The Secret of the Glass (27 page)

“Poor man,” clucked Contarini. “What a bizarre manner in which to learn of a wife’s infidelity.”

Pasquale’s lips twisted in a sardonic grin. “I think perhaps we will all remember to lash our shutters more frequently after today.”

The men laughed, some chuckled, though more than a few seemed sheepish including Pasquale, recalling, perhaps, their own secrets, ones they thought safely hidden within the walls of their homes.

The men continued to take turns, continued to marvel at the ingenious power of Galileo’s mechanism.

“Look,” Pasquale cried, pointing down, far down to the stone courtyard below them.

Soranzo, the device once more in his hands, trained its eye at the scurrying figure. The men leaned over the rail, a few laughing, as they spied Priuli rushing from the base of the tower and running through the piazza, toward his home and his adulterous wife.

This was the moment; their distraction was the perfect opportunity. Sophia snatched her skirts up to her knees, for modesty was useless at this moment; if she were caught, showing her calves would be the least of her concerns. She rushed from her hiding place, toward the hole in the floor and the stairs below. It was time; she would learn no more this day. She had found Pasquale’s secret, one of them at least, one he shared with Teodoro. How this knowledge would be useful, she still did not know, but she took advantage of the group’s diverted attention to retreat.

Going down was only slightly easier than going up and her body soon became drenched in sweat, her lungs soon gasped for oxygen, her thigh muscles burned in distress. She turned the last corner, longing for the fresh air and freedom of the piazza.

The door at the bottom whooshed open. Sophia tried to stop but her inertia propelled her forward, down a few more steps. Someone had descended before her though she was sure no one had taken their leave unnoticed. The bright sun streamed in and a masculine shadow elongated on the bottom flight of stairs, reaching for her like a greedy hand. She inched back to avoid its grasp. The man stepped out into the blinding light, and turned right toward the Basilica. In that second Sophia saw his face. The flowing, dark, wavy hair, the long hook nose, and the hard, steely eyes. She didn’t recognize him, knew he had not been a part of the group gathered at the top of the tower. Indeed, she had never seen him before this moment. She could be sure of one thing: this unknown man had seen, and heard, everything.

Nineteen

H
is excitement propelled him across the piazza, his feet skipping upon the cobblestone courtyard, his pumpkin breeches and muffin hat flopping with each spirited step. The breeze threatened to snatch the puffy chapeau off his balding head and Galileo smacked one hand down upon it just in time. With his other, he clutched the strangely shaped leather satchel close to his chest, holding it within a protective embrace. The square teemed with people—tourists, courtiers, foreign ambassadors, and marketgoers—the evening bells would not ring for more than hour, and he feared a collision or, worse, the thieving hands of a street urchin.

At the base of the Staircase of Giants he was met by a page, a young man in puffed trunks and tabard, who bowed without a word, extending his hand upward toward the rising stairs and the giants standing guard at the summit. Galileo leapt up the marble steps and took the three flights of stairs at a run, the page following breathlessly behind. At the top he stopped, allowing the squire to take the lead, unsure of which of the many chambers to enter.

The gangly equerry strode down the long hall toward the
Sala del Maggior Consiglio,
his wooden heels clacking in the silence of the unpopulated passageway, but instead of entering the door on the right, he turned left and opened the portal to one of the smaller rooms along the backside of the palace. Galileo stepped through the door of the Sala della Quarantia Civil the boy held open for him.

Forty-two men sat in wood and polished leather chairs arranged in a large circle in the small room, their deep voices rumbling like a constant storm in the distance. Muted late afternoon light filtered through the east-facing windows, overpowered by the illumination of the candles in the chandeliers hanging from the high ceiling, their waxy aroma filling the room. This was the meeting place of the
Quarantia
, the law-making body of the Venetian government. Sitting among them, as he often did, was the Doge himself. When Galileo had sent a request to meet with the Doge, he never expected the audience to take place here, in front of this group of men. Tightening his grip upon the case as if to gain strength from the object within, he threw off his astonishment and hesitancy, stepped forward, and bowed.

