The Glass Maker's Daughter Read online

  Woodbury, Minnesota

  Acknowledgments

  The original inspiration for this novel grew from a sermon delivered the Sunday after September 11, 2001, by Reverend Susan DeFoe Dunlap at the First United Methodist Church of Royal Oak, Michigan. For Reverend Dunlap’s message of hope in a confusing time, I am most grateful.

  This book would not have been possible without the aid of several people, especially the suggestions given on rough drafts by Patty Woodwell and Marthe Arends. Nor could I have done without the support and encouragement of Craig Symons. I also owe many thanks to early reader Brianna Privett, and to Michelle Grajkowski, the best of all literary agents. Andrew Karre and Sandy Sullivan, my editors at Flux, deserve great praise and all my gratitude for their amazing recommendations and hard work.

  Many think I jest when I tell them that everything I know about writing novels, I learned in playwriting class. Yet whatever few good habits I possess in my fiction writing and rewriting processes I owe to the disciplined methods of Dr. Louis E. Catron, under whom I was privileged to study in the theater department of the College of William and Mary. Thanks to Dr. Catron’s encouragement, I began writing regularly, and developed the ambition and confidence to write full time. It’s with much gratitude, and with many fond memories of reading aloud my one-act plays with other students in his office, that I dedicate to him The Glass Maker’s Daughter.

  Copyright Information

  The Glass Maker’s Daughter © 2009 by V. Briceland.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Flux, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the book’s subject.

  First e-book edition © 2011

  E-book ISBN: 9780738722573

  Book design by Steffani Sawyer

  Cover design by Kevin R. Brown

  Illustration on cover and on page i by Blake Morrow/Shannon Associates

  Map of Cassaforte by Jared Blando

  Flux is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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  Manufactured in the United States of America

  A. Caza Cassamagi: The House of Scholars

  B. Caza Portello: The House of Architects

  C Caza Divetri: The House of Glass Makers

  D. Caza Catarre: The House of Book Makers

  E. Caza Buonochio: The House of Artists

  F. Caza Piratimare: The House of Ship Builders

  G. Caza Dioro: The House of Weapon Makers

  H. The Insula of the Children of Muro

  I. The Insula of the Penitents of Lena

  J. The Palace

  K. The Temple Bridge

  L. The Bridge of Allyria

  M. The Via Dioro

  N. Mina’s Taverna

  1

  —

  Of all the quaint traditions of the southern lands, perhaps the sweetest is to be found in the city-state of Cassaforte, where nightly its horns are sounded in a tradition that has been unbroken for centuries.

  —Celestine du Barbaray, Traditions & Vagaries of the

  Azure Coast: A Guide for the Hardy Traveler

  Sunset, on the balcony atop her family’s home, was Risa Divetri’s favorite time of day. Beyond the Bridge of Muro in the west, the sun tickled the horizon and set the city’s canals aglow. Water and light rippled back to where Risa balanced on the balcony’s wide stone rail, making it seem as if the setting sun were stretching its long fingers toward her. She thought of how molten glass had the same red-hot intensity when plucked from the heart of a furnace.

  If someone could peer into her soul that night—her last at Caza Divetri—might they see how hotly it, too, burned?

  In the twilight, the limestone balcony rail felt warm and comfortable where she sat. Just below her stretched the upper branches of a gnarled old olive tree. If Risa dangled her legs, she could tickle the soles of her feet with its leaves. Far below, the tree’s roots twisted among the rocks of the slope that dropped down to the canal, where a gondolier sang a slow, sweet tune as he punted by. Beyond the lone figure lay the Piazza Divetri, and then the cream-colored buildings of Cassaforte.

  Standing beside her, leaning on the rail, Risa’s father caught the gondolier’s tune and hummed it to himself while he watched the city. Her mother, deep in concentration, sat nearby, on a bench erected upon the red and black tiles. Giulia Divetri always seemed to be smiling. Her long, dark hair, tamed by a silk cord woven through and around its length, fell like rope over her shoulder and down the front of her embroidered gown. In her hands she held her sketching board and a length of red chalk. Her fingers busily danced across the paper.

  “Buonochio blood,” said Risa’s father, nodding at her mother’s drawing. He gave Risa a private wink. “Fiery and artistic!”

  “You married me for my bold blood, Ero,” replied her mother, amused. She continued her sketching, capturing an image she later would render in one of her famed windows. “Would that I had more of it. See—I never capture the palace dome quite right.” She held out the sketch board. Her perfectly placed lines outlined the rounded roof of the palace’s throne room. A few more caught the two moons hovering above it, nestled squarely within two identical constellations.

  “You have enough talent and fire for the both of us, love,” he murmured. “I recognized it the first day I saw you—when you leaned from that window and called to me!”

  “I felt bold that day.”

  “You were enchanting, my dear.”

