believed with all his heart that his prophecy would come to pass.

  He believed it still.

  Papà’s curse had been fulfilled. Why not his prophecy, too?

  3.

  A Drudge for the Drudge

  The idea clamped on to him like a rat on a string of sausages:

  A drudge for the drudge. Such a simple plan!

  Renzo lay on his cot, listening to rain rattling on the roof. He had dozed but briefly, and then awakened in the dark, his mind restless, astir.

  Perhaps, he thought, he could contrive a way for the girl to slip into the glassworks every evening. It would have to be after the daytime crew left, and the man who mixed the batch — but before Renzo himself arrived in the middle of the night. He could leave the shutter closed but unlatched when he left for the day. Who would ever notice? And deaf old Taddeo likely wouldn’t hear her come in. She could steal in through the window; she could stay warm and dry in the little storeroom while Taddeo, none the wiser, fed the furnace and nodded off in the heat.

  Renzo jumped up, wrapping his blanket about him. He padded across the cold floor tiles, following the red-orange glow of embers to the fireplace. He paced before the fire, warming one side, then another.

  He would have to watch her, make sure she wasn’t a thief or a spy. He would have to judge whether she could keep a secret. He would have to send Taddeo home early; someone else would have to chop wood and feed the fire. And it was possible the girl would refuse to work at all.

  But still. Maybe . . .

  Renzo stared into the fire. He ached to take up the blowpipe, to stand in the heat of the furnace, turning a lump of molten glass into a vase or a goblet or a plate of such surpassing beauty that people would stand before it and gape in mute astonishment.

  When he had watched Papà at this work, it had seemed a kind of sorcery. But Renzo knew it was a sorcery that must be earned, early and late, by diligence and hard labor — labor he could not do without help.

  A drudge for the drudge.

  But how could he find her to make his offer? Would she return?

  If only he hadn’t thrown those stones! If only he had talked to her, or . . .

  A wind gust shook the house. The rain grew suddenly violent; it thundered on the roof. A damp chill prickled at his neck, his shoulders. He shivered.

  This storm, though, was all to the good. She would be forced to seek out shelter.

  Wouldn’t she?

  He tiptoed to the bedroom, opened the door a crack, peered inside. Dimly he could make out the shapes of Mama and Pia on the bed. He hoped Mama was asleep. She’d be distressed that he was leaving so early, well before the midnight bell. But there was no point in his staying here, wide awake.

  He waited. Mama did not stir.

  He shrugged on his tunic and found the pouch of food Mama had left for him. At the door he pulled on his boots and cloak. He fastened the cloak pin at his neck, fingering its smooth silver surface.

  Papà’s pin.

  Now off to the glassworks. If the shutter had been repaired, he would unlatch it and leave it ajar. If not . . .

  She might be in the storeroom right now!

  A drudge for the drudge!

  She was homeless. Likely hungry. Surely cold.

  How could she refuse?

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Taddeo sat hunched on the padrone’s bench. His wrinkled eyelids drooped; his mouth hung open; a string of spittle dribbled down his grizzled chin. But the fire blazed hot in the furnace, so he must not have been sleeping long.

  Renzo searched the rafters but saw no sign of the kestrel. He listened, but heard only the roar of the furnace. He peered back toward the storeroom door, in the deep shadows, untouched by firelight.

  Taddeo snorted, startling himself. His arms thrust out; his eyes popped open. He blinked at Renzo a moment, and then the long, thin folds of his face settled into an expression of reproach.

  “I . . . couldn’t sleep,” Renzo said.

  “Nor I,” Taddeo grumbled. “People standing over me. Waking me up. Can’t close my eyes for an instant.”

  “Listen,” Renzo said. “Have you seen or heard anything unusual tonight? A bird, maybe?”

  “A bird?” Taddeo looked puzzled. “I never seen no bird. Seen, nor heard one neither. Birds, they can be very quiet. It’s not always you can hear a bird.” He narrowed his eyes, peered up at Renzo. “Why do you want to know?”

  Renzo hesitated. He didn’t want to tell him about the girl. Didn’t trust him, entirely. “I thought I heard something the other night. Likely it was rats.”

  Taddeo shivered. “Rats! I dislike ’em, rats. Better it be a bird.” He unfolded himself slowly, rising to his feet. He moaned — a protracted ooh, and then three staccato aahs. A little louder and more dramatic than necessary, Renzo suspected.

  “Why don’t you go home now?” Renzo said.

  Taddeo twisted round to stare at him. “Now? What hour is it?”

  “Not yet midnight, but you look weary. I can feed the fire.”

  Usually Taddeo stayed to tend the fire after Renzo came. He was not supposed to leave before dawn — the padrone would not like it. In a couple of hours, though, Taddeo would offer one ailment or another as an excuse. He would whine for a while and then depart.

  Renzo never told. Taddeo wouldn’t stir himself to help Renzo, but he often hovered and criticized his every move. It was easier to work when he was gone.

