Falcon in the Glass

by Susan Fletcher

  He felt a strong hand grip his arm, pulling him to his feet. “So, what have we here?” Renzo looked up into the face of a grinning young nobleman. His breath reeked of spirits. Renzo whipped his arm away and ran for the boat.

  Shouting, behind him. A woman laughed.

  Renzo jumped in, slipped off the mooring lines, picked up the oars, and slid the boat down the dark canal.

  He rowed as hard as he could, his bloodbeat thudding in his ears. He turned one corner and then another, glancing back from time to time, fearing there might be someone behind them, someone following. The canals wove through canyons of looming palazzi, churches, and warehouses. But soon he was deep in a maze of smaller, narrower canals. The noises had faded behind him; all he could hear was the swishing of his oars in water. The buildings squatted to either side, unbroken by flickers of torchlight or lamplight.

  Where was he?

  Where was the lagoon?

  In Murano he knew every bend of every canal, day or night. But Venice had more canals — many, many more — each one unfamiliar.

  “Uncle?”

  A groan.

  “Do you know where we are?”

  Vittorio, lying on the bottom of the boat, didn’t sit up to look. “Just go north,” he said. And then, more softly, “San Cristoforo.”

  San Cristoforo. One of the two little islands on the way to Murano. Had Vittorio been staying there? That, at least, would be easy to locate . . . if Renzo ever found the lagoon.

  Go north. Easier said than done. The canals wound this way and that; they paid no attention to north. But the stars at least were familiar. At last Renzo glimpsed the lagoon ahead, gleaming faintly in the moonlight. The wind freshened, and the close, suffocating canals of Venice dropped away behind.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  By the time they came abreast of San Cristoforo, Renzo had begun to worry. The wind blew hard against him, slowing him down, forcing him to strain at the oars. Whitecaps rose up on the water and hurled streams of icy spray against his face and chest. A bank of clouds bore down on them, blotting out most of the stars. Renzo’s legs had begun to wobble, and he could feel his energy ebbing away.

  He thought about the sets of iron bars, still sitting on the bench. What if someone noticed they’d been moved? But the carpenter must have at least a couple of helpers. Who could know who had moved what? In the glassworks no one would remark on such a thing.

  Another worry assailed him: His cloak pin was gone. Papà’s cloak pin. He’d lost it.

  Well. Maybe it had fallen into the boat. He’d look later.

  He gazed down at Vittorio, huddled near his feet. Shivering now, his breath loud and ragged. What did he do there, in San Cristoforo? How did he live?

  He was not fit to take care of himself. Even if he could risk seeing a surgeon about the eye, something was amiss with his ankle; he couldn’t walk.

  The other island, San Michele, had a monastery. Might he leave Vittorio there for the monks to care for?

  But no. Even monks could be dangerous for glassblowers who left Murano.

  The assassin . . .

  He must have been an assassin, the man who had attacked them.

  But Renzo felt there was something familiar about him, something he couldn’t place.

  With a sick lurch Renzo recalled the feel of the calipers piercing sinew, ramming home. Was that what it felt like to kill? To snuff out a life? To send a soul flying from its body?

  The man had staggered away. Had he survived?

  Vittorio moaned. He opened his good eye and looked about dazedly. “Where are we?”

  Renzo set down the oars, let them drag in the water. He rubbed his aching shoulders. “San Cristoforo.”

  Vittorio raised himself on one elbow. “There’s a dock on the north side of the island. Let me out there.”

  “But, Uncle, who will take care of you?”

  Vittorio shrugged. “I have no need of care.”

  But he did. His teeth were chattering now; he had a feverish look about him. His eye would likely fester; he couldn’t walk.

  Somewhere, in a far back corner of Renzo’s mind, a bell was tolling a warning: Don’t. Don’t bring him home. He’s a danger to us all. He’s brought this on himself.

  “Take me to the island, Renzo. I order you: Leave me.”

  Renzo knew he should. But . . .

  To snuff out a life . . .

  His traitorous hands, of their own accord, grasped the oars. They began to row for Murano.

