Falcon in the Glass Read Online Free Page A

spied a blackbird or a sparrow or a lark.
    Not a kestrel in sight.
    Renzo sighed. What now?
    Pia had said that the bird children were performing tricks. They would want a crowd to watch them, to offer food or coins. Where else might you find a crowd?
    The campi .
    He set off, running now, for the gathering places outside the main churches on the island. First the church of Santo Stefano. The girl wasn’t there. Next the church of Santa Chiara. No luck there, either. His hopes rose as he approached the basilica of Santi Maria e Donato. There, in the campo outside, a cluster of well-fed matrons stood gossiping. The usual assortment of pigeons and gulls clucked and strutted across the pavement. No kestrels. No raggedy children with birds.
    Renzo felt all within him sag. He leaned against a pillar, breathing hard. Sweat had begun to dry and cool beneath his shirt. The group of matrons dispersed; a fine rain began to fall.
    It was time to fetch the cart and return to the dock for the sand. He had already been gone too long.
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    By the time he reached the marshland, the rain was pelting down in cold, heavy drops. He followed the trail of trampled reeds to the clump of sedge. He peered beneath it . . . and blinked.
    The cart had been upended.
    He looked about him. No people. No animals that he could see, save for birds. Nothing but the backs of a few scattered warehouses, and then marsh, stretching out to the lagoon.
    He bent down, hooked his fingers over the edge of the cart, and yanked, tipping it over.
    Something fluttered up into his face. He swatted at it, and it veered off — a long-legged, speckled bird — swooping low above the rushes.
    Something cried out.
    Renzo looked down. It was a boy. Small. Curled on the ground. Wearing a tattered cloak. He gazed up at Renzo with wide, startled eyes.
    Green eyes.
    Bright green.
    Like the girl’s.
    â€œHey!” Renzo said. “Do you — ”
    The boy leaped to his feet and bolted. He cut nimbly round the cart and ducked into a wall of reeds. Renzo lunged for him, caught him by the collar. The boy lashed out and struggled to get free, but he seemed only six or maybe seven years old — about Pia’s age, Renzo guessed. He clamped an arm about the boy’s middle and held him close. “Stop,” Renzo said. “I won’t harm you. Just — ”
    â€œLeave go!” the boy wailed. He flailed about and kicked Renzo’s shins — surprisingly hard, considering he had only rags for shoes.
    â€œI’m looking for a girl,” Renzo said. “She had a kestrel with her. She is maybe thirteen years old, and her eyes are green, like yours. Is she your sister? Your cousin?”
    â€œNo!” the boy said, launching a new volley of kicks with his sharp little heels.
    â€œShe was hiding in the glassworks. I only want to talk to her; I promise not to hurt her bird. Do you know where I might find her?”
    â€œNo! Leave go!”
    The boy gave a sudden lurch. He sank his teeth into Renzo’s arm. Renzo cried out; the boy twisted from his grasp and plunged into the reeds.
    Renzo let him go. The boy soon disappeared. But a speckled wading bird with long, red legs erupted from a tuft of rushes and skimmed low over the marsh in the direction the boy had gone.
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    Later, after he had delivered the sand, after he had apologized to Mama for being late for dinner and caked with mud, Renzo pondered his encounter with the boy. The bright green of his eyes. The strips of ragged cloth stitched to the shoulders of his cloak. The bright red legs of the little gray-brown wading bird. Clearly this boy was one of the bird children. Renzo had frightened him; he had seized him, held him against his will.
    The girl would never trust him now.
    But in the small hours of the following morning, shortly after