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By Root 336 0

and unbolted the rickety wooden door. He found himself in an alleyway and made his way down to the canal, which he could see at the end. He wandered by the waterway, meaning only to look at the boats and throw stones at the gulls. But soon he began to smell the aroma that he had detected when he arrived, and followed his nose until he came upon a large, red building on the waterfront, facing into the lagoon.

There were sluicegates leading into the building, smoking with steam. Doorways opened into the fresh air and in one such, a man stood. The man was about the age of his father. He wore a pair of breeches and no shirt and had a thick bracelet of hide on each arm. In one hand he held a long pole on the end of which there seemed to be a burning coal. He winked at Corradino. `Buon giorno.'

Corradino was not sure that he should be speaking to the man - he was clearly a tradesman. But he liked the man's twinkly eyes.

Corradino bowed as he had been taught, `Piacere.'

The man laughed. `Ah, un Signorino.'

Corradino knew he was being mocked, and felt that he should walk away, head high. But his curiosity won - he badly wanted to know what the man was doing. He pointed to the coal. `What's that?'

`It's glass, Your Majesty.'

Corradino heard the tease, but the voice was kind.

`But glass is hard.'

`When it is grown up, yes. When it has just been born, it looks like this.'

The man dunked his coal in the water of the canal, where it hissed viciously. When he pulled it out it was white and clear. Corradino looked on with great interest. Then, remembering, `I used to have a glass horse.'

The man looked up. `But you don't any more?'

Corradino felt suddenly as if he were going to cry. The glass horse, and its loss, felt all of a piece with the loss of his house, of Venice, of his old life. `It broke,' he said, and his voice did too.

The man's eyes softened. `Come with me.' He held out his hand. Corradino hesitated. The glass-maker bowed formally, and said, `My name is Giacomo del Piero.'

Corradino felt reassured by the formality.'Corrado Manin. They call me Corradino.'

Corradino put his small soft hand in the man's big rough one and was led inside the building. He was astonished by what he saw.

There were fires everywhere, banked in iron holes with doors. At each doorway at least one man worked, shirtless, with rods and coals like his new friend. They put the rods to their mouths as if drinking, but seemed to blow.

I remember a painting I saw when me and my father were guests of the Doge in his palace. It showed the four winds of the earth with their cheeks puffed out as they blew a fleet of Venetian ships into safe harbour at the Arsenale. These men look like that.

As they blew the glowing coals of glass grew, and changed, into shapes Corradino recognized - vases, candelabri, dishes. Some worked with shears, some with wooden paddles. Everywhere there was steam as the shapes were cooled in water. Everywhere small boys ran, fetching and carrying, boys not much older than he. They were shirtless too. Corradino began to feel hot.

Giacomo noted this.'You should take off your coat. It looks expensive. Your Mamma will be angry if you burn it.,

Corradino's coat was the worse for his journey. It was dirty, it had lost more than one of its opal buttons and it smelt of fish. But it would be a stupid man who did not see at once that it was highly valuable. And Giacomo del Piero was not a stupid man.

Corradino took off the coat, and his silk undershirt and cravat too. Feeling much better as he slung them behind a pile of buckets, he turned to face the glare of the fire and felt for the first time in his life the bone-bending heat of a glass forno. Giacomo pulled a blob of orange glass from the fire with his rod. He rolled it on a wooden paddle and Corradino could already see its colour change to a dark red. Giacomo waited for a moment. Then took up a small pair of iron shears and pinched and worked at the glowing material. Before Corradino's eyes his horse was born again - with arched neck like the horses of Araby, delicate hooves