The Secret of the Glass (20 page)

“Phie?”

The whispered call broke her reverie but she turned to the door with unfettered joy.

“Papà? Is that you?” She peered into the small gap of the partially opened aperture.

The wooden portal swung wide and Zeno stood within the embrasure.

“Are you working? May I come in?” He spoke timidly but it was his voice, her papà’s voice, clear and free from any of his demons, and Sophia was thankful to hear it.

“Of course, Papà, of course.”

He descended the twisting stairs and approached her shyly. Zeno took one step into the room and stopped. Lifting his head a smidge, he tilted his long, slightly curved nose higher into the air. His nostrils quivered, his eyes closed in ecstasy as he inhaled the burning wood and heated metal. It was the aroma of his life and that of his ancestors; he had been away from it for far too long.

Resting the rod upon the table, Sophia spun toward her father, enfolding him with a powerful embrace. It had been many a day since she had seen her papà though she’d spent time with him every day, he had not been himself for a while, and she had missed him dearly. Like loved ones separated for a time, they stared at each other with the tenderness of reunion. The physician had said Zeno would not remember his lost days, his bouts of confusion and delusion, but he would be aware that life was no longer the same.

“What are you working on,
cara mia?
” He smiled affectionately at her from beneath the white, wiry hairs of his mustache.

Sophia retrieved her father’s favorite stool from the corner and placed it beside the furnace, within arm’s reach, while she continued her work.

“They are the pieces for Signore Galileo. I am on the last one.”

Her father’s eyes flew open.

“That’s right, the professore. What a miracle it was to see him here yesterday, right here in my own factory.”

Sophia smiled; there was no reason to tell him the visit had occurred days ago.

“Show me,” Zeno urged.

Comforted by his clear cognitive awareness, Sophia was thrilled to share her work with the man who had taught her so diligently, and for minutes uncounted the two heads remained close together, their impassioned voices reverberating through the empty
fabbrica
as the warmth of the furnace flames enveloped them.

“You can see the genius of Galileo’s design.” Sophia lined the small pieces of curved glass up before them. “If you hold them up and gaze through them, they change what you see. With every change in curve and combination comes yet another change in the distortion.”

They took turns peering through the lenses with one eye closed like patched pirates, looking at everything in the room, the walls and the floors, through the image-altering pieces Sophia had constructed.

“Amazing,” Zeno whispered, shifting his luminous stare from the glass to his daughter. “You have done incredible work.”

Sophia heard his voice quiver with emotion, with his pride. She basked in his beneficence.

“
Grazie
, Papà.”

Father and daughter embraced again, relishing the moment, all the more dear for the fleeting, intransient quality that permeated their close relationship; the darkness that, like the shadows, always followed behind the light.

“Perhaps next year we will add another team. Perhaps Galileo’s device will be a great success and by next year we will need more workers.” Zeno gestured into the vast expanse of the factory.

The torch flame flickered, the light dimmed, or was it just the gleam of the moment.

“Don’t forget, father, by next year I will be married.” Sophia felt her face fall and her smile disappear.

Signore Fucini had instructed the family to share everything with Zeno during his lucid hours, to keep nothing from him. Snippets of disjointed memory needed to match reality or the contrast might be too shocking.

Zeno stared at his daughter, a furrow forming between his bushy brows, his wide mouth parting yet silent.

“Remember, Papà?” Sophia put the small curved pieces back on the scarred and burnt table surface. “To Pasquale da Fuligna?”

Zeno’s face splotched with color and his hands began to quiver. Sophia feared a change in his temperament was imminent, the kind that so often preceded a spell of delusion.

Zeno leaned forward, putting his face within inches of his daughter’s. Sophia stared deep into his eyes and saw him there, the animation and intelligence she recognized and adored.

“We never know what the future holds, Phie. With that man’s activities, perhaps jail awaits him or perhaps an even more terrible fate.”

Sophia flinched. “What? What do you—”

“Zeno? Zeno, are you in there?”

