Glamour in Glass (12 page)

After they watched for a few minutes, M. La Pierre led them to the table of glasses his apprentice had already finished. The matched set had a delicate stem crowned by an elegant thin bowl. “Identical, yes?” He picked up two and held them out. “But look closely. See the bubbles? No two exactly the same. You need a simpler shape to put inside it.”

“The red cone is extraordinarily simple.” Vincent protested.

Snorting, M. La Pierre picked up the paper and pointed at it again. “You think introducing an inclusion to cause that bend is simple? I’d like to see you try.”

“Your … good information is why we came to you, M. La Pierre.” Jane tried to smooth over the man’s ruffled feathers. To be sure, he was not the only glassblower in the area, but he was widely accounted the best. “Can you speak to what shapes are easier? Perhaps we can find a glamour that suits the medium.”

He gestured with his chin at the boy blowing goblets. “Bubbles and tubes. That is what the glass wants to do.” Setting the goblets down with deliberate care, he shook his head. “A fool’s errand, if you ask me. If it were possible, someone would have done it already.”

Jane’s stomach sank at that, for there was something to his argument. “But have the techniques for glassblowing not improved with time? Perhaps something is now possible that was not before.”

“Mayhap.” He shrugged. “But it doesn’t look so to me.”

Vincent rubbed the back of his head. The furnace glowed with a visible heat, and beads of sweat crept down Jane’s front, tickling as they went. The apprentice finished blowing the bowl and deftly drew a stem from the hot glass. His face was flushed from the heat, and sweat matted his reddish hair to his head. He did not break from his rhythm or let his attention waver from his business.

Jane marvelled at the regularity of his actions. “What causes the bubbles in the glass?”

M. La Pierre ticked off reasons on his fingers. “Air. Change in temperature. Impurities.”

Vincent murmured to Jane. “I wonder.… If
any
impurity will show, might we control which ones do?”

“I would think so, to some degree, else they could not create glass paperweights containing swans or bubbles.” She considered this as they watched the apprentice blow yet another in his seemingly endless stream of goblets. M. La Pierre seemed disinclined to say anything else. “What do you think would happen if we cast a glamour
inside
the glass as it is being blown?”

Vincent tucked his chin in, and his eyes narrowed in thought. “Intangible as the glamour is, I am not certain that it could have any effect. And yet, glamour changes when passing through the glass of a prism, so the two must have a connexion.”

“I would be curious to see what happens.”

The glass maker tutted and shook his head. “We will try it.” Jane felt certain that he disapproved of the notion and was agreeing because of the funds they offered, but she hardly cared at this point.

M. La Pierre waited until his apprentice had finished with the last goblet and beckoned him over. “Mathieu, this gentleman and his lady want to try casting a glamour while glass is being blown. You will assist them until such a time as the task is beyond your skill. I want no repeats of your attempts to be an artist. Keep the craft clean and do the job.” He cuffed the apprentice on the back of the head. The boy took the blow as if he were well used to this. “Understand me?”

“Yes, Father.” Mathieu bobbed his head in assent.

Jane could not feel that it was truly necessary for M. La Pierre to discipline his son in front of them. She might resign herself to such casual disregard, but determined that she would never treat her own children with so little respect.

As La Pierre stalked away, Mathieu lifted his head and wet his lips, acting as though nothing untoward had happened. “May I see the drawings?”

Vincent pulled them out of his coat pocket and handed them to the young man, who drew off his heavy leather gloves to take the papers. His left arm had a healing burn that showed just below the cuff of his sleeve. Jane blanched at the thought of the molten glass touching his arm.

“Not glass. It was steam.” Mathieu tugged his sleeve farther down in an effort to hide the burn. “Everyone asks. Glass would have taken the arm.” He tapped the paper. “I can see why my father thinks this is not possible, at least not with the way we currently work. I have no idea what will happen when you try casting the glamour. Shall we find out?”

Mathieu led them to a different furnace and they began the process by having the young man blow a simple bubble. Since Vincent could work glamour at a distance, he stood back from the furnace, waiting for the ball of molten crystal to be lifted forth.

