Falcon in the Glass (13 page)

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 children, 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.

I
f 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.

He liked to watch them, the woman and the bird. Sometimes he stayed for quite a while. The woman seldom opened her eyes anymore. She curled up into herself, wrinkled and frail. She seemed to have shrunk.

But the little owl always swiveled its head and saw him right away.

After the assassin had left the woman's cell, Guido and Claudio had found her: bleeding, propped against the wall. They'd been amazed she was alive.

In Guido's experience no prisoner had ever survived an assassin's visit before.

But since then she seemed to sleep all the time. Maybe she was dying.

If she died, what would happen to the owl? Who would take care of it?

How would it be, Guido wondered now, to have an owl of his own? One that would keep him company, be loyal to him, do his bidding? It was a wild little thing. Dangerous. He could train it to fly in the face of anybody who threatened him. Maybe pluck out an enemy's eyes.

He put his face right up to the bars. The bird blinked
at him with its spooky yellow eyes. He reached his hand through, stretched out a finger.

“Here, birdy, birdy.”

The woman's eyes flew open. Guido snatched back his hand.

She moaned and sat up slowly. Guido stepped back and was about to steal away, when she turned to him and spoke.

“Would you like t' hold my owl?”

Guido stopped. He couldn't recall having heard her speak before. She talked funny — a little foreign, like.

They said she was a witch. True, he himself might have started the rumor. He had told his sister and her friends about the assassin; he had told his aunt and his uncle and the neighbors who lived below. He'd told them too about the little owl — how it seemed to obey the woman, to come to her bidding, to know her thoughts.

Witch!
they had whispered.

“Well?” the woman asked.

He eyed her warily. She rubbed her back, squinting in pain. “Will it bite me?” he asked.

“Not if I tell him not to.”

He knew he shouldn't do it. He should walk away, right now.

“Will you tell it not to bite?”

“ 'Course. If you'll fetch me some of that water.”

Guido put his key into the lock. The door opened with a rusty
creak
. He set the torch in the wall cresset, then dipped
the ladle into the water bucket, poured water into the cup, and took it to the woman.

She drank. When she was done, she turned to him and said, “Hold out your finger, like so.”

She held out hers to show him.

Guido did the same. “It won't bite?” he asked. “Certain sure?”

“He won't. I promise.”

She flicked her eyes to the bird, and something passed between them: quick and light, but with a sizzle to it, like the tingling blue flash when you touch metal on a cold, dry day.

The bird jumped onto his finger.

He felt the weight of it, impossibly light. Through the wiry, clutching talons he could sense its aliveness — the beating of its heart. Its feet were warm. Its feathers tickled his fingers. Soft. So soft. The owl's breast was speckled with gray; its wings and back were a tawny brown. Its eyes, which had looked so fierce from across the room, now seemed thoughtful and sad.

“Little thing,” Guido breathed.

It fluffed its feathers, settling down. It squirted out a chalky dropping and closed its eyes.

Guido glanced at the woman.

She smiled.

Looking kindly and pleased, like somebody's grandmother. Not like a witch at all.