The Glassblower of Murano (18 page)

If I refused to make these knives, my own life would be forfeit.

Corradino mitigated his guilt by making the blades as thin,
strong and clean as his skill allowed. Like a surgeon, if he
had to assist such butchery, he would make the passing as
painless as possible.

The fornace was empty - all the maestri had gone, even
Giacomo, whose age was beginning to tell. Corradino was
alone with the glittering blades, the half-finished candelabri
standing like amputees waiting for their missing limbs, and
the shining goblets singing almost imperceptibly as they
cooled. He looked around the cavernous space that had
been his home for twenty years, cool now that the fires
were dead. He checked that every last soul had gone and
then lit a single candle. He turned to the door of a disused
furnace that was set back into the wall. He opened the
door and entered the gaping maw, his feet crunching on
the detritus of old goblets and candlesticks that had been
littered in here like damaged treasure, since the furnace
had been stopped up many years ago. Corradino felt for
the blackened brickwork at the back of the firehole, felt expertly for the metal hook and pulled. An inner door
silently sprang open and he stepped inside.

Instantly he was at home. He lit from memory the candles on the many branched stick inside the door and the
room that warmed into light resembled not a place of
work but an attractive Venetian salon. A velvet chaise
lounged in the corner. A firehole, dominating one wall,
burned as merrily as a nobleman's hearth. And on the walls,
reflecting heat and light, hung some of Corradino's most
treasured pieces; the pieces that he knew would have to
be released for sale one day, but not yet - not quite yet.
Great mirrors spanned from floor to ceiling, making the
room twice as large. Sconces, reaching out from the walls
in a heartbreaking arabesque, rivalled the beauty of the
flames they carried. Picture frames that held no image, but
that would diminish any portrait in the world, no matter
how celebrated the beauty of the subject. Only the centre
of the room belied the appearance of a luxurious palazzo
for here stood the tools of Corradino's trade - long water
vats and silvering tanks, vials of multicoloured pigments
and limbecs of evil-smelling chemicals.

This chamber is mine. Secret, safe, and the right place for the
office which I carry tonight.

Corradino knew what was needed - a knife of his own
design, called a dente, or tooth. It was well named; not slim
and deadly like the assassin's knives that he was charged to make, and not designed to break off at the haft like
them. Short but sturdy, made of dense dark glass and with
a wicked point, the dente would do well for cutting and
digging alike. He was still for a moment, surveying his
benchful of powders and unguents, thinking of the type
of glass that was needed. Then he knew.

Obsidian. The oldest glass in the world.

He stripped off his jerkin and went to work. The heat of
his chamber was intense, as the firehole was large and the
room - though sizeable enough for its purpose - heated
quickly. Corradino thrust a handful of ash-like pumice
from Stromboli into the fire instead of the customary sand.
Then followed a handful of sulphur which burned his nose
and made him tie a kerchief about his face. His task tonight
was to recreate the hard black natural glass that spewed
forth, time out of mind, from the volcanoes of the south.
The kind of glass which set like stone. The kind of glass
which had entombed the poor dead souls of Pompeii and
Herculaneum, trapped like flies in amber - first liquid,
then diamond hard. With a firehardened paddle he mixed
the powders with a fiery blob of gather which had been
heating in the fire all day like a sleeping salamander. He
mixed and reheated the glowing orb, adding more pumice
and a little pitch, until the glass was as dark and sluggish
as treacle. Only then did he take his pontello and shape the
knife, rolling the handle on the wood and leather scagno saddle which stood by the fire. When he was happy - for
there must be no error tonight - he took the handle to
the fire again and flamed the blade end for a long moment.
When the dark handle glowed at the haft he brought it
out and set it in a vice, blade end down, and watched as
the rosy tip of the handle grew downwards with the force
of gravity, and the molten glass dripped like a fiery stalactite into a wicked point. Corradino had invented this drip
method, finding that it yielded a more perfect point than
any amount of grinding or polishing after the fact. This
way, the glass made its own edge. The glass must best decide
how its enemies were to be dispatched. He counted his
heartbeats and, at exactly the right moment and not before,
he turned the vice so that the cooling blade turned, curving
and hardening into the fang of the beast. Small and stubby,
black and pin-sharp, the evil point glinted in the firelight

Yes - this should serve. The blade and handle are made all of a
piece, so there is no weakness in the knife.

