Falcon in the Glass

by Susan Fletcher

  Renzo considered. “I think so. If you’ll bring me some molten glass and set it just here . . .”

  It seemed an idle game, the wings. Renzo worked the glass and Letta watched, advising him on the shape of a falcon’s wings, how they tapered at the base and at the tips, how they crooked and arched and tilted. Many falcons and twice as many wings later, Renzo cracked off the end of the blowpipe a glass creature the size of his hand. They studied it a moment together.

  Renzo could hardly breathe.

  It was quick and light and joyful — poised as if it had just sailed out of the sky to alight on a branch.

  A little miracle of a bird.

  “Should I — ” Letta began.

  “Yes! Take it to the annealing oven! Before it shatters!”

  Renzo had seen birds wrought in stone and clay. He’d seen painted birds and birds made of tiles. He’d seen birds wrought of glass as well, but they’d been lumpish, earthbound, lifeless things.

  Nothing like this.

  He shivered, as a new idea struck him.

  What if . . .

  He stood, filled with a surge of restless energy, and began to pace before the fire.

  What if, come time for the test, he created something so new, so striking, so astonishing, that he could vault right past the usual trials of skill? What if the padrone couldn’t bear to give up someone who could do this, and would give him more time to learn the other skills?

  If the padrone had hoped that Renzo could bring him some of his father’s secrets . . . Well, Renzo wouldn’t have to say where this bird came from, but the padrone could think what he liked.

  It wouldn’t do to show him a finished bird beforehand. He would have to create it alone, before the padrone’s very eyes. And the padrone would have no patience with mistakes; it would have to be perfect on the first try.

  To learn this in three nights?

  Impossible.

  And yet it was just a single thing to master. With a bit of luck . . .

  He felt something stirring deep inside. Something lifting, like a feather wafting upward in a draft, in a slanting shaft of light:

  Hope.

  17.

  Witches and Ghosts

  The next night, on his way to the glassworks, Renzo again heard footsteps behind him. His breath caught; he whirled round and beheld a cloaked figure standing in the gloom.

  Vittorio.

  “You!” Renzo said. “I told you: Stay away.”

  Vittorio set a finger to his lips. “Hush, Renzo. Hear me out. Please.”

  Renzo hesitated. His heart still went molten with rage when he thought about Vittorio’s carelessness, about what he had done. And yet sometimes, when the memory of their last meeting blinked suddenly into Renzo’s mind, a burst of astonished gladness swept through him, and swarms of unwelcome tears stung his eyes.

  Vittorio. Alive!

  But he was still careless, still putting all of their lives in danger, even now.

  “I need to speak to you,” Vittorio said. “You’re in danger.”

  “Yes — because of you!”

  “There’s something else. But we can’t talk here.”

  Motioning for Renzo to follow, he slipped into an alley and vanished around a corner.

  Renzo followed, looking round lest anyone should see them, and begrudging every moment spent away from the glass. But Vittorio seemed so certain. Danger. And despite everything, Renzo didn’t think Vittorio had ever intended him ill.

  Vittorio motioned him to a small boat tethered to the edge of a canal. “Where — ” Renzo began.

  “Shh. Get in.”

  Vittorio rowed them quickly through the narrow canal, merging into a wider one in a district of great palazzi. Many were deserted for the winter. Soon Vittorio made for one of them, a tall, narrow confection three stories high, with tiers of high-arched windows one atop another, like a frosted layer cake. The lower windows had been shuttered. The windows in the upper stories, crosshatched with iron bars, stood lifeless and dark.

  Vittorio guided the little boat to the water door, a large, padlocked gate of iron filigree. They edged up beside it.

  “Hold the boat steady,” Vittorio said.

  Renzo took hold of the gate. “Do you know these people?” he asked.

  Vittorio didn’t answer but drew two slender iron implements from his purse. He fiddled with the padlock; with a soft snick it snapped open.

  Renzo stared at Vittorio. When had he learned to pick locks? And why?

  Was he a thief?

  Uneasy, Renzo looked about. No other boats nearby.