  Vittorio lunged for an oar, then recoiled, seized with a spasm of coughing. “I order you,” he croaked out.

  Renzo’s arms kept on rowing. He did not reply.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  First light, the color of egg yolks, gathered beneath a low, black mantle of clouds to the east. Renzo guided the boat through the familiar canals of Murano. A haze of weariness pressed down upon him; pain rode his shoulders, his back, his legs. At last, when home appeared before him, relief coursed through Renzo’s body so powerfully that his knees buckled and the oars nearly slipped from his grasp. He forced himself to row the last little way, then slipped the lines over the bollards at the edge of the canal. He stowed his oars and crouched beside Vittorio.

  It had been a hard crossing. At times Vittorio had been taken with bouts of coughing; at times he’d writhed and moaned with pain; at times he’d seemed to doze for a while before the pain had woken him again. At times he’d muttered — foreign-sounding words, perhaps names of people or places Renzo had never heard of.

  In the thin glaze of morning light, Renzo could see that Vittorio’s good eye was closed, and that blood and puss had seeped clear through the bandage over the ruined one. He shivered. Renzo set his hand on Vittorio’s forehead. Hot.

  He pondered what to say to Mama, but couldn’t find the words. She would do what she would do.

  “Uncle,” he said. He shook him.

  Vittorio groaned. The good eye blinked open, looked blearily about.

  “You have to stand now. Get out of the boat.” Renzo took him by the hands, helped him to sit up. He put an arm about him. “Straighten your legs, Uncle. Stand up.” Renzo strained to lift him, and had just begun to despair when Vittorio’s legs suddenly stiffened, and before Renzo could shift himself to guide him, Vittorio stepped out of the boat and onto dry land.

  Perhaps, Renzo thought, getting out of a boat is a thing that people of the lagoon never forget. Perhaps it is woven into our sinews, knit into our bones.

  They went tottering toward the doorway, Renzo’s arm clamped about Vittorio’s waist.

  Just as they reached the threshold, the door swung open. Mama gave out a cry. She moved toward Renzo, then looked at Vittorio, puzzled.

  She didn’t recognize him. Not yet. How could she? It wasn’t just the filthy bandage, which covered a goodly portion of his face. Even without it he was not the laughing, reckless Vittorio she had known. This man was sober, gaunt, bearded, limping, bloody, ragged, stinking, soaked.

  She turned back to Renzo, questioning. Then, as he watched, recognition flickered in her eyes and then flooded the planes of her face. “Vittorio,” she whispered.

  Renzo nodded. “He’s hurt, Mama. It’s bad.”

  32.

  Amends

  Mama stared, absolutely still. Renzo didn’t know what she was going to do — whether slam the door in their faces or collapse in a faint or throw herself at Vittorio in a rage. He groped for words, but they all skittered away from him, leaving him blank. Mama made a little sound, a dry, hoarse, choking sound. Her hands flew to her mouth, and she seemed to break in the middle, as if someone had clouted her in the belly.

  Vittorio whispered, “Gabriella,” and then he was limping toward her across the threshold. He reached out a hand toward her cheek. “Oh, Gabriella,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

  She was crying then, Mama was. Both of them wept, leaning into each other, seeming to prop each other up.

  “Mama?” Pia appeared in the gloom behin
d them.

  Renzo slipped into the house, skirting Mama and Vittorio. He took Pia’s hand.

  “Who is that?” Pia asked. “Why is Mama crying?”

  “It’s Uncle Vittorio,” Renzo said.

  Pia studied Vittorio, then turned back to Renzo. “But I thought . . . ,” Pia began. She lifted her face to Renzo. “We hate him, don’t we?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe not.” They watched in silence. Anything could happen. Mama could spit on Vittorio, she could slap him, she could shove him out the door.

  But in a moment Mama dried her eyes on her sleeve. She took Vittorio’s hand, drew it across her shoulders, and put an arm about him. She led him into the house, and with a sigh of relief Renzo pulled the door shut behind.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  He would have liked to sleep — to fall into bed for the hour that remained before he had to leave for work — but Mama wouldn’t let him. She drew an old blanket over his bed and directed him to help Vittorio onto it. Then she examined Renzo for wounds, despite his protestations. He was a man, or very nearly so. He didn’t need his mother inspecting every scrape and bruise. Vittorio was gravely injured; she should attend to him right away.