As Corradino sat and watched his black knife cool, he
looked his last around the chamber. Known to no other
save Giacomo, the room had been made for Corradino
the day after he had discovered the secret of how to make
his mirrors. All his most private work was done here. This
salon kept the secret.

The secret, which lay buried in the art of glassblowing.

The secret that he merely stumbled upon when a vase that
he was making went wrong. The secret which saved him
from death at the hands of his greedy masters, The Ten.
The secret which had freed him from the prison of Murano
and given him the status to walk about Venice almost as
other men, and thus give life to his greatest creation,
Leonora. The secret which was not written anywhere, even
in his vellum notebook, and was known to no man but
he. The secret that was coveted by the foreign king who
had brought him to this pass.

The secret which I swore to take to my grave. I did not know
how true I spoke.

Vittoria Minotto was intrigued. It was not a state of mind
she experienced often, and in order to revel in the sensation fully she had suggested Florian's as a meeting place.
If one was to put in for expenses, one might as well enjoy
the experience.

The day was fine but there was a breath of Autumn in
the breeze, so Vittoria chose a table just inside the famous
green and gold salon, where he would easily be able to
find her. There were no strains of string quartet or piano
today. Many of the tourists were now gone - Venice was
preparing to enter her period of hibernation before
Carnevale. It was interesting to note - and as a local she
had become aware of it over the years - that the thronging
school parties and coach trips of summer gave way, in the
winter months, to quiet weeks with the `city break' couples
dotting the piazza for the four days from Thursday to
Monday.

Vittoria ordered her ruinously expensive caffe arnericano
and lit her cigarette. She looked out into the square, to
see if she could spot her date arriving. Ah, there he was.
Young, good-looking, walking with a purposeful stride
which scattered the pigeons. Better and better.

He found her at once. `Signorina Minotto?' It was the
voice from the phone call. Low, driven and agitated.

She inclined her head and blew out smoke. `Si'

He sat and, unbidden, took a cigarette and lit it. She
liked him at once.

`I think I might know something which might interest
you. About Leonora Manin. Actually no, it goes further
back than that. About Corrado Manin. It might make quite
a good story.'

That was it. He had said it. The word that she loved,
that she lived for. The word that had captured her attention from being a little girl at her father's knee, holding
her breathless from the words; `Once Upon a Time'. How
she had begged to stay up, to hear more!

A Story.

'Go on.'

Giacomo del Piero looked from his window over the
Murano canal. He was sure he heard something stir without
and carried his candle high, peering through the narrow
quarrels of his window. He saw nothing, but the flame of
his candle illuminated only his own reflection, fractured
by the leadings of the panes. He saw an old man.

Giacomo turned from his image and thought of what
he would do now. He supposed he must eat - there was
some fine Bolognese sausage in the pantry, and a jug of
wine to go with it, but somehow he had no appetite. He
felt he needed to eat less as his age advanced - other things
nourished him now. His books, his work, and his friendships. He thought of Corradino in particular, and that the
boy had become as a son to him over the years. Perhaps
he should go down the path to Corradino's lodgings, and
share the wine with him? No, the boy was exhausted with
this commission for that mysterious client, Maestro Domenico of the Teatro Vecchio. Giacomo had never met
the man, but he knew that the work kept Corradino at
the fornace at all hours. Perhaps Corradino was even yet
not at home to receive a visit.

Giacomo took up his ancient viol instead and his bow
and fingers, unbidden, found a melancholy folk song of
the Veneto which matched his mood. He felt a foreboding,
a heaviness of heart which he could not explain. It was
this feeling that had made him go to the window repeatedly since he had returned from the fornace.

