The Glass Maker's Daughter

by V. Briceland

  The brother and sister guards had each other in tight chokeholds, desperation straining their faces. In the tinder’s light, their eyes flared in surprise at the unexpected sight of the other. As the enchantment sputtered and faded, she saw them both dropping their grips and scrambling to regain their balance. Camilla reached up a hand just as the light vanished.

  “Don’t move!” Risa commanded, suddenly finding her voice. She once more struck the stones together. “Illuminisi!” In the flame’s dim light, they all looked at where Risa pointed—Camilla’s hand was only an inch away from toppling the glass bowl.

  “I thought it was him again,” Camilla explained, minutes later. Even though she was calmed down, her eyes seemed wide and frightened in the candlelight. “I had an attacker earlier.”

  “You look terrible,” said Milo. “Honestly, I’m so sorry … ” Risa noted the narrow gash splitting Camilla’s lip, around which blood caked as it dried. Her cheek was a dark purple, as if it had been bruised by a blow.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, brother. You didn’t do this,” she said, pointing to her face. “He did.”

  “Who?”

  Camilla sighed in exasperation. “I didn’t see his face. After you two left, I spent a long time just sitting here in the dark. You’ve no idea how tired I was! I did the things we learned from Mama to keep awake. I sang songs in my head, counted stars, did sums.” Her voice grew quiet. “I still fell asleep.”

  “Oh, Cam.”

  “I couldn’t help it!”

  “I’m not blaming you. I know you’ve got to feel terrible.”

  “I still shouldn’t have. Anyway, I was on the bed when it happened. I woke up and there was a hand on my face, Milo.” Camilla’s voice sounded frozen with fear at the memory. The iciness in her voice chilled Risa. “Someone had come into the room.” They gave her a moment to recover. “He had me pinned down on the bed and he was trying to stuff a cloth in my mouth. So I kicked him between the legs.”

  Milo winced slightly at that, but the word that came from his mouth was “Good!”

  “I didn’t quite connect, but it was enough to make him stagger back. So I kneed him in the stomach. When he bent over, I smashed his nose with the heel of my hand. I think I broke it.”

  “Did you see him?”

  “No! It was too dark. All I know is that he smelled awful. It was disgusting.” Camilla touched her cheek and winced. “I was trying to figure out where in the room I was when he jumped over the balcony. I heard a splash in the canal. When I finally got over there, he’d swum away.” Ice gave way to heat. “I’d have done worse to him if I’d had half a chance.”

  “Why didn’t you follow? You should have called for help!”

  “Milo! How could I! And let people know that you were off with the cazarra? We’d all be tried for insubordination. She’s not supposed to be out after dark! I was trying to decide what to do when you opened the door. I thought you were him again, or one of his friends.”

  As she listened to the list of injuries Camilla had inflicted upon her assailant, Risa gazed around the room. Save for the path along which Camilla and Milo had grappled their way across the floor, most of the room was untouched. Creases on the bedclothes betrayed where Camilla had curled up. The glass bowl now sat in one of the display cases for safety, its surface dark and unmoving as the pair bickered.

  “He came for me,” Risa finally interrupted. The guards stopped their conversation and looked at each other warily, plainly unwilling to admit the right of Risa’s claim. “You’re both being very good about not saying it, but he expected to find me in that bed.”

  “I don’t think—” Camilla started to say.

  Milo shushed her and nodded. “You’re probably right.”

  At the sound of Milo’s quiet affirmation, Risa’s jaw began to quiver. It was too much for her to take. “Who would be desperate enough to harm me?”

  “Anyone who wanted to see your caza fall,” said Camilla.

  “An aspiring family of the Thirty, an enemy of the Divetris, the prince—you know the suspects.” Milo sat down beside her.

  “I didn’t ask for any of this! Two attacks in one day! And because of me, Camilla—” Risa gestured at the guard’s bruised cheekbone, for which she felt profoundly guilty. “Please forgive me.”

  Camilla smiled, but before she could speak, Milo interrupted. “A cazarra should not ask forgiveness of a guard who was doing her duty.” Risa protested, but Milo spoke over her. “That’s what guards do. That’s what guards do!”

  “I can apologize!”

  “You’ve got to stop thinking like a child, Risa! A cazarra sees a larger picture. She thinks ahead. She plans for her house and for her position. If Divetri had no cazarra, what would happen on the morrow? What would it mean for Cassaforte?” He seemed unnaturally tense and edgy after the fight in the darkness.

  “Stop lecturing me! I do think of those things!”

  “Then what, after tonight, are you going to do to protect yourself?”

  She considered before speaking. “It’s too late for me to learn to fight like you two. I want you both by me all day, and guards posted outside my room and at all the entrances to the residence, tomorrow night. That will keep out anyone who doesn’t live here.”

  He nodded at that. “Now you speak like a true cazarra.” She should have been pleased with the praise, but once again she felt a flash of annoyance. Why did he lately seem to irritate as well as gratify her?

