Falcon in the Glass (26 page)

The second made its slow way along a narrow stream, barely visible among the sedges. The third followed at a distance. The second boat hesitated before nosing out into the open, at the lip of the wide waters of the lagoon.

It did not, the heron saw, get far.

◆      ◆      ◆

Renzo moored his boat to the crowded dock in San Marco. On his way across the lagoon, he'd been grateful for the light of the full moon, but at the moment he longed for a nice, thick fog. He opened the bundle Vittorio had stowed beneath a strut and removed a ragged gown and a pair of women's slippers. He bent to take off his boots, then jammed his feet into the slippers and shrugged off his cloak, damp with condensed fog.

The hammer was still there, bound to his waist with a leather belt.

He pulled on the gown over his shirt.

Now for the mask — smooth and white, with full, red lips. The visage of a beautiful signorina. Fumbling with the tie strings, Renzo secured it over his face. He knotted the head scarf at his chin and slipped the shawl over his shoulders, then bundled up his cloak and boots and stowed them in the bottom of the boat. At last he picked up the basket and slipped the handle over one arm.

He gazed at the blazing lights of the Doge's Palace and summoned his will to move.

The night chill penetrated through shawl and shirt to shiver at his skin, still damp from the effort of rowing. Inside the mask his breath sounded loud. He felt leaden, unable to move. So many uncertainties to this plan. So many paths to disaster. He longed to turn back, to row north to Murano and tuck himself into his warm, soft cot.

And where was Vittorio? They weren't supposed to meet — not yet — but Renzo had hoped to catch sight of him. Vittorio had assured Renzo that he was well enough to do his part, but was he?

Abruptly Renzo stood and stepped onto the dock. If he didn't make himself go now, he feared he might lose heart altogether.

Stoop,
Vittorio had said.
Walk as if your knees pain you, as if your feet ache and your hips creak.
It was a disguise inside a disguise: a boy dressed as an old woman wearing the mask
of a beautiful girl.
The more mixed-up and confusing,
Vittorio had said,
the better.

Bent over and shuffling, Renzo threaded his way through the
piazzetta
, still thick with jostling revelers even so late at night. He made for the Piazza San Marco, where he soon spotted the vendor Vittorio had told him of, the one who sold
fritole
. A man in a jester's mask bumped into him; Renzo stumbled into the path of a man on stilts, who wobbled, cursing loudly and long. A hand latched on to Renzo's arm and pulled him out of the way. Renzo looked up to see the mask of a long-beaked bird, looking strangely sinister. “Are you all right, Grandmother?” asked a kindly male voice.

Renzo nodded, shaken.

At last, with five warm
fritole
in his basket, Renzo turned toward the palace, toward the dungeon entrance.

And now, before him, he saw the mob of which the captain had spoken. Renzo held back — watching, moving his head side to side to take in the whole of the scene through the eyeholes of his mask. There were fifty, maybe seventy, people. Not angry and shouting but muttering, restless.

The sea captain had mentioned soldiers stationed near the door, but Renzo couldn't see them beyond the crowd. And the dungeon guard? He couldn't see him, either.

All depended upon the presence of the guard. He must mistake Renzo for a certain old woman who regularly visited her nephew in the dungeon. Vittorio had waylaid her and spoken to her days before. He had bought her shawl, her headscarf, her basket. He had paid her to stay away from the dungeon.

But suddenly Vittorio's plans seemed hopeless. How was it possible that the guard would mistake Renzo for an old woman? And even if he did, wouldn't he unmask him to make sure?

Again Renzo wavered. He could go back now. It wasn't too late. Not yet.

But he slipped between two women in the rear of the throng and made his shuffling way through — weaving, seeking out gaps between the bodies, sometimes clearing his throat or tapping an arm in a silent request. The crowd murmured and shifted. The inside of the mask grew moist and stale.

At last he found himself at the fore of the crowd, facing a flight of steps, the dungeon door, and a cluster of uniformed men. They looked like soldiers. Which one was the guard Vittorio had spoken of?

What now?

He studied the door. It was the larger one with the deeper window, as he had known it would be. The one with bars of iron, not glass. As to where the other door was —

“Grandmother! Come along.”

Renzo turned his head, peering through the eyeholes. A man stepped forward, through the cluster of soldiers. He wore a uniform too, but it was different from the others.

The guard?

The man scowled and motioned impatiently. “Come
along
, old woman. Hurry!”

Renzo was seized with an urge to flee, to cast off his
disguise and run back to the boat. But he shuffled ahead, limped up the stairs.

The guard led him to the door, flicking a finger at the basket.

Renzo thrust it toward him; the guard took one of the
fritole
and popped it into his mouth. He rapped thrice on the door with his spear, a deep, hollow
thump, thump, thump
. He reached for the latch; the great door creaked open.

A shout:
Witches! Hang the witches!
The crowd surged forward. The soldiers fanned out before the door, hoisting their spears.

“Quick, you!” the guard mumbled around his pastry.

Renzo slipped inside; the door slammed shut with an echoing
clang
, leaving Renzo alone.

A long, dark corridor stretched out before him, dimming to blackness in the distance. He could make out the shapes of doorways recessed in stone walls. The air was eerily still, but a chill oozed out from the stone walls and crept deep inside Renzo's bones. It smelled different here — the mineral smell of stone and something else, something stale and sour.

Footsteps. A blaze of yellow torchlight bobbed toward him, the figure of a man beneath it. A second guard.

Belatedly Renzo remembered to stoop.

He twisted back to look at the door with its iron bars. No way out, unless the other glass bars had survived.

In a moment the second guard called, “Grandmother?”