  “Presto, presto! Open it!” Vittorio said.

  Renzo pushed on the iron bars. The boat slipped into the dim, cavernous space beneath the living quarters; Renzo closed the gate behind.

  It smelled of seaweed and mildew and damp. They moored the boat to a stone pier, then Renzo followed Vittorio to a wooden bench near the foot of the stairs that led to the house.

  “Well?” Renzo said. “What danger?”

  “The bird children.”

  The bird children. Vittorio knew about them? But how?

  Moonlight trickled in through the iron door and glimmered across the water, swirling like wrinkled silk. Shadows rippled in waves across Vittorio’s face.

  “I listen,” he said. “I watch. I know, for example, that eight children climb through a window into the glassworks late each night and climb out again just before sunrise. I know that each child but the smallest has a bird. I know that the children used to go in after you arrived, but of late they’ve been coming earlier. I know all of this but can only guess at why.”

  “How are they more dangerous than you? The assassins are searching for you!”

  “And the Ten are searching for them. Listen. The Ten arrested the matriarch of the bird children’s tribe, and Venice is churning with rumors of witchcraft. Last week the doge’s daughter saw two magpies on her balustrade before she miscarried. A flock of pigeons knocked down a pediment, which struck a gondolier on the head and killed him. And an assassin was seen entering the bird woman’s cell . . . but failed to kill her.”

  “That’s not witchcraft. It’s just coincidence.”

  Vittorio shrugged. “Are you sure?”

  Renzo nodded, uneasy. True, the children had that uncanny bond with their birds. At first he’d told himself that it was just training, but he’d known for quite some time that it was more than that. Something deeply sweet and wondrous, but not entirely natural. And those eyes . . . He was accustomed to them now. He’d forgotten how strange they’d seemed at first.

  “It doesn’t matter one way or the other,” Vittorio said. “It matters what people think. It matters what the Ten will do. And here you are, sheltering a whole flock of them. If I’ve seen them, it won’t be long before someone else does too.”

  “How would they, unless they were lurking about every night, stalking me? We’re careful. We pick up every feather, every dropping.”

  “Why do you do it? Why take such a risk?”

  Renzo’s fingers reached to touch the smooth surface of Papà’s pin on his cloak. The boat bumped against the dock with a hollow clunk. Moonlight rippled across the walls, the stairs. He felt unbalanced, as if the world had shifted and he now lived in some dim, watery realm, a realm apart from ordinary people, a realm populated by witches and ghosts.

  “They’re helping me,” he said. “With the glass. There’s a test — ”

  “I’ve heard about that. If I could help you, I would, but — ”

  “No! You stay away.” Besides, it was too late.

  “But if the padrone finds out about you and the children — ”

  “He won’t,” Renzo said, with more confidence than he felt.

  “He might.”

  “He won’t.”

  “What of the carpenter?” Vittorio asked. “Your mother’s friend. Surely he could procure you an apprenticeship.”

  “In wood?” Renzo heard the shrillness in his
voice. His failure hung in the air between them. He couldn’t support his family. His only hope was to go groveling before another man for help — a man outside the family, a man he hardly knew.

  “It’s a respectable trade — ”

  “But it’s wood! It’s dark and heavy and lightless. There’s no fire to it, no glow. Woodworkers don’t dance. They hunch over, pound at things, hack at them.”

  In the cold, gray, undulating light, Renzo could see that Vittorio understood. He knew the pull of the glass. He had left the republic for the sake of the glass, so he could work with it however he liked, unfettered by Papà’s strictures.

  Suddenly Renzo ached to tell Vittorio everything. About the broken goblets, about Letta, about the falcon in the glass.

  But no.

  Vittorio shifted on the bench. “Listen, Renzo. I have to leave the island.”

  The sharp pang of loneliness surprised Renzo. “Where will you go?”

  “That I will not tell. Although . . .” He gazed at him long and hard. “I won’t go far, for now. But I’ll be near Antonio’s grave every Monday at midnight.”