  It was not until they had left her alone in the room that the thought came to her, lending the gravity of the darkness even more weight. The caza’s main residence had three floors. The top was reserved for the Divetris. Their isolation in the building’s uppermost story made it too easy to forget that others lived in the house as well. The first story consisted mostly of rooms reserved for family use, but at the far end of the wings were suites for the craftsmen and their families. In the canal-level story below dwelled scores of servants like Fita, who were without homes of their own in the city.

  What if her attacker had not come from outside the residence?

  25

  —

  There are more canals than buildings in Cassaforte,

  or so it seems. It is a city of water, its buildings suspended

  by bridges lighter than air. Of all the wonders of the world,

  none is more of a testament to its peoples.

  —The artist Moissophant, in his personal journal

  That’s absurd. You can’t quit.” Arms crossed, Risa stared at Emil without blinking once. It was a technique her father used in his sternest moods.

  At least the craftsman had the decency to look abashed. “I’m sorry, Cazarrina … ”

  “Cazarra,” prompted Milo, alert.

  Risa repressed her sigh of exasperation at the both of them. “I refuse to accept your resignation.” She hoped she sounded firm, yet calm.

  Her temper had been rising all morning. The caza was in a state of disarray. Burnt candles had not been replaced. The daytime banners atop the residence were wrapped and wind-tangled. Some of the hearths had not been cleaned since the arrival of the guard. Weeds were appearing in the gardens. Someone had left the annealing furnaces unattended so that they had cooled nearly to a critical level. Servants were abandoning the house in droves, it seemed. Fita had been near tears when Risa encountered her, and would not take any form of consolation.

  “The caza’s safety is so uncertain,” Emil said, twisting his hands nervously. “I don’t want to take a post elsewhere—I could come back when your father returns.”

  “Who says I’ll let you?” Mattio’s face was dark with anger. He spat out words like projectiles of hot glass. “I’ll have no fair-weather workers here. You leave, and I guarantee you’ll not be coming back!”

  Risa tried a more reasonabl
e approach. “If you leave, Mattio will only have Cousin Fredo. Amo’s barely gotten his feet wet!” Amo stood in the corner of the workroom arranging materials for the day. At the sound of his name, he looked up and shook his head at her, as if to ask that she leave him out of the discussion.

  “There’s no Fredo.” Mattio continued to scowl at the junior craftsman. “He’s gone too.”

  “What?” said Risa. As much as she disliked her cousin, she knew that with her father gone, Fredo was vital to the workshop’s continued output. “That’s impossible.”

  “It’s very possible. He left a note for me. Wouldn’t even resign in person.” Mattio seemed angry. “Coward.”

  “I saw him before he left, early yesterday evening.” Emil could barely make his timid voice heard over the rumble and roar of the furnaces. His hands twisted a moth-gnawed cap.

  Risa felt shock as the realization hit her. “You’re just leaving because of Fredo!” Her chest grew hot, her temper acting as bellows to the fire within. “You wanted him to be cazarro. You think I bring shame upon this house, don’t you? You said so yesterday!”

  “If … if you please … ” he stammered.

  “Go on, then. Get out! Fly with Fredo! Abandon ship with the other rats!” Either her yelling or her dramatic gestures made the slight young man cower before her and back away. She knew she must look mad, both to him and the others. “Go, I said. Go!”

  Scuttling sideways like a rock crab, Emil fled from the room carrying only his cap and a bag of tools. The door to the courtyard fell shut behind him. Barely had a second passed than Risa took several long strides across the floor and opened it. “You are never again to return to Caza Divetri!” she shrieked at his back. She slammed the door again.

  “Risa!” Mattio looked shocked.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” she snapped. “We are better off without him. Without both of them!” The door opened again, admitting a servant. She turned away.

  Milo wore the same chiding expression. “That outburst was not worthy of a cazarra,” he said in a private aside.

  “What do you know of cazarras?” she yelled. Her patience was pushed beyond endurance. “Why do you constantly remind me how a cazarra behaves? What gives you that right?” For a moment she was astonished at her vehemence. Immense satisfaction had welled up inside her. It terrified her that it was so easy to strike out at him—Milo, of all people. But she was angry. Angry at Emil, angry with Fredo for slinking away in the dark. Angry with Milo for acting like her father.

  “Every citizen of Cassaforte knows exactly how its cazarri should behave—just as we know how our royalty should not behave.”

  “You’re comparing me to the prince now?” Risa shouted. “Am I a tyrant? An ogre?”

  Normally, in front of other members of the household, Milo assumed the role of the expressionless guard. With only Amo and Mattio present, he abandoned all pretense. “That’s not what I said.”

  “That’s what you meant!”

  He held up his hands. “I don’t want to fight.”

  “Please,” said a quiet voice behind them all. It was barely audible over the workroom’s sounds. All turned; finally Risa turned, to find Dom, the old servant. In front of him, on a worktable, sat a bowl filled with figs and pears and other fruit, obviously sent by Fita in apology for the inadequate breakfast earlier.

  “What is it, Dom?” Risa’s voice still trembled with anger, modulate it though she tried.

  “Is—is something wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Risa lied as she continued to glare at Milo in challenge. “We’re just having a discussion.”