  “I knew a good man when I saw one.” Risa’s mother’s lips curved in recollection as she returned to her drawing. “Even if he did just happen to be a stranger passing on the street.” The familiar story made Risa smile; she was happy to hear it one last time.

  No matter what hour of day or season, a hush always seemed to fall over the city as the time of the rite approached. Some nights, she swore she could see the king’s hornsman taking his place atop the palace dome, but her father said she was imagining things; although the dome was the city’s highest point, the palace was simply too far away for her to spy such details.

  “Risa?” As the streets quieted in anticipation, her father extended h
is hand. “Would you?”

  Her face lit up at the invitation, though she couldn’t trust herself to say anything. Not yet—not when she was trying to make her memory of this last evening perfect. Experience had proved, time and again, that opening her mouth only ruined things.

  The dry heat of the tiles that seared her bare feet seemed to warm her heart as well. She loved this still and expectant moment of the day more than any other. Beside her, Ero was loosening the ties that held the Cassaforte banner aloft. He handed her the taut ropes, and together they lowered the rippling streamer to the ground, keeping pace in the nightly rite with Caza Portello to the east and Caza Catarre to the west. Once it was in her hands, Risa folded the rich purple and brown silk into its box. With respect, she knelt and slid the banner into its space beneath the pedestal, within which lay the Divetri horn.

  It was her final night, she told herself with excitement. It was the last time she would help her father with the daily rite of fealty. Where there could have been sadness, she felt only joy. It frolicked inside her like one of the sacred deer in the royal forest, making her want to leap up and sing out. Tomorrow evening she would have a new home and be hearing the horns from far across the city.

  She would no longer be merely Ero and Giulia’s child once she was declared a daughter of the moons. She would not be a child at all, once she was accepted at one of the insulas and started to learn things. Important things. She would finally be living her life, like her older brother and sisters, instead of merely waiting for it to begin.

  Scarcely had she climbed to her feet when a blow from behind sent her reeling. She staggered into her father, dimly aware of the giggles echoing from across the courtyard. “Petro!” she shrieked at the top of her voice. “You maniac!”

  Wild and sudden excitement propelled her back to her feet. With a scream of laughter she took off, bounding after her younger brother in crazy circles around the upper courtyard. She only had this one final night to play with him, she reminded herself. It might be her last chance. “Touch me again and I’ll strip you bare and throw you to the canal buzzards and let them shred you to the bones!” Her brother yelped in mock terror.

  Giulia laughed. “She takes after you, dear. A Divetri with a mission is fearful to behold.”

  With a wink at his wife, Ero proclaimed, “And thus our little lady transforms back into the lionkit we know and love so well.”

  Her father had called her a lionkit so often that Risa wore the title as a badge of pride. People often commented on the similarities between Ero and his daughter. Her long chestnut hair, like his, seemed almost copper-colored in the sunlight. And while Giulia communicated her anger quietly, with flashing eyes and a dangerous tone to her voice, both father and daughter were known to shout their passions to the skies.

  “Come back here, slimy wart!” she yelled after Petro.

  “Never!” he caroled with defiance.

  Around the balcony courtyard they chased each other. Petro dove headlong into Mattio, the chief craftsman of Ero’s workshop, just as the man was emerging into the cool evening air. “By Muro’s foal!” Mattio exclaimed, laughing in surprise.

  “Sorry,” Risa huffed as she dodged around the large-framed foreman to snatch at her brother. Petro dashed behind the skirts of their housekeeper, Fita, but the old woman was too busy to notice, quietly scolding one of the maids for wearing a dirty apron to the rite.

  “Ah-ah-ah. Gently, gently,” chided a middle-aged man behind Mattio. His nose was crooked from an old break. “This is a solemn part of the day.” Cousin Fredo’s expression was, as ever, pious and weary of their behavior.

  “Indeed it is,” agreed the housekeeper. She turned to the red-faced maid. “Go change into something clean immediately.”

  “Sorry, cousin,” called Petro, slowing down. “I’m sorry, Fita.”

  “A-ha!” Risa cried in triumph. She seized him by the collar. Petro’s yap of protest was cut short as she dragged him backward. “I’ve got you now, you little bloody scab on a beggar’s behind!”

  “Cazarrina,” begged Cousin Fredo with deep dismay, addressing Risa by her formal title. His hand shot toward her shoulder, but she managed to wriggle from his grasp before he could give her one of his vicious pinches. “Cazarrina! Please! My nerves … !” He reached into the pocket of his surcoat to retrieve his little silver box of tabbaco da fiuto, with which he soothed himself. It was because of this creamy paste that their cousin’s approach was always preceded by the disagreeable scent of tobacco leaves, cloves, and pungent pine oil.