“Come in, Galileo, come in.” Doge Donato beckoned him forward. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“
Grazie
,
la signoria vostra
.” Galileo offered his characteristic, crooked bow to all the corners of the room. “And I thank all of you gentlemen for this opportunity.”

Donato stood and crossed to Galileo, grasping the scientist’s hand, and pumped it with enthusiasm.

“We are pleased to see you again, professore. I have been talking about you for days now, you and your miraculous device. I still sometimes cannot believe what my own eyes showed me.”

Galileo beamed. “Then I have come just in time. I have brought this for you and for the Serene Republic of Venice.”

With a flourish, Galileo thrust the leather satchel to the Doge with both his hands, arms outstretched in a benevolent, dramatic offering.

Donato’s eyes lit up; the shape of the bag was uniquely distinctive and unmistakable, constructed to fit the device like a glove. He took the gift with a deliberate and careful motion, opening the ties of the bag and lifting the instrument from its cradle with a tender touch.

Gasps rang out, cries of amazement and wonder filled the room. This
cannoncchiale
was much more elaborate than the one exhibited at the top of the
campanile
; gilded with gold bands at four points along its length, it was constructed of golden oak and polished to a shimmering gleam.

“It is beautiful.” Donato bowed to Galileo.

Galileo lowered his head. “It is but a token from your humble servant to the land that has given him so much.”

Many of the small council of forty-one had jumped up when the Doge revealed the device—now they crept closer and closer, straining to get a better look at the instrument, crowding around the small scientist and the large ruler who refused to relinquish the gadget but held it out for inspection. A small group hung back, huddling together, their frowns and narrowed, suspicious leers all too apparent. Galileo took little notice of Eugenio da Fuligna and the pack of men who stood with him or the whispered words of heresy and crimes against the church that hissed between them.

“Let’s take it to the balcony,” one of the men closing in on Galileo and Donato called out and the cries of agreement rang out like alleluias during high mass.

Donato raised his hands for calm. “We will, gentlemen, we will, but I ask you to thank our benefactor once more before we do.”

A long line of men formed before Galileo, taking turns shaking his hand and offering words of gratitude and congratulations as they filed from the room.

As Doge Donato began to follow them, the fancy
cannoncchiale
still gripped in his large hand, he turned back to Galileo.

“Come to the
palazzo
in four days—no, come four nights from this very night. We will have a grand fete in your honor and we will award our recompense at that time.”

“Of course, Your Honor.” Galileo bowed, his voice small, his throat tight with emotion. “Thank you.”

Twenty

G
irolamo Cellini had served as the
stizzador
at La Spada since before Sophia’s father was born, an orphan given a home and a purpose, one he still took seriously after all these many years. Night after night, he kept the fires of the great
vetreria
burning, moving about the deserted building through the loneliest hours like a ghost intent upon his haunting. He took to his bed in the early light of dawn, when the others gathered for work. His eyes had grown weaker and weaker; his vision burned away by the very task he completed with such pride. He would not relinquish the post to anyone and the Fiolario family allowed him his dignity, a reward for his years of devotion and hard work, never contemplating another man serving in his stead.

In the forefront of the workshop, Girolamo shuffled between each
fornace
and the woodpile, carrying two pieces of wood with each trip where he used to carry five or more. His back curved into a half circle as he shoved them into the gaping, hungry mouths of the ovens, a perpetual smile on his shiny, almost hairless, face, his skin’s natural pelt singed off by exposure to the grasping flames over the long passage of time.

Sophia blessed the dear man’s waning vision and the freedom it afforded her. Working in the farthest-back furnace, she watched him through the side of her eyes, listening for his footfalls to alert her to his nearing presence. She wondered if he knew she made the glass; he was not a dim-witted man after all, and though she pretended to do other things when he neared, his keen sense of smell would reveal far more than his evaporating eyesight. Sophia worried little; she felt safe he would guard her secret as he had guarded the flames through his long life.