  She was deaf to his words. But in a moment, when she had satisfied herself that Renzo was not mortally wounded, she turned to examine Vittorio, bidding Renzo to strip out of his bloody clothes, wash himself, dress himself, chop wood, start a fire in the hearth, draw water from the well, and heat it in the cauldron.

  She was on a rampage. She sent Pia to and fro, fetching honey and herbs and linens. She tore up rags and knotted them together. She set tea on to steep; she chopped things and boiled things and strained things. And in between she peppered Renzo with questions. “Why were you going to the glassworks at night? Aren’t you done with that now?” she demanded, pounding the pestle into the mortar, releasing the sharp smell of poultice herbs.

  “I, uh . . . Sometimes I’ll have to — ”

  “And what of all that blood?” she asked, not giving him a chance to answer. “Both of you were soaked in it, but I don’t see from your injuries where so much blood could have come from.”

  Renzo picked up a log and threw it onto the fire, buying time to think.

  He didn’t want to tell her about the assassin. He didn’t want to tell her about the bird children, and he most certainly didn’t want to tell her what he and Vittorio had planned to do at the carpentry shop. So he’d concocted a tale in which Vittorio had approached him on his way to the glassworks and they’d had a chance encounter with a thief. Ever since, Mama had been poking holes in his story.

  “Well?” she demanded now.

  “I think,” Renzo said, “Vittorio may have cut the thief. With his, uh, knife. And so, much of the blood was the thief’s. And then I was trying to lift Vittorio, so I got bloody too.” A bead of sweat slid down his forehead; he wiped it off.

  “Lorenzo, this doesn’t make sense. He should never have come back, putting us in peril like this!” She thumped the pestle hard into the mortar. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  If she only knew how perilous the situation was. Renzo had wounded the assassin, perhaps killed him, but how long would it take the Ten to send another one? The assassins had never killed women and children before, but . . . Renzo and his family could be put in prison for harboring Vittorio. They could lose everything.

  “Why did he come back?” Mama demanded. “Did he say?”

  “I think,” Renzo said, “he wanted to make amends.”

  Mama went still for a moment, the pestle loose between her fingers. Then she set to grinding again.

  “Never.” The word was so soft, Renzo wasn’t certain he had heard it. But then Mama faced him, eyes fierce. “I can’t just let him die, but he can never make amends.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The morning passed, for Renzo, in a haze of fatigue. He made falcon after falcon for the commission of the sleepy-eyed merchant. Sergio wanted to make them too, but he couldn’t seem to get the knack. His birds looked rigid, leaden, earthbound — like Renzo’s early attempts, before Letta had taught him to truly see and appreciate the living falcon. Time and again the padrone held up some poor clumsy artifact of Sergio’s, then flung it into the broken-glass pail. “Too stiff!” Crash! “A masterpiece of gracelessness.” Crash! “When bullocks fly, this bird of yours will join them.” Crash!

  Despite himself Renzo pitied Sergio. His own father would never have humiliated him this way. The padrone had ever been harsh with Sergio, but after Renzo’s promotion it seemed to have grown worse.

  But there were birds to make — birds and birds and birds. The long, sleepless night weighed on Renzo, a heavy black fog that throbbed in his skull and penetrated to the outside corners of his eyes. He was proud to work as a man on this commission — as a full-fledged glassblower — but he began to grow weary of crafting the same falcon over and over. Once, when he made some small change — an improvement, Renzo thought — the padrone corrected him, told him that the merchant had paid to receive precisely the falcon he had been shown.

  Renzo knew he ought to be grateful. He was an apprentice now, on the path Papà had set out for him. Already his work was admired by the powerful and the wealthy. Someday he would be able to support Mama and Pia in comfort. One day he might be famous, even legendary.

  But still . . .