  “My dears,” said Giulia from her bench, “it is nearly time. Grant your cousin’s nerves a small period of rest. You may yell yourselves hoarse later.”

  Brother and sister exchanged glances. Cousin Fredo’s nerves were his favorite topic of conversation. Smothering their amusement, they turned their gazes to the ground in an attempt to appear solemn. “We’re sorry, cousin,” they intoned. Fredo nodded stiffly and, using the tip of his little finger, dabbed tabbaco da fiuto onto his gums in the hollows over his two canine teeth. Seeming refreshed, he straightened his broad collar as they darted past him to the far end of the balcony.

  “You’ve got something in your hand,” said Risa, still giggling at Fredo’s pomposity. “Give it to me.”

  “You mean this?” Petro produced a ball of stitched and stuffed pigskin from his pocket. “Catch!” he yelled. He had obviously intended to throw it at his sister, but when Risa grabbed him by the collar and spun him around, the ball arced high into the air and landed with a sickening thud against a casement of leaded glass. Giulia frowned, but the enchantments had held, leaving the glass unbroken. Any other window would have shattered from such impact, but thanks to the blessings fortifying their structure, Divetri-made glass could withstand even the fiercest storms from the Azure Sea.

  “Not that,” Risa said in a lower voice, while she tried to grab for the left fist Petro had kept clenched the entire time. “Your other hand.”

  “It’s a letter,” taunted Petro. “A private letter for you … from you know who.”

  “Who?”

  “You know,” said Petro. With meaning he looked over at the craftsmen gathering near the doorway. She followed the direction of his glance. Emil, the youngest of the men in her father’s workshop, stood behind Mattio and Fredo, his nose deep in a book. “He loooooves you. He wants to pay court to you.”

  Risa stiffened, torn between screeching with horror and laughing outright. “He does not!” she finally hissed. Emil was fine enough as the craftsmen went, but the loves of his life were sewn into folios and bound with leather.

  “Pardon me.” Petro pitched his voice up a half octave and pretended to toss imaginary hair over his shoulder. “I am Risa Divetri, Cazarrina. When I marry, my husband must be a man of the Thirty and Seven.”

  “I am not like that!” With a deft snatch, Risa seized the folded paper that was clutched in her younger brother’s palm. “Hah!” she exulted, unfolding it. Though her brother had attempted to disguise his handwriting with the fancy script of his elders, his authorship was painfully obvious from the blots and the bits of quill feather stuck to the ink.

  Dearest—

  When I think of you I could

  die, so deep are my feelings for you.

  I love your eyes, the arc

  of your brow, the quick

  smile that comes to your lips when

  I walk into the room. You are so

  beautiful—a near goddess!

  Marry me, please, please, please!

  —You know who

  Risa let her eyes run over the letter. To anyone other than herself or her brother, the message might seem innocuous enough, but with Petro, she knew better. She scanned the note quickly for its buried message. Then, with a squawk of outrage and no courtesy for Cousin Fredo’s nerves whatsoev
er, she yelled, “Duck nose? You’re calling me a duck nose, you little whelp?”

  Petro was giddy with glee. Before Risa could strangle him again, he dashed off in the direction of his parents, gaining enough of a head start to turn a triumphant cartwheel.

  “Someone is going to have a broken nose!” Risa shouted. She was not really angry at all, of course. She just enjoyed the noise of the roar as it flew from her lungs. Admittedly, there was also a particular joy in the sight of Fredo instantly clapping his hands over his ears.

  “Gently, gently,” he pleaded as she passed. “My nerves … Cazarra, please,” he added, appealing to Giulia.

  “Risa, what is this silliness?” her mother said as she approached. She held out her hand for the crumpled paper, then smoothed it out on her sketch board while restraining Risa’s arm. “Your cousin is a sensitive man … ” Privately, Risa knew her mother no more believed in Fredo’s nerves than did anyone else in the caza. Giulia was always polite to Fredo, however, even in the most trying of circumstances.

  “That brat who is allegedly your son called me a duck nose,” Risa said, pointing to the letter.

  “This note seems quite complimentary, though the script could stand improvement,” said Giulia. “Where does it call you a duck nose?”

  Risa ran her finger along the right side of the paper, pointing at the last letter on each line.

  d u c k n o s e

  “It’s our secret code,” she said. “See?”

  Her mother raised an eyebrow. Risa could tell she was trying not to laugh, which would give Fredo reason to complain. Though he could not overhear them at this distance, he was studying them closely. “Very clever,” said Giulia at last. “Quite ingenious. Aren’t you a mite old for this foolery, however?” Risa bowed her head slightly. She had intended to keep this evening perfect, after all. “As a courtesy to your father’s cousin and his … nerves, if you could restrain from murdering your brother until after the rite, I would take it as a personal favor.” She folded the note and slipped it under her drawing, where neither of her children would be tempted to filch it.