Her mother’s worried cry flew in on the breeze from the open doorway, echoing off the courtyard’s stone, blaring through the family compound. Within seconds, a nightgown-clad Mamma stood in the doorway. Seeing her husband in the faint light of the burning furnace fires, Viviana’s shoulders slumped in relief, one hand stilled against her full bosom while the other wagged a chastising finger at her spouse.

“Don’t do that again, Zeno. You cannot leave without telling me where you’re going. You scared me to death. Come back to bed now. You too, Sophia, to bed.” With a narrow-eyed stare and a huff of indignation for her two recalcitrant family members, Viviana stalked away.

In silent obedience, Zeno turned from his daughter, heading for the stairs and the door at the top.

“Papà?” Sophia took a step toward Zeno, but her father’s closed expression stifled any further conversation.

Her questions would have to wait, but she would wait in fear, not knowing whether her father would be able to answer them when next she had the chance to ask.

Fourteen

“I
f I can find out what he is involved with,” Sophia finished relating the previous night’s strange occurrence to Damiana with a bang of her fist upon the barge railing, “and confirm it, unimpeachably, I can put a letter in the
bocca di leone
.” She narrowed her eyes against the glittering, pulsing reflections of the sun on the dancing lagoon as if she could discern the truth she sought in their sparkling depths.

“But how can you find out? How can you be sure? You know how grave the consequences for any who put a false accusation into the Lion’s Mouth,” Damiana hissed into Sophia’s ear as they stood close together amidst a milling crowd.

For years, anonymous allegations were put into the opening of the carved stone lion’s mouth, the receptacle the powerful Council of Ten used to keep informed of the city’s lawbreakers, but too many false indictments had been levied, too many people hungry for power or revenge had used scandal to further their own agendas.

More such boxes were kept in cubbies around the city these days, grotesque open-mouthed harbingers of retribution, in churches and at the Doge’s Palace, both outside and in, but any denunciations fed to them must be signed. The Ten would ignore any nameless charges, taking action only after a thorough and confirming investigation.

“I would never make a specious condemnation against anyone, no matter how tempting,” Sophia huffed with indignation, staring crossly at Damiana over her shoulder, “for honor’s sake, if not that of my family.”

The girls stepped off the ferry and onto the Fondamenta Nuove and the mounting heat assaulted them like a rushing tide, a warmth foretelling summer’s impending scorch. The dazzling light of the gleaming orb high in the afternoon sky sent its burning rays down to earth, charring the hard pavement. The warmth of the stone seared their feet through their thin summer walking shoes.

Damiana followed Sophia along the crowded quay, raising her voice over the cacophonous, milling crowd. Clucking chickens, wings flapping in agitation, chased pink-skinned, snorting pigs around the ankles of the teeming horde, adding their contribution to the raucous din.

“But how could you ever be sure? Where would you find such indisputable information?”

Sophia stopped, waiting for her friend to catch up, scrunching her amethyst gauze-clad shoulders up to her ears.

“Perhaps I could get the information from a servant. We have plenty of money and it’s done all the time. The right amount of
ducats
can smoothly turn a servant into a spy.”

Sophia wondered if there were spies among La Spada’s workers and if they knew her secret. She’d noticed some of the newer craftsmen looking at her surreptitiously; she avoided their inquisitive looks whenever possible, though never once did she consider spending less time in the factory.

“And what if they are true and loyal, like most? Do you not think they would tell their employer his future wife is trying to buy his secrets?”

Sophia said nothing; she could not speak while her teeth ground together. Damiana spoke the truth, but such legitimacy only fanned the flames of Sophia’s frustration.

“Did I tell you my brother is to become a gondolier?” Damiana saw her friend’s jaw pulse and latched onto the first distracting subject that came to mind. The friends turned west onto the Rio Terra de la Maddelena, heading toward one of the small but affluent parishes in the less-populated borough of Cannaregio.

“Really?” Sophia raised her chin from her chest and her gaze from the ground. “Which brother?”

“Martino.”