  That first night, when he and Letta had made the falcon together, it had seemed a miracle, a thing of joy. But now, after so many . . . Something that had been glowing in him began to darken, grow brittle and hard. More and more as he worked that day — making the same wings, the same beak, the same head and belly and tail — more and more he thought fondly of those nights in the glassworks, interrupted by children who needed noses wiped and bruises kissed . . . of the way he and Letta had worked together on the bird, trying one thing and then another until, when it was done, he couldn’t recall who had thought of what.

  She had discovered the falcon in the glass. She had called down the kestrel to his wrist, had taught him how to see it. Everything he had now he owed to her.

  How had he come to a place where the glassworks, a place for men to work, felt empty without this girl?

  Were the children with her, all in one cell? Or had they been separated? Was the food sufficient? Were they warm enough? Did they have hope of getting out, or had they despaired of ever seeing daylight again?

  This plan of his, it had been chancy from the start. Now, with Vittorio gravely wounded and the assassin on to him . . .

  Impossible.

  Surely the Ten wouldn’t condemn the children as witches. Surely the children would be banished to some new place, where life would be difficult. But they would get by — as they had ever done before.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  A turmoil of restless dreams roused him in the wee hours of the following morning, and despite his weariness he couldn’t get back to sleep. The dreams had dredged up a memory — that Papà had once experimented with making “unbreakable” glass. He had failed, but some of the glass he’d formulated had been surprisingly strong. Renzo lay awake trying to recall what the formula had been, and before he knew it, he found himself hurrying through the dark alleys to the glassworks, imagining assassins around every corner. He announced himself to the new nighttime fire tender — a tall, burly man who’d been charged with guarding the glassworks as well — and went straight to work.

  It was good that the bars in Signore Averlino’s shop hadn’t been rusted. Making black glass that mimicked the patina of iron would not be too difficult. Well, iron was not as smooth as glass, but he could play with the surface texture. But the real challenge would be making them strong. Strong enough to survive being attached to the doors; strong enough to survive being dropped or kicked or jostled as the doors were transported and installed at the dungeon; strong enough to survive the multitude of ordinary slams and rattles of daily use. At least for a while.

  Over the next few nights Renzo tested several batches, made
many sets of window bars of the correct dimensions, texture, and hue.

  Just to see if it could be done.

  Likely they would never be used. The plan was crazy, even more so after what had happened to Vittorio.

  Nevertheless, the strongest bars, he kept.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  For a while there was no opportunity to speak to Vittorio alone. Mama hovered nearby, tending to him at all hours of the day and night. Pia scurried back and forth, fetching bandage cloths and pots of ointment. Once, Renzo came home to find her sitting on the edge of Vittorio’s cot, telling him a story. Another time she held his hand and steadied him as he walked.

  Renzo searched for his silver cloak pin but couldn’t find it. He replaced it with his old copper one, feeling sick. Mama hadn’t noticed yet, but when she did . . . Papà’s cloak pin! He didn’t want to face her.

  But on Sunday, Mama and Pia dressed for mass. If they didn’t go, Mama said, people would begin to wonder if something was amiss. People might come to visit. But Renzo should stay with Vittorio; Mama would make apologies for him, would say he had been working late at night.

  Vittorio was dozing when they left. He looked much improved. A clean, white cloth lay over the gash in his brow and his ruined eye. His skin, which had been gray, had recovered its color, and his long, dark hair lay clean and combed about his head. His breath came easily, and the corners of his mouth turned up in a peaceful smile.

  Vittorio should leave now — or very soon. Before they were caught sheltering him. Before he brought down disaster upon the family for a second time.

  Renzo knelt beside him. “Uncle,” he whispered.

  The eye blinked open. It flicked toward the corners of the room, then came to rest on Renzo.

  “Uncle, how are you?”

  Vittorio groaned and struggled to sit up in bed. Renzo fluffed up a pillow and set it behind his back. “Did you make the window bars?” Vittorio asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “They’re strong. I remembered one of Papà’s formulas to strengthen the glass. The bars look like iron, and the surface texture — ”