The Glassblower of Murano - Marina Fiorato [84]
The King spotted Hardouin-Mansart and Le Notre at the front of the throng. He beckoned with a fat beringed hand and the pair bowed low as the King began desultory introductions. `This is Hardouin-Mansart, my palace architect. And that's Le Notre who's doing the gardens. It goes well?' He waved away their answers. `Yes, yes, but this mirror is better than both your efforts, no? I imagine you two are jealous? Going to get one of your masons to drop a brick on it, Jules?' The King laughed at his own sally as the court joined in. Then, as Corradino began to relax, Louis uttered a question which froze his blood. `Where's my Maitre des Glaces? Can't have you two taking all the bouquets .. ' His eyes raked the crowd, found Corradino's. Corradino's heart thumped so he thought he would expire. A smile flitted over the King's features like a summer cloud. `There's the fellow.'
I am undone - my life is ended.
But the fat hand beckoned Jacques Chauvire. Guillaume Seve, passed over for the job, gave Jacques an officious little shove, and the boy stumbled forward awkwardly, twisting his leather cap in his hand.
Baldasar Guilini regarded Jacques balefully from under an arched eyebrow. He made a circuit of the boy on his Venetian heels, looking him up and down. Then he walked to the mirror, freeing his hand, finger by finger, from his chamois glove. He reached out his index finger and touched the cool, flat glass, leaving a smoky print. Corradino, despite himself, winced as if a seducer had laid a finger on his daughter.
Baldasar turned back to Jacques.
`Something wrong, Ambassador?' asked Louis, who seemed to be suppressing the mirth of a private jest.
The Ambassador visibly recollected himself. `Forgive me, Majesty, I was thinking that this man - Chauvire, is it - is very young to create such mastery.'
Jacques shifted his weight, as Louis replied, `Perhaps it is hard to accept that France has at last attained the quality of glasswork that the Venetians have enjoyed these past many years.
Baldasar looked from the mirror to Jacques and back again. `How many panes in this mirror, Maitre?' he gave the title a gentle, ironic stress.
Jacques, properly, looked to the King, who nodded that he may answer. `Twenty-one, Gracieux Monsieur.!
`And how many years have you been on this earth?'
`Twenty-one, Gracieux Monsieur.'
'How fitting. There is a pleasing symmetry about that, don't you find? Indeed, it is a work of passing beauty for one of such tender years. It has clarity, lucidity; one might almost say a Venetian quality about it.' His eyes raked the crowd and Corradino shifted, dropping his eyes, obscured behind one of the burlier masons.
`I congratulate you, Majesty.' The Ambassador bowed once again, but his eyes were thoughtful behind his diplomatic visage.
`Well, well'The King waved away the compliment modestly as if he had crafted the mirror himself. He moved off down the hall, with Ambassador and coterie in tow. Then, briefly, the Royal head turned. Quick as a flash, Louis' eyes found Corradino. One eye closed for an instant. Then the King turned back and continued on, the whole incredible incident taking no more than an instant, and the court not even faltering in its progress. Corradino, as he allowed himself to breathe again, tried to comprehend what he had just seen.
The King had winked at him.
It is a game to him. A piece of amusement. The fact that my life is forfeit if I am discovered, that whole pantomime with Jacques, it is all a game; a piece of Royal folly to pass the hours.
Sweating, glass-limbed, he put a hand to his thudding heart, as if to keep