Falcon in the Glass (19 page)

“Maybe not,” Vittorio said. “But those eyes of theirs aren't going to help them. Nor the birds.”

Renzo sagged. Their eyes: too strange. Too green. And the birds . . . Other performers kept their animals in cages. Not these. And the bond between them, between the children and their birds . . .

Wild
birds.

Renzo could almost envy it. But it was strange.

They might not be witches, but they were . . . something. Different. That was certain. And that could be all it took.

Damp soaked through his cloak and into his skin, into his bones. He breathed in candle smoke and the scent of wax, and the dark, rich musk of dirt and grubs. His belly felt sick and heavy.

“Well,” Vittorio said, “it's possible the Ten will be sensible and just send them away. But be wary, Renzo. Keep your distance.”

“But there must be something — ”

“Your duty is to family. Family! I know this better than anyone. When you break with family, you have nothing.”

“But I owe them . . . at least the eldest girl. Without her I would have failed the test.”

“Look at me, Renzo! Do you want to end up like I am? I was stupid, headstrong, selfish — ”

“
You
were selfish. But I want to help someone, someone who helped me.”

“You want to help a stranger and risk your family in the process!”

“
I
won't be leaving Murano and setting the assassins on us. I could just . . .”

Just what? What could he possibly do?

A wind gust buffeted the door; the candle flames flickered, leaning all together. A dark weariness had massed behind Renzo's eyes. He lowered his head into his hands. What had he hoped for, following Vittorio to this place? Had he thought Vittorio would help him? Or had he truly hoped that Vittorio would say exactly what he had? That he mustn't bring danger to the family, or to himself.

Renzo lifted his head. “I can't sleep,” he said miserably. “I want to be able to sleep.”

“Just shut the door on them,” Vittorio growled. “Shut the door.”

“Can you sleep, Vittorio? Before, you said you couldn't, but can you now?”

Vittorio groaned. His hair hung down in wet strings, and his sodden cloak had shed so much moisture that he was sitting in a pool of water. “How could I sleep,” he murmured, “after what happened to your father?”

Renzo reached to touch his silver cloak pin. All at once he longed so strongly for Papà, for his solid physical presence, for his confidence, for the certainty of his convictions. But he, too, would have urged Renzo to care for the family. To shut the door on mere strangers and pour every ounce of energy into the glass, into becoming the legend Papà had dreamed of.

And yet . . .

She came to him again, brandishing the blowpipe at him, instructing him in the curve of a falcon's wing, touching the embroidery of Mama's mantle.

He couldn't imagine never seeing her again in this life. That she and the children should be tried as witches . . .

Unthinkable.

He picked up a pebble from the floor of the tomb and flung it hard against a wall. It bounced off the stones, ricocheted off a coffin, and
thunk
ed against the door.

Door.
Shut the door.

Renzo sat up straight, remembering.

External doors for the Doge's Palace.

And the dungeon was inside.

“What is it?” Vittorio asked.

“I have an idea.”

“They're in the dungeon of the Ten, Renzo! There's nothing to be done!”

“Maybe. But it wouldn't be so dangerous to find out just this one thing.”

If he could do nothing — which was likely — at least he would have tried. And then, and
then
 . . .

Maybe he could sleep.

V
enice shimmered before them, diamond-bright, a great glass chandelier of a city suspended between the starlit sky and the dark lagoon. Renzo had seen it often — the profile of its skyline on sunny days, the glimmer of lights above the water at night. But he'd never been this close before, well beyond the islands of San Cristoforo and San Michele.

The night was clear but cold. A chill breeze blew in from the Adriatic, numbing Renzo's ears and nose as he hunched in the bow of the little boat Vittorio had bought for himself.

For he had insisted on coming too. “If I can't keep you from this folly,” he'd said, “I'll do my best to shield you from harm.” Despite his disapproval Vittorio had somehow discovered the location of Signore Averlino's shop. Soon Vittorio deftly navigated the maze of canals to the north of the island until, when they came out on the Grand Canal, the wind had lost its sting and Renzo had forgotten he'd ever been cold.

He gaped at the length of the canal before them, at the fringe of
palazzi
looming to either side — vast and
ornate, many blazing with lamps and candles, and ringing with music. Light spilled across the water in shimmering reflections — mirror images of the splendor to either side — broken only by torch-lit gondolas ferrying wealthy Venetians to and fro.

“You might wish to close your mouth, Nephew,” Vittorio said. “A bat could fly in that cave.”

They paddled along the canal, through the dark waters. When a gondola passed hard by, Renzo glimpsed the sparkle of jewels and a watery froth of bright silks. Smooth, pale shoulders. Half-moons of pink rounded breasts. The girl laughed, like a chiming of goblets of
cristallo
.

Renzo turned to stare as the gondola passed. He breathed in the fragrance of flowers and spice and musk that wafted on the air. Suddenly he was filled with longing for a life of beauty and grace and excitement. A life that was not out of reach for a first-rate glass master, if he stayed out of trouble.

“Watch where you're going!” Vittorio barked out. “And pull up your hood, shadow your face. If you're going to go gawping at every signorina on the canal, people will notice. And you never know who might be a spy.”

◆      ◆      ◆

At last they came to the carpenter's shop. It was not on the Grand Canal, but on a smaller canal, a little way north. Two windows faced onto the water; both were securely shuttered. Vittorio glided past the shop and tied up a little way down.

They lay silent in the boat, covered in tarps up to their eyes, and watched. When after a time no night watchman
appeared, Vittorio stirred. He pushed back the tarps, withdrew the picklocks from his purse, and motioned for Renzo to wait. He stole across the narrow pavement to the shop door and bent over the lock.