As Mathieu worked, Vincent deftly sketched the lines for the red cone they had first discussed. Almost immediately, he grimaced. Jane let her vision shift to see why.

Working at a distance as he did was difficult enough, but he was, in essence, aiming at a moving target. Though Mathieu was remarkably steady, the end of his pole was a good five feet away from him and shifted with even the slightest movement. Vincent was having problems aligning his glamour with the glass.

After some minutes of trying and failing, he shook his head and signalled Mathieu to leave off. He dipped the pole back into the furnace and let the crystal dissolve into the mass. Wiping his forehead, he stepped away. “How did that work?

“Not well. The tip moves.”

Mathieu laid his pole on an old table charred with evidence of previous work. “If I had a stand to keep the end still, that would help?”

“I believe so, yes.”

He quickly found a stand with a Y yoke at the end. “We do not use it often, but it is handy when doing larger pieces.”

Once again they took their stations, Vincent still staying well back. Jane watched, wishing that there were something she could add to the proceedings, but at this point there was nothing for her to do. The next hour passed in this manner, with Vincent repeatedly trying to simply get the glamour to pass through the glass while Mathieu attempted to hold the end of the pole steady. To the naked eye, it would seem they were succeeding, but each time, Vincent grimaced and shook his head.

Tugging at his cravat, Vincent pulled it free from his collar. “I am going to need to be closer. The end of the pole moves no matter how steadily Mathieu holds it, and my control is not specific enough at this distance.”

“Shall I have a go at it?” Jane asked.

Mathieu shook his head. “Not in muslin, madame.”

Chafing at the restraint, Jane could offer no reasonable argument against it, because the danger from the fire was, in fact, quite real. Still, she did not like having Vincent standing so close to the bulb of molten glass when Mathieu next pulled it out, either. The light from the bulb lit his face eerily, accenting the sweat pouring down his temples.

This attempt, however, resulted in greater success, for Vincent was able to create a red cone from glamour and align the pattern of the weaves with the bubble of glass. The glamour faded away as he released his hold and they all stepped back from the furnace to examine his efforts. Jane held her hands behind her back to fend off the urge to touch the still hot crystal.

Using tongs, Mathieu held it up to the light, gnawing the inside of his lip. “Do you see anything?”

Barely perceptible inclusions marred the otherwise unflawed crystal, tracing a pattern which, when raw folds of glamour were applied, would result in a red cone. Vincent blew out his breath and wiped his hands on his apron. “Jane, do you want to do the honours?”

Almost trembling from the excitement that the glamour had created a physical impression, Jane pulled a pure fold out of the ether and directed it at the ball. The crystal seemed to radiate as if it were back in the furnace, but nothing further happened. She twisted the angle of the glamour, trying to find the entry path that Vincent had used when creating the red cone, aware as she did so that both Vincent and Mathieu held their breath. She could not achieve any effect beyond a luminescence of the entire sphere, and that had no red in it. As she was about to give up, Vincent shouted, causing her to drop the fold.

“Pardon.” He winced. “For a moment, I thought I saw it.”

Mathieu hesitated, squinting in thought. He lowered the ball of glass. “Maybe.”

“It was very faint, and on the side opposite you, Jane.” Vincent tucked his chin into his chest and rubbed his hair into a tangle. “What if … what if the faults need to be more pronounced? I felt as though the glamour wanted to fold, but did not quite know where to do so.”

Jane considered, the only sound in the room the muted roaring of the furnaces. “If we laid another skein of glamour alongside the cone, say, one of cold, would that work, or would we merely have a recording of cold in glass?”

“Possibly…” Vincent stared into the furnace for a moment. “Mathieu, are you ready for another attempt?”

The boy asserted that he was.

“Shall I handle the cold, or shall you?” Jane asked.

“You tend to be more perceptive of the path of glamours than I. Let us say that I will hold the pattern for the cone and you can trace it.”

Mathieu started at the suggestion. “Wait. The lady cannot go near the furnace. Not in those clothes.”

