Nights in Black Satin

by Noelle Mack

  They came out onto the Grand Canal once more, where a stiff breeze whipped up little wavelets and filled her with joy. She was going back to where she belonged, that was all. But she wasn’t going away. There was a difference.

  There were almost no other boats and their progress was swift. As they came out into the lagoon, the wind blew more strongly and Federico rowed harder, singing at the top of his lungs. The wind snatched the words away.

  The brim of her hat flopped back and Sarah squinted. She could see a flat strip of land on the horizon but with the sun still low in the sky, she couldn’t make out much detail.

  She turned to Marco, whose hazel eyes were glowing. The wind blew his hair every which way, and the black strands licked his face. He pushed them back with an impatient hand and looked down at her with a grin.

  “So. You will have your day at the beach.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.” Sarah hung on to her hat and turned around to look at Venice in all its glory, gilded by the morning sun. The campanile on the piazza rose high above the domes and spires of Venice and all the other buildings, so close together that the city formed a whole, floating on the water, a place of dreams and music and a measure of vice. More than anything else it was beautiful.

  She was going back to it in less than a day.

  6

  Federico docked next to Veronica’s gondola—Sarah noticed the silver plaque with her last name, Suona, affixed to the boat.

  Like theirs, it was painted black, but its owner had evaded the sumptuary laws by adding signs and symbols etched into the paint in a way that made them visible only in a certain light. The effect was similar to the hidden spots on a black panther, Sarah thought: you only noticed them when the panther was very close.

  Its sleekness was a startling contrast to the rough-hewn but serviceable boats of the fishermen, some of which were moored at the dock and some of which had simply been dragged up onto the sand. The sea would not steal them—the water on the opposite side of the island was quite calm. The boats’ owners were nowhere to be seen and neither was Veronica Suona.

  Sarah looked at the symbols that adorned her gondola, not wanting to ask Marco what they were. Some were geometric and abstract, some were based on the human body—she made out Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man in a circle on the prow, his arms and legs outstretched, naked and perfect. For a second the figure seemed to have Marco’s face. She blinked and the man in the circle became the familiar illustration of proportion from art history again.

  Marco helped her out of the boat. “Veronica has gone ahead.” He nodded at the slender footprints in the sand, and the others that followed them, wider and sturdier. “She brought her servants, of course.”

  La-di-dah. But every Venetian lady had those. It was the symbols on the gondola that made Sarah a little nervous. She suspected that Veronica was a force to be reckoned with. “Do we have to meet her right away?”

  He shrugged. “No. She is not expecting us until twilight and she doesn’t know we’re here.”

  “How will you find her?”

  “She said that she would be at the sea mouth.” He pointed. “It is that way, a few miles from here. Come, let’s walk in the other direction. We can come back and eat later. Federico will see to all that.”

  Sarah kicked off her shoes and wrapped herself up in her billowing garments, grateful for his warm arm around her shoulder. The wind had died down but they were on the edge of the sea and it was colder than Venice.

  The brisk air and bright sunshine cleared her mind.

  “When we get back to reality, what’s the first thing you want to do?” she asked.

  He kicked up the sand. “This feels real to me.”

  “You know what I mean. Our own time.” There had to be something he liked about it.

  “Hmm. I won’t check my e-mail. We’ve been away for more than three hundred years—can you imagine?”

  “Oh my God.” She put a hand to her mouth as a thought struck her. “Are we going to be older than dirt when we get back?”

  “I don’t think so. But you can ask Veronica. She has made such journeys and she always looks…” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  “Beautiful. I know you don’t want to say it but I’m sure she is.”

  “Well, yes.”

  They walked on in silence for a few minutes. In the distance Sarah saw horses galloping, led by another with a man on his back. They were close together and she could feel the thunder of their hooves on the sand through her feet as they got closer.

  “Wow. Look at that. I wish I could ride.”

  “You can. His horses are gentle.”

  “You know him?” Sarah could see their manes and tails clearly now, streaming in the wind. They looked wild to her but maybe that was because they were galloping. At a shout from the man, they slowed down but gradually. She could see that there were four of them.

  “Yes.”

  By the time they reached Sarah and Marco, the horses were walking. Their lips were flecked with foam, and there was an exhilarated look in their soulful brown eyes. They were brown all over, with tinges of green that puzzled her. The solo rider who led them all was bare-chested and quite tall, much more powerfully built than the dapper gentlemen of Venice. And she thought Marco had been the only exception to that rule.

  “Yes, it is him. Daniel!” he called.

  Using only his legs, clad in ragged pants and barefoot, Daniel guided his horse in their direction. Riding without a saddle, he seemed to be a part of the beautiful animal, as heroic as a marble statue of a god.