So the muffled knock at the door when it came did not
surprise him, as he had felt expectant all evening. As he
set down his viol carefully on the trestle, he had a horrid
fancy that he would be opening the door to Death itself,
come at last to claim him. But the figure who stood there
was not Death. It was Corradino.

They kissed each other heartily, although Giacomo
thought at once that his friend looked agitated. Once inside
he could not seem to sit or stand, and waved away the
offer of wine, before accepting and downing the cup in
one swallow.

`Corradino, what ails you? Have you a fever? Is it the
mercury?' For Corradino had suffered much from a hacking
cough of late - a sign which could indicate a corruption
of the lungs from the mercury used to silver the mirrors.
Only last week Giacomo had insisted that his friend place
four peppercorns under his tongue to ward off the lung
sickness - like all Venetians Giacomo had an enormous respect for the mysterious spices of the east. But even spices
could not prevent mercury poisoning. The silver devil
brought most of the glassblowers to their deaths - their
art consumed them in the end. Corradino shook his head
fervently at Giacomo's diagnosis, but his eyes burned in
his head. `I came to ...' he began, and stopped abruptly.

Giacomo grabbed Corradino's arm and pulled him down
on the trestle beside him. `Compose yourself, Corradino
mio. What is it you would say? Are you in trouble?'

Corradino laughed, but shook his head again. `I came to
say ... I know not what ... I want you to know ... there
is so much I cannot tell you!' He took a breath. `I wanted
to tell you that I owe you everything, that you are a father
to me, that you saved my life over and again, that I can't
ever repay you, and that, whatever may befall me, I wish
you to try to think well of me.' He clasped the old man's
hands fervently. `Promise me this - that you will try to
think well of me.'

`Corradino, I will always think well of you. What is this
coil?'

`One more thing. If you should see Leonora, if you
should ever see her, tell her that I have always loved her,
and love her still.'

`Corradino ...'

`Promise!'

`I promise, but you must tell me what you mean by all
this. What has become of you tonight? What are you planning?'

Corradino reacted instantly. `I am planning nothing.
Nothing. I ...' he laughed and dropped his head into his
hands, his fingers parting the dark curls. Then, in more
normal tones he said, `Forgive me. It is some mood, some
fancy. Dark humours come from the gibbous moon, which
shines tonight.'

He motioned toward the window, and Giacomo saw,
sure enough, that the moon was almost full, and had a
strange hue. Perhaps that accounted for his own melancholy.
`Aye, I felt somewhat of the same mind myself. Come, let's
drink this folly away.'

Corradino waved away the wine jug. `I must go. But
remember all I said.'

Giacomo shrugged. `I will. But I'll see you at the fornace
tomorrow.'

'Aye, tomorrow. I'll see you then.'

The hug was fervent and prolonged. Then Corradino
was gone, and Giacomo was once again alone. As he stared
out into the night, he wondered if he had really seen tears
shining in his friend's eyes as he turned away. Despite the
talk of tomorrow, the whole interview had the manner of
a leavetaking.

A leavetaking indeed. When Corradino did not arrive at
the.fornace in the morning, Giacomo's foreboding reached
its peak, awful voices clamouring in his head. He went at
once to Corradino's lodgings, running as fast as his old
limbs would carry him. He entered the little cot without knocking and headed to the second room - the bedchamber.
There, he saw the worst. His friend lay on the truckle bed,
fully dressed, and still. He thought at first that Corradino
had taken his own life, that this had been the meaning of
the farewell yestereve. But then, through new tears, he saw
a telltale streak of black running from the corner of the
open mouth to the coverlet. He turned over one of
Corradino's cold hands - the fingertips were also black.
Giacomo had seen such signals more times in his life than
he wished to. Mercury. The plague of the glassblower had
taken Corradino at last. Giacomo sat at the foot of the
bed and wept.

He had known.

Corradino had known that he was dying, last night when
he had visited. He had been saying goodbye. Giacomo
stood at last and pulled the coverlet over the face that was
so dear to him. As he did so he lamented, as fathers have
always lamented as they beheld their dead sons: `Lord, why
did you not take me?'