A wave slapped the boat, jostling it against the canal wall. Renzo looked about but saw no other boats save for a few empty ones moored to the sides of the canal. In the distance he could hear faint strains of music. All at once a dark feeling engulfed him, a feeling that he shouldn't be here, that this expedition was perilous as well as futile. The idea he'd had . . . it was beyond impossible; it was mad.

The door opened with a creak. Vittorio vanished inside. In a moment he reappeared and motioned to Renzo:
Come.

Renzo forced himself to pick up Papà's measuring tools, a lantern Vittorio had brought, and a small, perforated tin box with a few warm coals from the hearth. He joined Vittorio and shut the door behind them.

Dark. Renzo breathed in the sweet scent of wood shavings, the sharp tang of turpentine, of paint. Vittorio took the candle from his lantern and lit it on a still-smoldering coal. By the lantern's flickering glow they made their way among trestles and workbenches, neat stacks of lumber, planed and sanded planks of many sizes, racks of tools, and barrels full of iron nails and wooden pegs. Despite himself Renzo was impressed by the size of the shop, by the fineness and condition of the tools, by the signs of orderly conduct of craft. Signore Averlino didn't dress richly or hold himself grandly; there was nothing about him to suggest that he
was the
padrone
of such a place. Renzo had pictured a tiny, dark shop, cramped and cluttered, with maybe one other woodworker and a single, clumsy apprentice.

He drew his fingers across well-oiled, ornately carved panels, each with a winged lion at the center. He peered into crates of wide and narrow bands of iron, iron hasps and hinges, iron locks, iron studs, and pointed iron spikes.

But where were the doors?

“I know he's making doors,” Renzo said, feeling foolish. “I heard him say it. And look at all the hinges, the hasps.”

“Oh, he's making doors, all right.” Vittorio set his lantern on a table. “But they're all in pieces. There's no way of knowing which parts go with which.”

Renzo caught sight of something on the table before him. He moved the lantern, set it down beside a stack of paper.

They were neat sketches, with cross sections indicated, materials specified, and measurements marked. The working drawings. Renzo bent over, examining them. They put him in mind of clockwork, with each part fitting precisely into an adjacent part, and all of it gearing together. There was an elegance to this work that he had not appreciated before.

He flipped through the stack of drawings, then stopped. And there they were. Exterior doors. Thick wood; carved panels; iron straps and studs; high, barred windows. Two different doors marked
prisons
. One wide and tall. The other narrow and short.

Vittorio came up beside him. Together they pored over
the drawings. “I don't see any weakness in the design,” Vittorio said. “I don't see how they could be jimmied, or the window bars pried loose.”

Renzo scanned the drawing again. No. Impossible. “Have you seen the bars?” he asked.

“The window bars?”

Renzo nodded. “Have you seen them here in the shop?”

“No. They may not have been made yet. Look, Renzo, I've humored you long enough. Let's go.”

Humored?
Was that how Vittorio saw him? As a child, to be humored?

Renzo turned his back on Vittorio. He hunted through the workshop again, peering beneath tables and behind shelves, into open barrels and crates. At last he discovered them stacked against the far wall — two sets of heavy iron bars.

He picked them up, set by set, and laid them on a bench. Each set had a rectangular iron frame around the outside; the bars fit into holes in the frame. One set had bars the width of a grown man's thumbs; they were as long as the distance from Renzo's knee to his ankle. These matched the bars in the drawing of the larger door. The other bars were shorter, thicker. Renzo ran his fingers along the smooth surfaces of the bars and felt a little jolt of excitement.

They were flat black, which wouldn't be difficult to copy. And the frames for the bars were constructed without nail holes. Which meant that the frames would be set
into
the door, not nailed to it. Good! Because if someone were to
hammer at the frames holding the bars Renzo was imagining, the bars might shatter.

For they would be made of glass.

◆      ◆      ◆

“It's crazy,” Vittorio said.

“I know.”

“You could get caught making them.”

“So I'd break them.”

“They wouldn't feel like iron, anyway. Whoever touched them would know.”

“I can make them feel like iron.”

“You can't make them cold like iron.”

“If the room is cold, the glass will be cold enough. It wouldn't work in summer, but . . .” Renzo huffed out a breath of frozen air. “See? And it's not likely to get much warmer for a while.”

“We'd have to come back here, and by then the iron ones might have been mounted in the doors.”

“So we could . . . I don't know . . . pry the doors open and replace the bars?”

“And then somebody would have to go to the dungeon.”

Renzo dipped his head in acknowledgment. That was the part he didn't want to think about. The impossible part.

“It's crazy, Renzo!”

“I
know
.”

He picked up the thicker set of bars. His earlier
excitement had fled. Some cowardly part of him wished he hadn't found the bars, because in that case there'd have been nothing he could do.

But he had found them.

Surely the Ten would only banish Letta and the other children. But if it was worse than that . . .

Well. He had to try something.

If only so he could sleep.

◆      ◆      ◆

Vittorio studied the sketches while Renzo emptied the leather pouch he had inherited, filled with Papà's equipment — a sharpened quill, a vial of ink, a rolled-up piece of parchment, and three different kinds of calipers. He measured the lengths and diameters of the bars themselves and the lengths, widths, and depths of the rectangular iron frames that held the bars all together.

“Look at this bit of cleverness,” Vittorio said, pointing to one of the drawings. “The door comes together like two hands praying, leaving tidy notches between the layers to hold the window bars in place.”