The creaking of the door was like a long, slow tear of fabric; it stretched out into the factory like the tendrils of fog floating from the ocean onto the shore. Sophia spun toward the sound, thrusting her
ferro
out and away, prepared to dump the already coalescing material back into the
calchera
and to drop the rod onto the floor, fear thudding in her veins.

Damiana’s face was the last she expected to see, and she stared at her friend across the vast expanse, drop-jawed. Her fear abated, true joy lit within her, and she tapped the molten glass off the end of her tool, back into the pool from whence it came, and abandoned the long metal piece beside the furnace.

“
Cara,
what are you doing here?”

It was an odd greeting, but not insensible. Damiana rarely frequented the factory, any factory, not even that of her own family.

With her long skirts bunched in fisted hands, her friend flew down the steps, rushing to her, heedless of Cellini as he watched her dash by him, his craggy face swiveling on his turkey-throat with a squinty-eyed, inquisitive stare. Damiana rushed to Sophia, delicate wavy wisps of strawberry blond hair streamed out behind her, hurling herself at her friend, and wrapping her in urgent, clasping arms.

“I had to see you…for myself.” Damiana panted, holding Sophia tight against her.

Damiana’s gasping breath tickled the small hairs on Sophia’s neck, she laughed with the delight of her nearness.

“Whatever do you mean?” Sophia asked, rubbing Damiana’s slender back with pacifying strokes.

“What do I mean?” Damiana thrust her an arm’s-length away, dainty hands still clenched upon her shoulders. “I have not seen nor spoken to you in days, not since before…” Her voice trailed away, her bright blue eyes flinching over her shoulder to fathom Cellini’s nearness. But the man was still at the opposite end of the massive glassworks, so there was little chance he heard them from there. “…since your
adventure
. I’ve been worried to a frazzle.”

“Ah,” Sophia murmured with dawning comprehension. “I am fine, you see?”

“Yes, I can.” Damiana’s relief changed quickly to ire. “You could have sent word. You knew I would be frantic.”

“No…of course, but…” Sophia sighed. “You are right. I should have realized you’d be concerned.
Mi dispiace
, can you ever forgive me?”

Damiana’s pert nose wrinkled, she bared her teeth like a dog about to pounce, but her fierce façade cracked and she giggled instead, her nose crinkling with her smile.

“Sì
, I will forgive you…if you tell me everything.”

Sophia wrapped an arm around her dearest friend. “Don’t I always?”

As Sophia cleaned her tools, she told Damiana of her night at the concert, of all that she had seen and heard at the top of the
campanile
, and all that she had learned from it. Damiana applauded Galileo and his accomplishment, laughed at Priuli and his predicament, and clutched her chest in fear at the presence of the mysterious man at the bottom of the stairs.

“Then perhaps da Fuligna’s secret, the one your father spoke of, is the man’s connection to Galileo?” Damiana studied Sophia’s ministrations carefully as she listened to the thrilling tale.

Sophia shook her head as she scraped the end of the
ferro
with a file, the raspy grating setting a tingle into their teeth. “I’m not sure.”

Damiana squeezed her eyes shut against the grating noise. “Why not?”

“His association could get him into serious trouble, it’s true. But many people are devoted to Galileo, my papà included. I’m not sure if it would be enough to make my father so leery of him.”

“Then what could it be?”

“I don’t know.” Sophia dropped the slim metal file upon the table with a sharp clink. “But I am bound and determined to find out.”

Damiana stared at her, pale eyes troubled by fear.

“Tell me of yourself,” Sophia inquired, dismissing the trepidation huddling around them. “What is happing at your house?”

“My older brother is to marry.”

“To Zarah? Finally.” Sophia patted her pale hand. “What about you? Any news of a marriage yet?”

Damiana dropped her eyes morosely. “I’m afraid a good husband is a bit more expensive than my father anticipated.”

Sophia’s brows rose quizzically. “Their prices vary?”

Damiana’s hair flounced as her head bobbed. “Oh,
sì
, and it would seem that the nicer they are the more costly.”