  “You shouldn’t … ”

  It sounded very much as if the silly old man was going to give her advice as well. “I am tired of everyone telling me what I should and shouldn’t do!” They all were conspiring to exasperate her! Her lips clenched, Risa stomped out of the workshop and through the door, leaving them all behind her.

  A tired Camilla stood on guard outside. Risa dared not look to see how much of the argument she had overheard. As Camilla startled to attention and began to scramble after her, Risa marched swiftly across the courtyard toward the residence.

  “Where are you going, Cazarra?”

  “To my chambers!”

  She heard the workshop door shutting once more, in the distance. That would be Milo, then. Or Mattio. Or all of them, chasing after her, telling her not to be so hot-headed. No words pursued her, however, nor did she hear any cries of apology.

  Without looking over her shoulder, she pushed her way past the ancestral statues in their honorary nooks at the southern end of the residence and walked under the marble arch into the lower courtyard. Through the outdoor dining hall she hastened, and then through the grand hall and the vestibule. She had made a humiliating retreat along this route not even two weeks earlier, after she had failed the Scrutiny. But today was not the same, she told herself. This time she was seeking the sanctuary of her room, to get away from those who wanted to pry into and control her decisions.

  It was not until she reached the upper hallway that Milo and Camilla caught up to her. She could see them reflected in the mirror at the hall’s end, grimly following in her wake. She swung open her door, stepped into the room, and turned. “Leave me alone,” she ordered before Milo could speak. She slammed the door.

  Risa did not throw the latch that would have locked them out. After the previous night’s events, both her guards would have made a fuss if they had heard that tell-tale noise. Truthfully, she did not care to lock them out. She wanted Milo to apologize. He owed her an apology. She perched upon the settee and spread out her skirts. For half of an hour she waited, fully expecting Milo to enter and beg pardon from her.

  He did not.

  You told him to leave you alone, a stern Risa thought to herself. In reply, an anguished part of her rejected the reproach. I didn’t mean it!

  She had not meant to shut him out. She had wanted him to implore her to be friends again, to try to make amends. She wanted Milo’s attention. She needed his friendship, but her tantrum had made it impossible for him to offer. Merely for the sake of show, she had stormed off in a fuss rather than admit the fault of her own temper. If she had not overreacted …

  Of course he hadn’t compared her to the prince. If she were to be absolutely truthful with herself, she had known what he was trying to say to her, even in the white heat of the argument. Everyone knew how a member of the royal family should and shouldn’t act, just as she knew the duties and responsibilities of a guard.

  Through the windows and balcony came the sounds of noontime activity in the piazza. Voices sounded in friendly conversation, though they were not as loud or as jovial as in the days before the fall of the cazas to the immediate east and west. Waters lapped at the canal walls. The occasional sharp cry of a gull cut through the babble. They were soothing noises all, and Risa attempted to let them wash away the ragged edges of her bad humor.

  She had loved these sounds as a child. She wanted back that childhood once more—a life free of danger and risk and confrontation. More than anything, she wanted nothing but to be happy and enjoy her home and family.

  The thought of Dom intruded—the most frail and dependent of all the household. Risa had been rudeness itself to him. The memory brought a crease to her brow. Milo was right—she was behaving not as a cazarra, but as a child.

  What could she do? If she pretended that nothing had happened, perhaps all the morning’s drama would simply be forgotten. The stern Risa inside her tried to insist she apologize first, but it was still difficult, even to herself, to admit being in the wrong—much less voice the words aloud.

  She looked around the room, feeling sad and hopeless, until her eyes lit upon the glass bowl. She stepped lightly across the stone and matting so her footsteps would not be heard outside th
e door. The bowl was smudged and dirty with fingerprints that were invisible in last night’s dimness, but which completely obscured her reflection by day. She used a soft leather cloth and the moisture of her own breath to wipe away the oils, and then gazed deep into the curved pool of light. Why had her parents not again attempted to communicate with her? She would give any number of lundri just to be able to see them face to face right now, and hear their advice.

  Risa startled out of her reverie at the sight of a face in the blue-green depths of the bowl. Her eyes focused upon the image—and saw that it was only her own. But it was no wonder she was confused. The stress of the previous days had made her face look drawn and thin. She had thought the face belonged to someone older—someone old and worn, the age of Ferrer Cassamagi.

  Why had she not thought of him since his visit?

  Within moments, Risa was opening the door to her room. Milo and Camilla stared at the broad smile that was transforming her face from a wilting blossom to a fresh bloom. “I’ve had the most marvelous idea!” she exclaimed, her heart leaping at the astonishment on both their faces. “We’re going to Caza Cassamagi.”

  Neither Milo nor his sister seemed delighted at her announcement. “Why?” said Milo. Risa could scarcely read his expression. He seemed guarded and wary.

  “The woman who founded his caza used many enchantments that the Seven no longer perform,” she explained. “She could see and talk to people far away. That’s what Ferrer Cassamagi told me yesterday. He might be able to explain my bowl, Milo. He might be able to make it work again.”

  They looked at each other. “It’s a fine idea, Risa, but at the moment I am thinking primarily of your safety.” Camilla looked grave as she spoke the words. “Someone was trying very desperately to hurt you last night.”

  “It’s out of the question,” Milo finished for her.