  Renzo shook his head. “I won’t — ”

  Vittorio interrupted. “I won’t expect you, but I’ll be there.” He opened his mouth as if to say something else, then swallowed, seeming to think better of it. “You may well need me, after all. I suspect you’re all in greater danger than you know.”

  18.

  Falcon in the Glass

  That night, with just three days remaining before the test, Renzo embarked on the last frenzy of work — gambling, not even trying to master the skills the padrone had mapped out for him, but bending all his efforts toward one end only: to craft a falcon in the glass.

  At first Letta helped, adding molten glass for the wings, affixing the pontello to the body of the bird and holding it still, so that Renzo could concentrate on shaping the beak and wings and tail. She pointed out when the head was too tall or too flat, the beak too long or too squat, the crook of the wing misplaced.

  The children, who had paid little heed to cups and jugs and bowls, now gathered round to watch. When one of Renzo’s birds cracked early, they groaned in sympathy. When a bird came out well, they cheered. Some of the live birds chattered and fluttered their wings; Georgio’s crow stretched up and caw-caw-cawed as if in approval. Even Taddeo watched, offering criticism from the sidelines. “You blew too long, Renzo,” he said after the body of one bird grew bloated and misshapen. “You didn’t affix it right,” he said after a wing fell off and shattered on the floor. “You let it go cold,” he said when the glass grew hard and dark before Renzo had finished shaping it.

  “Grazie,” Renzo muttered. “I wouldn’t have known.”

  After yet another failure Letta said, “Wait. Stand here. Hold out your arm.” Puzzled, he did so. At once he heard a fluttering noise; the kestrel swept down from the rafters and alit on his wrist. Renzo turned to Letta, alarmed. She smiled, half-mocking, half-reassuring. Though the little bird was very light, Renzo was conscious of the weight of it on his wrist — the weight of aliveness, of blood and breath and bone. The bird fluffed its feathers and turned to regard him with a large, round eye — serious and alert. Its heart trembled in its chest.

  Hardly daring to breathe, Renzo studied the precise arch of the kestrel’s breast, the hunch of its shoulders, the curve of its talons on his wrist.

  “Turn your arm,” Letta said. When he did, the bird thrust out its wings for balance, the ends of its feathers, like fingertips, seeming to reach out to stroke the air.

  After that, Renzo made a kestrel or two that satisfied her. But he wanted to create a bird without any help at all. If during the test he added molten glass to the body of the bird to form the wings, someone else would have to bring it to him. Would the padrone allow that? He didn’t know. So he tried to pull the wings out of the excess glass on the sides of the falcon, but there was never enough glass, and the birds came out malformed. At last he concluded that it was impossible to make a lifelike kestrel without adding more glass for the wings. If the padrone wouldn’t allow it . . .

  But he must.

  He would.

  Still, even with the added glass, bird after bird after bird went crashing into the pail. Renzo’s arms and back began to ache, his hands to cramp. When he produced an especially unfortunate-looking specimen — one that resembled, according to Taddeo, a loon on stilts — Renzo threw down the blowpipe and slumped onto the bench. Paolo patted his arm. “It didn’t look so bad,” he lisped. One of the twins, Marina, said, “The wings were nice.” And little Sofia toddled across the floor, flung herself at his legs, and clung to them like a second pair of leggings.

  Witches? That was absurd. Yet he told Letta to tie the broken shutters together with string after they entered, and to clean up the stray feathers and droppings right away. That night the children practiced fleeing into the storeroom and out the window, in case someone showed up unexpectedly.

  In the dark of the second to last night before the test, Renzo raided the alms sack. He pulled out Pia’s too-small fur-lined boots and one of his own stained and moth-eaten shirts that Mama had declared unfit to wear.

  Would Mama miss them?

  Maybe not. He’d offer to carry the sack to church on Sunday, and no one would be the wiser.

  Then, from Mama’s mending basket he took two pairs of woolen stockings and, after a moment, Mama’s third-best mantle, with a tear she hadn’t got round to mending. These, he knew, would be missed in time.

  How would he explain their absence to Mama?

  He didn’t know.