His voice echoed down through the corridor:

 . . . andmother?

 . . . mother?

 . . . other?

Renzo performed an exaggerated nod.

The guard drew quickly near. “I didn't know you at first, Grandmother, with you looking so young today.” He smiled shyly at his own jest.

Renzo hoisted the basket. The guard plucked a pastry from it, took a bite, and smacked his lips appreciatively.
“Grazie! ”
he said. “Come along, then. I'll light your way.”

Renzo had thought he'd be left alone to find his “nephew.” He'd thought he might have time to go searching for the little door. But now . . . what would he do when they reached the nephew's cell? Surely the mask wouldn't fool
him
. The bell of doom tolled again in Renzo's inner ear, but there was nothing to do but set one foot down after another, following the guard.

The floor was slick in places; puddles of muck collected in the corners. Renzo devoutly wished for his good, sturdy boots instead of these useless slippers. By the light of the torch, he saw a dark line on the walls — thigh high. A high-water mark. Had the children been down here during the
acqua alta
? Standing in the frigid water with no shoes at all?

The stench grew stronger as they moved deeper into the dungeon, a stench of excrement, piss, and fear. From time to time he heard mumbling, or groaning, or laughter. He wished he could see inside the cells as they passed, but the barred
openings in the doors were too high. He'd have to stretch up out of his stoop — too much of a risk.

Thump, thump, thump.

Behind them. A knock at the dungeon door.

The guard stopped. Groaned. “Wait here, Grandmother,” he said. “There's someone else wants in. I'll return directly.”

Renzo watched the torchlight bobble away back toward the door, listened to the guard's echoing footsteps. Darkness closed in around him. He could hear a
drip, drip, drip
of water, and something scuttling along the stones.

Rats?

He shivered.

What should he do now?

The children might be in a cell farther along the corridor, or he might have passed them already.

But wait. Another sound, a run of clear, fluting notes. Familiar.

The little owl? From that day in the glassworks?

Renzo edged forward along the wall. The sound had not seemed close, but here in this echoing place it was impossible to tell. In a moment the wall dropped away to his right, and peering around a corner, he saw the dim outline of a flight of stairs.

He looked back the way he had come. The torchlight bobbed closer now. He could see the guard's shadow beside it and another shadow behind.

The owl called again. Nearer now. Somewhere above. And then . . . The
kree, kree, kree
of a kestrel.

Renzo ducked around the corner and crept up the stairs. Moonlight trickled through a small, barred window at the stair landing, giving him just enough light to see by.

Ahead, more stairs. To the left, another corridor, also lined with doors.

The kestrel called again — from above.

Renzo scrambled up the stairs. He tripped over his skirts; he grabbed them and hiked them to his waist. At the third landing something swooped past him from above. The kestrel. At the fourth landing the bird went pumping past again, heading back up. Renzo followed. His breath came hard; his legs were beginning to ache. Voices reached him from below. Shouting voices. Alarmed. He ignored them and pushed on up.

At last the stairs ended. On his right was an archway; on his left, a low, narrow corridor. This had to be a sort of attic, just below the roof. He crept a little way along the corridor, and saw that it was lined with doors. Doors with small, barred openings.

Cell doors.

A crow cawed from somewhere down the hall.

Renzo ran. He hurtled from door to door, the slippers skidding on the tiles. He stretched up to peer through the openings in the doors. The cells to his left were dark, each lit only by an oil lamp, dim and smoky. But the cells on his right had high, barred windows to the outside world; they let in enough moonlight to see by. A rotund man hunched on a bench, moaning. A tall woman pacing restlessly. A rag-clad
heap of sticks on the floor — whether man or woman he couldn't tell.

At the next-to-last door Renzo stopped. Inside the mask his breath came labored and ragged.

There they were.

Huddled together, their backs rising and falling in sleep. Birds perched on shoulders, on heads, on arms. Somebody began coughing; somebody else joined in.

Renzo's vision blurred. All this time they had been here — in this hopeless, miserable place.

A head raised, turned slowly toward him.

Remembering his mask, Renzo yanked it off, blinking back the sudden moisture in his eyes. “It's me,” he said. “It's Renzo.”

T
he assassin stood at the edge of the heat, near enough to the furnace to drive the chill from his bones but not near enough to make him sweat. He rubbed his aching hands, surveying his night's work.

Three bodies: One alive. One newly dead. One dead more than a year.

The first, lying well outside the open door, belonged to the guard. Useless man. So many of these guards were useless. It had been child's play to stop him, immobilize him. They'd surely find him in time, haul him away. He'd wake in a couple of hours, a little sore but none the worse for wear.

It would have been simpler to kill him, but the assassin had lost his taste for death.

As to the second, the assassin had had no choice. Though, to look at the man now — lying there so peacefully — you might think he'd settled down for a quick nap just inside the doorway. The assassin had left no mark. He had found out what he'd needed to know; he had been merciful; he had been quick. The man had come with him
to the glassworks without a struggle; he'd seemed almost to welcome death.

With luck he would be recognizable later.

The third body, nearest the furnace, would be burned up entirely, except for the bones — and a cloak pin wrought of silver.

The assassin rubbed at his hands, at the painful, stiff knots of his knuckles. The stench of the long-dead corpse filled his nose. He pulled a torch from a bracket in the wall and moved to the white-hot furnace to light it. The heat seared his own skin, threatened to blister it black, threatened to melt the flesh from his bones. He hesitated, imagining: bones melting too, and the old, knotted knuckles, and the new wound above his heart that never ceased aching. He saw it all turning to liquid. Seeping across the floor.