Damiana pulled Sophia over to the right side of the lane, closer to the buildings, as a four-manned palanquin careened past, its wealthy inhabitant hidden behind the closed, shimmering gauze curtains.

“Martino? Doesn’t he already have a job at the
squero?”

“
Sì
, but better to ride upon a boat than to build one, at least that’s what Martino says.” Damiana laughed at her brother’s laziness. “Of course I don’t know how he’ll refrain from snooping upon his patrons. He’s the worst sort of busybody. But they are trained to comport themselves with the utmost discretion.”

Sophia smiled at the antics of her friend’s most indolent sibling.

“And your Mamma and Papà? How do they feel about it?”

“They are just happy that he works. He never did have any interest in the glassmaking.”

Sophia envied Martino’s careless dismissal of an opportunity she could only dream about.

The group of young gallants traipsed down the
fondamenta
with all the swagger of male sureness and the camaraderie of good friends. One of them stopped with such stunning abruptness that the swirl of the crowd around him joggled, like hundreds of dominoes set to motion with the slight move of one. His head wrenched around over his shoulder.

“What is it, Teo? What is afoot?” a companion asked, hardened eyes darting about as if set upon a search for danger.

Teodoro Gradenigo intently scanned the throng of people milling behind them. Those eyes, he knew those slanted, elongated eyes, or did he again imagine he had seen them as he had so often since that night. In the flickering glow of torchlight, Sophia Fiolario’s eyes had glimmered like the ocean lit from within. And yet he’d failed to discern the source of the light, misdirected by the dichotomy they offered, so full of spirit yet so wary and tinged with sadness.

Turning back, he chuckled at his own imaginings, certain they would not be the last.

“Nothing,
amici miei,
it is nothing.” He set off once more and the others naturally followed, relaxing and reclaiming their strutting parade. “It would seem I am haunted.”

The young veiled women lowered their heads as they approached the Albergo Leon Bianco at the corner of the Fondamenta di Cannaregio and the bevy of
bravi
who loitered at its door. These dashing adventurers, former mercenaries or seamen who made their living as perverted versions of the jack-of-all-trades, rarely strayed from the doors of this, the best hotel in the city, as they solicited their next paying customer. Preying upon the hordes of visitors arriving at the city every day, they knew the language, the money, and the customs. They knew as well the hidden places that offered the secret pleasures and specialized services of the sophisticated, hedonistic metropolis. As foreigners of every financial status esteemed travel as a valid and much desired form of education and leisure, Venice had become the premier destination for any voyager on a quest for beauty—both artistic and architectural—and pleasure—both innocent and indecent.

The scandalous men, decked out in shiny leather and sparkling buckles, jeweled swords and mean-looking daggers, eyed the young women lasciviously, releasing low growls of appreciation for the young, innocent beauty. Sophia and Damiana gave no acknowledgement; they did their best to tread stoically past, ignoring yet keenly aware of these
bravi
, repulsed and yet enticed by their masculine mien and dangerous demeanors.

The swashbucklers were not deterred by the girls’ lack of interest. They scuttled around Sophia and Damiana like tigers about to pounce upon their prey, the calls and jeers continuing as if they were serenades of love.

Damiana grabbed her friend’s hand; the thin, curved nails bit into her skin.

“Leave them alone.”

The barked command rang out behind them.

The girls looked up through the veils covering their bowed heads.

Aldo Piccolomini, Damiana’s cousin, marched toward them. Behind him strode five other men, as rough and as burly as Aldo, attired alike in the rugged shirts and breeches of construction workers.

With a wide-armed, flourishing bow of capitulation, one
bravo
led the others away. The men followed willingly, not wishing to turn playful teasing into a harmful conflict.

“
Mille grazie,
Aldo.” Damiana exhaled a breathy sigh of relief. “I thought they would never leave us alone.”

“You need have no fear, cousin. They are no more than braggarts.” The broad-shouldered young man gave his relation a familial embrace, their fair features appearing more alike when close together. “But I am glad if we could be of assistance.”

“You remember my friend, Sophia?” Damiana asked as she returned his greeting.