  But now Taddeo seemed suspicious. “Why?” he asked.

  Because I have to talk to her. Because I can’t wait to see if she’s here.

  Renzo shrugged. “You . . . just seem weary,” he said again. “You, um, deserve a little rest.”

  Taddeo narrowed his eyes. He stepped toward Renzo, brushed his hand across the shoulder of Renzo’s cloak. “Wet,” he said. “You’ll send me out in the pouring rain, will you? And me with the bone-ill that hates the damp?”

  Renzo squelched his exasperation. No matter what you did, Taddeo would find something to complain about.

  Taddeo shook his head. Muttering, he shuffled across the wide floor of the glassworks and out into the dark.

  Renzo watched until the door shut behind him. Long ago Taddeo had been one of the m
ost sought-after assistants on Murano. They said there was no one quicker; they said he never missed a thing. But now, with his eyes and ears grown dim and his body slow, he was reduced to hauling wood.

  Renzo plucked a torch from a wall cresset. He lit it in the furnace and headed back toward the storeroom, beyond the stacked crates of finished glass and into the gloom. He breathed in the acrid smoke, tasting burnt pitch at the back of his mouth. Carefully he pushed open the door. The torch flame leaped; the chill thread of a breeze whipped across his face. He held the light up toward the window.

  The shutter — still hanging from a single hinge. Still unlatched. No one had fixed it yet.

  “Hello?” he called.

  No answer.

  Slowly Renzo moved into the room. Darkness parted before the torch, revealing bags of sand and soda, stacks of folded tarps.

  “Are you there?” he called.

  He stood. Listened.

  The muted roar of the furnace. The crackling of the torch. The whuff of wind. The patter of rain.

  “I will not harm you, I promise. You nor your bird. I have food. We can share it.”

  The torch popped. Long, wavery shadows leaped to either side.

  No one there.

  Renzo searched through the glassworks, talking quietly—about food, about shelter, about warmth. He hunted through the poisons room, then looked behind the woodpile, behind the stacked crates of finished glass, behind bins of stones and glass shards. He stood on a bench, thrust up his torch, and peered into the thick darkness that gathered in the rafters. He stepped down again and, crouching low, scoured the floor for feathers or droppings.

  But by then he was certain he would not find them.

  There are times, Renzo knew, when you can feel a presence, or an absence. If you pay attention, if you strain your senses out past the edges of your skin, you can sense whether there is another being breathing silently in a room with you.

  The glassworks felt empty tonight.

  Renzo had come to like being alone in the glassworks. When he was alone, working the glass, he could imagine Papà there beside him. Giving him encouragement. Giving him advice. But now he felt hollowed out, bereft.

  “Hello?” he called again. “If you’re there, please come out. Hello?”

  4.

  The Marsh Boy

  Five days later a messenger came into the glassworks.

  The padrone looked up from his work. “Well?” he demanded.

  He had been more than usually harsh all morning, snapping at Sergio, criticizing his work, calling him lazy and sloppy and slow. Though Renzo wouldn’t have hesitated to take Sergio’s place, he couldn’t help feeling a bit sorry for him.

  “The shipment’s here,” the messenger said. “The quartz.”

  Ah! Renzo looked at the padrone. Someone would have to go to the dock, pick up a load of the quartz-rich sand required for the finest glass, and return it here.

  “I’ll go,” said Sergio. Surprising no one. Who wouldn’t crave a respite from his father after such a morning?

  The padrone’s scowl deepened as he regarded his son, considering his request. It was well known that Sergio took suspiciously long to return from such errands. It was said that he tarried through the marketplace, trading stories with fishermen, coaxing marzipan or fruit from the vendors, flirting with pretty girls.

  Usually Renzo looked forward to the times when Sergio went out on errands, because there was a chance that he might be asked to take up the blowpipe and assist the padrone. But now Renzo longed to go out himself. He had searched the glassworks in the small hours of every morning, but the girl had not returned. He had searched the marketplace every afternoon when the glassworks had closed for dinner. Still, few people were out and about at dinnertime; he’d seen no sign of the girl.

  But if he could get away now, he could take delivery of the sand and detour through the marketplace at the height of business.

  “No,” the padrone told Sergio at last. “You have too much to learn, and you’re too slow in learning it. You stay with me. Renzo will go.”

  Sergio muttered under his breath; Renzo tried to hide his elation. He fetched the handcart from its place in a far corner of the glassworks; in a trice, he was out the door.

  Tattered clouds blew in across the lagoon. The water was gray and ridged and sullen; even the seabirds looked cold. Renzo hunched against the rasp of the January wind and pushed the bulky old cart toward the Faro dock, maneuvering it awkwardly through alleys crowded with craftsmen, servants, magistrates, and fishermen. He kept a sharp lookout for signs of the girl — a tattered cloak, a dark tangle of hair, a kestrel nearby.

