Falcon in the Glass (25 page)

She called after him, cursing.

He should go back and help her gather them up. He should tell her he was sorry.

But there was so much, so much to be sorry for. Where would he even begin?

◆      ◆      ◆

When Renzo arrived home, he found Vittorio bent over the kitchen table repairing a wooden shutter. A large pot bubbled on the hearth; Renzo breathed in the rich aroma of rabbit stew.

“Is Mama here?” he asked.

Vittorio looked up. His bandages were gone now, replaced by a patch over his blind eye. The bruises on his face had faded but were still a lurid mass of purple and yellow.

“No. She had some errands and took Pia. We can talk.”

Renzo related what he'd heard from the sea captain, about the dungeon door and the angry mob. About the Ten and the hanging.

Vittorio looked shocked. “
Maria santissima.
Hanging?”

Renzo nodded.

“In twelve days? I thought we'd have more time. ”

“Listen. I've found a way to get them out of Venice, out of the lagoon entirely.” Renzo told how the captain had agreed
to take the children when he left. For the sum of nine glass falcons — one for each of the children and one for the old woman, should she wish to go as well.

“Do you know this man, this captain? Know anything at all about him?” Vittorio asked, his voice rising in alarm.

“Well, but . . . It was he who spoke of them first. He's angry about it. He wants to help. Anyway, what else can we do?
You
can't arrange it now. You — ”

“You can take care! Don't go about risking your life so cavalierly! Don't — ”

“You of all people should reproach
me
for risking lives!”

Vittorio gazed at him a long moment. The stew bubbled on the hearth. Outside, a seagull called. “You're right,” Vittorio said at last. “This is my fault. And I'll make it good to you. I — ”

“You can't.”

“I will.”

“You can't break them out of the dungeon. Your ankle's not healed yet; you can barely walk, much less outrun the dungeon guards.”

“I'll do it,” Vittorio said stubbornly.

The pain had come again to sit in Renzo's heart. There was only him to do it. If he did, and if he were caught, it would be a betrayal of Mama and Pia; it would be a betrayal of all Papà had ever wanted for him. But if he didn't . . .

Renzo pressed his hands against his heart. Something was crumbling there, shaking apart.

“I will go,” he said.

◆      ◆      ◆

There were many things to plan before Mama and Pia returned. They spoke of boats, and of masks, and of the configuration of the palace, and of when and where to meet. Renzo told Vittorio about the broken bars; Vittorio said he was sure he'd heard of a small, barred door somewhere near the canal on the east of the palace. “The door they take the bodies out of,” he said. How could this door be found from inside the dungeon? Renzo didn't know. Though Vittorio couldn't go into the dungeon himself, he would steal into Venice the next day and make some arrangements.

“God willing, this will all work out, Renzo. You'll be back to the glassworks the day after, and no one will be the wiser.”

Renzo nodded. But this was likely what Vittorio had told himself when he'd put his family at risk by leaving Murano.

“And what about Signore Averlino?” Renzo asked. “If it's discovered that the dungeon bars are made of glass, suspicion will land on him.”

“I'll write out a confession for the authorities and leave it with you. I'll say I did it all — that Signore Averlino had nothing to do with it, and neither did you, or any other glassworker. I'll say that if the Ten want evidence of Signore Averlino's innocence, they should look for the iron bars in the carpentry shop. I'll tell them where.”

“But that will make him look guilty!”

“Ah, but that's where you're mistaken. A guilty man would have gotten rid of the evidence long before. Only an innocent man would still have those bars in his workshop.”

His reasoning seemed risky, thin.
God willing, this will all work out.
They'd had no right to put Signore Averlino at risk. And yet . . .

Night after night over the past week, Renzo had dreamed of Letta's kestrel, imprisoned in a block of solid glass but still alive, its heart trembling wildly in its breast. Sometimes the bird blurred and changed until it was Letta inside the block, or only his own heart beating. Each time, he took up a hammer and tried to break the glass, but it refused to shatter. Tiny chips and splinters flew off it. Spiderweb-like cracks penetrated deep. But the glass was strong, and he didn't know if he could break through in time.

Now he heard voices, outside. Pia, chattering out a question. Mama's calm reply.

Vittorio leaned forward, across the table. “Renzo,” he said, his voice soft and urgent. “I hear things, at night.”

“Hear things?”

“It may be nothing, but . . . I think it's time for me to leave.”

“You mean leave our house?”

“Yes, that too. I'll leave tonight. Don't worry. I'm strong enough. I know places where I can hide. And after we rescue the children, I'll leave the republic altogether.”

“But where will you go? Back where you were before?”

Vittorio shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I'll find a new place, one more hospitable to strangers. But that ship — the one the children are taking — it could carry me well away from the lagoon. Make a tenth falcon, Renzo. That one will be for me.”

T
welve days.

Renzo worried that the days wouldn't pass quickly enough, that the mob would overpower the guards, that the glass bars would be discovered. He worried that the days would pass too quickly, that he wouldn't be able to finish the extra birds, that Vittorio wouldn't have time to conclude his preparations.

Sometimes he found himself imagining Letta, Vittorio, and the children on the ship, sailing away out of the lagoon, into the Adriatic Sea. Where would they go?

Once, many years before, Papà had spread out a great map on the kitchen table. He had drawn a finger across the map, showing Renzo all the places where the glass they made was sent. East, to Istanbul. West, around the boot of Italy and thence to Spain. Through the Strait of Gibraltar, then north to Portugal, France, and the British Isles.