  At the glassworks Letta received his offerings with a somber nod. Before long Sofia was clumping proudly across the floor in tiny boots that were yet too big for her. Federigo, in possession of one of Renzo’s castoff shirts, stripped off his own and gave it to Georgio, who stripped off his and gave it to Paolo, who stripped off his and gave it to the youngest boy, Ugo, the one with the magpie. Letta gave the stockings to Marina and Ottavia. They sat on the floor together, exclaiming over them, rubbing the soft wool against their cheeks.

  Renzo hesitated, then reached into the sack and held out Mama’s mantle to Letta. “For you,” he said.

  She took the mantle. Ran it through her hands. Peered at the lattice of roses embroidered at the hem. She looked up at him, and Renzo saw color rise in her face. She blinked.

  Oh, no. She wasn’t going to cry again, was she?

  But she didn’t. She held out the mantle to the twins. “Here,” she said briskly. “You can take turns with it.”

  “It’s for you,” Renzo insisted.

  The twins glanced at Letta, then back at each other. They giggled, covering their mouths with their hands.

  Renzo felt his face grow warm.

  Letta shook her head. “Take it,” she told the twins.

  “ ’Tis for you,” Marina said, and Ottavia echoed, “For you.” They cut their eyes at Renzo and giggled again.

  Slowly Letta took back the mantle. She wrapped it about herself. It enveloped her in a cloud of thick rust-colored wool. She traced the faded roses with her fingers; she smoothed the fringes. She flicked up her eyes at Renzo, then gazed down at the mantle again.

  Renzo’s heart swelled into an odd, aching mass that pressed against the hard shell of his ribs. He had wanted to . . . what? Make her grateful to him? Be a hero in her eyes? But instead he felt a queasy twinge of shame. Why hadn’t he done this before?

  And the children . . . All this time, he had seen them shivering in their threadbare rags and had done nothing to help them.

  And yet . . .

  It was his own family he ought to be protecting! If he failed the test, which was all but certain, they’d have need of every pair of stockings, every moth-eaten bit of wool. A man’s duty was to his family. He had no business taking from them — stealing! His mother’s mantle, especially.

  And yet . . .

  What would befall Letta if he failed? And the chil
dren, what would become of them? How long would Taddeo be able to protect them?

  Renzo sighed. All he had ever wanted was to work at the furnace making beautiful objects of glass. But now it seemed he was responsible for the welfare of not only his own family but also this second one — a family of complete strangers to him until just a few scant weeks before. The weight of it pressed down on him. He imagined that he knew exactly how the doge must feel.

  And yet the doge could take care of his people. Whereas those who depended on Renzo . . .

  A single word echoed in his thoughts, like the toll of a great, iron bell:

  Doom.

  The next night, he dreamed of a great, gleaming sculpture — a lovely, fragile city made of glass. It slipped sideways, splintering, throwing off tiny, sparkling fragments . . . then tumbled down, down, and down through the air.

  19.

  The Owl

  If it weren’t for the owl, Guido might have thought the woman was dead.

  True, most of the food and water he left for her had disappeared. But rats ate the prisoners’ food and drank their water. Guido had seen them at it many times, if a prisoner was too sick to eat or drink.

  If a prisoner was dead.

  Still, rats seldom came into this woman’s cell — because of the owl.

  It was such a tiny owl. You wouldn’t think it could kill a rat. But he’d actually seen it happen. Granted, it was a small rat. Likely young and inexperienced. One evening Guido had been doing his rounds, and something had shot past him, just over his shoulder, softly brushing his cheek. It was lighter than the darkness, and winged, and utterly silent — until it hit its prey. The rat had let out a squeal that sent a shiver through Guido’s bones, it truly had. High and terrified and piercing. An eerie, ratty death squeal.

  Surely rats wouldn’t dare slink into the woman’s cell and steal her food — not with the bird sitting right there on her chest. So she must have eaten it herself.

  And anyway, if you stood there long enough, at the window of the cell, sometimes in the dim lamplight you could see the owl rising and falling the slightest bit, riding the waves of the woman’s breath.