  In vain.

  The ship lay rocking gently, serene above the hubbub all around it. Porters, hefting heavy burlap bags and barrels, wove in and out among the crush of sailors and peddlers and dogs. Carters shoved through the throng, making for the ship; a donkey drover pushed back in the opposite direction, herding his braying charges toward town. Merchants haggled over stacks of cargo, a knot of sailors laid wagers on a cockfight, and troops of small boys ran screaming through it all.

  It could take an hour, Renzo guessed, to push this clumsy cart through the press and take his turn to receive the heavy bags of sand. By then it would be dinnertime, and Mama would be expecting him.

  But what if he went hunting for the girl now and returned later? By then much of this crowd would have dispersed.

  He headed for a nearby patch of marshland, the empty cart rattling on the paving stones. He shoved it through the reeds at the dry edge of the marsh until he came to a clump of sedge. He hid the cart within it.

  Then he hastened toward the marketplace. He wandered, searching, among the knots of shoppers at the stalls — the butcher’s, the farmer’s, the confectioner’s, the baker’s.

  Not a green-eyed waif among them.

  He eyed the drifts of pigeons pecking at the paving stones. Gulls soared and cried overhead, and on the rooftops, here and there, he spied a blackbird or a sparrow or a lark.

  Not a kestrel in sight.

  Renzo sighed. What now?

  Pia had said that the bird children were performing tricks. They would want a crowd to watch them, to offer food or coins. Where else might you find a crowd?

  The campi.

  He set off, running now, for the gathering places outside the main churches on the island. First the church of Santo Stefano. The girl wasn’t there. Next the church of Santa Chiara. No luck there, either. His hopes rose as he approached the basilica of Santi Maria e Donato. There, in the campo outside, a cluster of well-fed matrons stood gossiping. The usual assortment of pigeons and gulls clucked and strutted across the pavement. No kestrels. No raggedy children with birds.

  Renzo felt all within him sag. He leaned against a pillar, breathing hard. Sweat had begun to dry and cool beneath his shirt. The group of matrons dispersed; a fine rain began to fall.

  It was time to fetch the cart and return to the dock for the sand. He had already been gone too long.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  By the time he reached the marshland, the rain was pelting down in cold, heavy drops. He followed the trail of trampled reeds to the clump of sedge. He peered beneath it . . . and blinked.

  The cart had been upended.

  He looked about him. No people. No animals that he could see, save for birds. Nothing but the backs of a few scattered warehouses, and then marsh, stretching out to the lagoon.

  He bent down, hooked his fingers over the edge of the cart, and yanked, tipping it over.

  Something fluttered up into his face. He swatted at it, and it veered off — a long-legged, speckled bird — swooping low above the rushes.

  Something cried out.

  Renzo looked down. It was a boy. Small. Curled on the ground. Wearing a tattered cloak. He gazed up at Renzo with wide, startled eyes.

  Green eyes.

  Bright green.

  Like the girl’s.

  “Hey!” Renzo said. “Do you �
�� ”

  The boy leaped to his feet and bolted. He cut nimbly round the cart and ducked into a wall of reeds. Renzo lunged for him, caught him by the collar. The boy lashed out and struggled to get free, but he seemed only six or maybe seven years old — about Pia’s age, Renzo guessed. He clamped an arm about the boy’s middle and held him close. “Stop,” Renzo said. “I won’t harm you. Just — ”

  “Leave go!” the boy wailed. He flailed about and kicked Renzo’s shins — surprisingly hard, considering he had only rags for shoes.

  “I’m looking for a girl,” Renzo said. “She had a kestrel with her. She is maybe thirteen years old, and her eyes are green, like yours. Is she your sister? Your cousin?”

  “No!” the boy said, launching a new volley of kicks with his sharp little heels.

  “She was hiding in the glassworks. I only want to talk to her; I promise not to hurt her bird. Do you know where I might find her?”

  “No! Leave go!”

  The boy gave a sudden lurch. He sank his teeth into Renzo’s arm. Renzo cried out; the boy twisted from his grasp and plunged into the reeds.

  Renzo let him go. The boy soon disappeared. But a speckled wading bird with long, red legs erupted from a tuft of rushes and skimmed low over the marsh in the direction the boy had gone.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Later, after he had delivered the sand, after he had apologized to Mama for being late for dinner and caked with mud, Renzo pondered his encounter with the boy. The bright green of his eyes. The strips of ragged cloth stitched to the shoulders of his cloak. The bright red legs of the little gray-brown wading bird. Clearly this boy was one of the bird children. Renzo had frightened him; he had seized him, held him against his will.

  The girl would never trust him now.

  But in the small hours of the following morning, shortly after Taddeo had left the glassworks, Renzo heard a fluttering up above. He whirled around. A slender figure stood behind him in the gloom. She stepped into the light of the furnace and pointed a blowpipe in his direction, wielding it like a spear.