Jane looked at the fire and she looked at her muslin dress and she looked at the sphere resting on the table. “Do you have some trousers I might borrow?”

*   *   *

Emerging from the storeroom
in borrowed buckskin trousers, belted tightly at the waist to keep them from tumbling off, and a man’s shirt with the sleeves rolled up to leave her hands free, Jane felt terribly exposed. To be certain, the same amount of material covered her form as before, and the buckskin was sterner stuff than her muslin, and yet for all that, Jane could only think about how her legs were in full view. She kept her back straight and her head high as she marched across the room and took her place by her husband.

He opened his mouth, and she silenced him with a glare of determination.

Mathieu seemed to find everything in the room more interesting than her, checking his tools and the end of the long pole very studiously.

Jane clapped her hands. “Shall we?”

For the next two hours, they did. Repeatedly, Vincent cast the simple glamour of the cone and Jane traced it with the threads of cold. Though each attempt ended in failure, they felt that they edged closer to success as Jane learned the amount of cold she had to apply to create a response in the crystal.

The heat from the furnace weighed on her oppressively, magnifying the fatigue from the glamour. Each breath seemed harder to draw. Matching her line to Vincent’s glamour, Jane adjusted the thread of cold, trying to make the place where the glamour should fold more apparent.

With a crack, the crystal shattered.

Yelling as one, they all flinched and ducked as pieces of crystal flew through the furnace room. Glass clattered to the ground. Only the roar of the furnace broke what silence remained.

Hoarse with tension, Vincent said, “Is everyone all right?”

“I am fine.” Mathieu’s voice cracked.

Jane straightened, the intensity of her emotion making her feel ill. “I am so sorry.”

“But are you well?”

“Quite. Only mortified that I misjudged so.”

“Jane.” Vincent tilted her head up. “You are bleeding.”

The room spun around her, but from long practice at keeping herself erect while doing glamour, Jane ignored the black specks that swarmed around her vision. “Not much, I presume, or you would be in more of a panic.”

A single, very thin scratch, lay below her right eye. She would not let herself think on what might have happened if the shard had been an inch higher. Nor would she let Vincent do so. As he tried to fuss over her, Jane pressed a cloth to the scratch until she was satisfied that the bleeding had ceased. “Shall we begin again?”

“I think we are done for the day.” Vincent stood, nodding to Mathieu.

“Nonsense. I know the bottom limit of cold now and will not cross it again. We are very close, my love.” Jane lowered the cloth and folded it neatly into a square. “Mathieu are you willing to … hazard another attempt?”

“Yes, madam.” He stood from the stool upon which he had been resting and went to his place by the furnace with remarkable steadiness.

“Jane, I cannot ask you to risk yourself in this way.”

“You are not asking, I am choosing.” Jane put her hands on her hips and spread her legs wide in a man’s stance. “We have work to do, and I want to see the results through.”

Vincent paused a moment and then shook his head. “All I ask is that you not tell your mother.”

Jane could well imagine her mother’s reaction. “I would not dream of it.”

They began again and, attention focused by the previous events, found that their next effort produced a sample which they thought might serve. As soon as it was free from the pole, Vincent took a fold of glamour and passed it into the glass ball.

With her vision extended into the ether, Jane watched the glamour fold and then fragment. The pattern, simple though it was, had too many small errors in it to produce the red cone. But the beginning of the path showed promise.

Vincent sighed. “Well, that is hopeful at any rate. The theory is sound, but the practice will take some doing.”

Mathieu narrowed his eyes, staring at the ball. “May I make a suggestion?”

“Of course.” Jane’s own head was worn out from trying to solve this riddle, and she was only too happy to hear someone else’s thoughts.

“This cone … I have been watching as you worked, and I think the pattern goes off because the glass expands as I blow. What if you made a sphere instead of a cone, so the shapes match?”

“That”—Vincent rubbed his hands together—“is a very good idea.”

“What about the
Sphère Obscurcie
?” Reinvigorated, Jane wondered how they had not thought of it before. Rather than start with beginning exercises, they should have sought folds that matched the medium. “It is a single fold, and designed to expand in a bubble.”