Where would they disembark?

Where would they make a life?

Renzo didn't know. It was best, Vittorio had told him, that he not know.

In the meantime there were the ten extra birds to make. The new fire tender could bring him glass for the wings. The rest Renzo could manage on his own.

One night several days later, when the fire tender admitted him to the glassworks, he saw that someone was there at the furnace before him. Renzo crept forward in the dark and watched.

It was Sergio.

That afternoon there had been another ugly scene between Sergio and the
padrone
. Sergio had shown his father a falcon he had made. The
padrone
had ridiculed his work — loudly, so that everyone heard.

Though Sergio had feigned indifference, he had not been able to hide his bitterness and humiliation.

Now Renzo wondered: Would it be worse to have your father right there before you and still not feel his loving care?

But no. What could be worse than losing your father altogether? At least Sergio could hope.

Renzo watched as Sergio lifted the gather, as he rolled it on the
malmoro
, as he put his lips to the blowpipe.

Would this be another bird?

Yes. But when Sergio began to shape the beak, Renzo could see that he had it all wrong.

Sergio cursed. He struck the
pontello
against the edge of the broken-glass pail. The bird cracked off and landed with a crash.

Renzo approached the furnace. Sergio glanced his way. “What are
you
doing here?”

Renzo shrugged. “You're not the only one who needs to practice.” He picked up a blowpipe and gathered a molten blob of glass from the crucible. He half-expected Sergio to object, but he did not. For a while they worked side by side in the heat of the furnace, with neither words nor looks of acknowledgment, like two cats sharing a patch of sun.

When it came time to make the beak, Renzo reached for the
borsella
. He began to murmur, as if to himself, not looking at Sergio: “Starting now, lifting up and up like so. Turning here, like so.” Sergio turned to watch, letting his own work grow cold. When it was time for Renzo to make a wing, Sergio cracked his own piece into the broken-glass pail and fetched molten glass for Renzo's bird. He watched. At last Renzo cracked his bird off the blowpipe and bore it to the annealing oven. He returned to the furnace. Gathered more glass.

Sergio regarded him, said nothing. Renzo offered him the blowpipe with the newly gathered glass. Sergio hesitated, then took it and began to work. Renzo was silent until it came time for Sergio to make the beak, then, “Lift it now,” he said. “Turn it now. A little farther. Yes, there, there, there — just there.”

When the bird was done, they looked at it together. It was not perfect, but it was respectable. The beak looked nearly right, and the angle of the wings was much improved. Sergio cracked the bird off the blowpipe and bore it to the annealing oven.

Renzo gathered more glass from the crucible. Sergio watched him work. When it was time, he brought glass for the wings. Neither spoke.

But when the bird was nearly finished, Sergio said, “Why are you doing this? Why are you showing me how?”

Renzo shrugged. What could he say?
Because I'm stealing these birds from your father to give to the captain? Because I want to pay for them some way? Because I may soon find myself in deep disgrace, and I want someone to remember something good of me
?

Renzo cracked his bird off the blowpipe. Picked it up with the lifting irons. “I miss my father,” he said. “I miss his teachings too.”

◆      ◆      ◆

Signore Averlino had not come to mass the Sunday after he'd found Renzo in his workshop, but the following Sunday, there he was. He greeted Renzo without a hint that he had found him lurking there, crouching waist deep in water, in the middle of the night. He treated Renzo as he ever had, with kindness and respect.

But this time Renzo was different. He looked Signore Averlino in the eye; he smiled at him; he yielded his seat next to Mama without her having to motion him aside.

After mass Renzo watched Signore Averlino watching Mama. Renzo marked how he stood patiently aside as Mama greeted her friends, how he politely greeted them and listened to what they had to say. About the price of sugar and wheat; about a feud between two neighbors; about a graveyard rumored to have been robbed. About the death
that had visited one of the parish households, and the birth that had blessed another. Papà, Renzo recalled, used to be at the center of every conversation — dispensing wisdom and advice, telling stories, making people laugh. Renzo had thought that this was so because Papà was an exceptional man. Everyone had wanted to be near Papà. He had drawn them in like a blazing hearth on a chill winter's night. But now Renzo saw that exceptional men come in varying hues. The man at the far edge of the crowd, the one whom people noticed least, could be every bit as remarkable.

Outside, Pia skipped across the walk and slipped a coin to her beggar. For the first time, Renzo approached him too. His face was hidden in the shadows of his hooded cloak, but the gnarled fingers spread wide as Renzo came near. Renzo's coin clinked against Pia's; the beggar murmured his thanks.

◆      ◆      ◆

The assassin closed his fingers about the coins. He did not like showing his hands to the boy. But it had been dark that night; there had been blood and pain and fighting; chances were the boy would not remember the specific geography of this handful of misshapen fingers.

The uncle had disappeared again. The assassin did not know yet precisely where he had gone, but he knew where to watch. Eventually the uncle would surface, and then . . .

Ordinarily the assassin would have dispatched him long ago. He would have stolen into the house; he would have finished it. But he had grown soft, he had grown weak, he
had grown dangerously ineffective. Truth: He could not bear to frighten the little girl. He could not bear for her to feel unsafe inside her very home.

She would grieve for her uncle when he was gone. But that could not be helped.

L
ate that night a heron, gliding low over the marshes in search of a juicy frog, saw three small boats moving through the curved ribbons of water that cut through the island of Murano.

The first boat glided down a wide canal and headed south across a moonlit stretch of open water.