  He looked at Sarah and she had to look away. His eyes were dark and velvety, and so was his skin. She felt a little bit ashamed of getting on Marco’s case for that. Sometime you had to look at a beautiful person.

  The men struck up a conversation that didn’t even sound Venetian. Sarah supposed that the outlying islands each had their own dialect and customs. It made sense.

  “He says you may ride,” Marco said.

  “Oh, no,” she answered hastily. “Not in a dress and hat. I’d look ridiculous. Besides, I don’t know how.”

  “The horse will teach you.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t speak horse. I won’t understand.”

  “Sarah, trust me. These are not ordinary horses and this is not an ordinary man.”

  “I can see that—” She stopped herself. “More magic?”

  “Yes. A little.”

  The horses stood motionless, watching her. She had the eerie feeling she’d seen them before. It hit her in a flash. Their proud bearing, their uniform color, and the shape of their heads—they were identical to the famous bronze steeds above the door of the great basilica.

  Not identical to. They were them. “Oh my God. I can’t believe this.”

  “You can count yourself lucky to see the horses of San Marco run. They need it. Why do you think they look so alive?”

  “Of course. Who would want to be stuck above a church door all the time?”

  She removed her shawl and her hat. “Should I hitch up the dress? Are you going to help me up? I don’t even know which side to—oh!”

  Marco lifted her off her feet, and she instinctively stretched out a leg higher than she ever had to get over the horse’s back. He set her down gently enough. The billowing dress rucked up over her thighs. Sarah patted the horse’s mane and it blew out a breath through its flared nostrils.

  She stopped patting him. “Why is he doing that?”

  “Because he can. That’s why horses do a lot of things. Off you go. He won’t hurt you.”

  Daniel laughed, a full sound that made her horse twitch his ears back. She patted his neck. When the horse began to move, she hung on to the coarse hair of his mane for dear life.

  So far, so good. Then the horse began to run…faster and faster…and oh, it was wonderful. Sarah leaned down along the horse’s neck, pressing her thighs into its side and letting it do what it wanted.

  Before long, Marco
was next to her, bare-chested, riding like he’d done it all his life, glorying in the power of the animal underneath him.

  When the horses were tired, they slowed, and Sarah sat up. “Oh my God. That was better than sex.”

  “Sometimes it is.”

  “Now I know why girls love horses so much.”

  Marco turned to look behind him. “Here comes Daniel. You could tell him that if you could talk to him.”

  “Ohh, that’s all right. I’d be too embarrassed. He has to be the most beautiful man that—that isn’t you.”

  Marco chuckled. “You are very tactful.”

  Daniel came up on his horse, followed by the last one of the four.

  “What happens now?” Sarah asked Marco.

  “I dismount, I help you off, we thank him, and he goes away.”

  He eased off his horse and landed lightly, patting its neck before he went to Sarah. Daniel watched as Marco lifted her down, her legs tangling in her crumpled dress. She didn’t care. She wanted to ride forever along the sand where the waves licked it flat and shining.

  She sighed with happiness when her feet touched the beach. “Grazie, Daniel,” she said softly.

  He nodded, waved a silent good-bye to both of them, and pressed his thighs into his mount, wheeling around and leading the way for the other three horses of San Marco.

  “No one is ever going to believe I did that.”

  “I am proud of you.”

  They walked back the way they had come, finding an occasional shell, enjoying the windswept quiet of the empty beach. He picked up her shawl and hat, and his shirt and coat, from under the stone he’d set on them before the glorious ride.

  In the distance, they saw Federico, who had set up an improvised tent made of folded canvas from the boat and was sitting underneath it.

  “Hmm. He thinks of everything.”

  “How long has he worked for you?”

  Marco pondered that. “The men of his family have been the gondoliers for mine for centuries.”

  “Well, I say we give him the day off. We’re not going to need him for a while.”

  He drew her close. “What are you suggesting?”

  “As if you couldn’t guess what’s on my mind after a ride like that.”

  Marco patted her rump. “Was it the ride or Daniel that excited you more?”

  “I’m not telling.”

  Federico had struck up a friendship with a fisherman in their absence, a fellow who was now a distant dot upon the beach. He was more than happy to go join him and that left Sarah and Marco in sole possession of the tent.

  She spread out a blanket and lay down, pulling her dress up above her knees.

  “No, that won’t do. I can’t make love to you with all that on.”

  He helped her sit up and removed her dress, stripping off his pants. His cock was already up—she took it in her hand, caressing him.

  Marco watched her do it, his belly tensing with pleasure. He seemed invigorated. They both were. Away from the city, out of reach of society itself, with no need to put on airs or pretend they were someone else, they were free.

  He touched her pussy with one hand, rubbing it gently. She was sore from the hard ride but the soreness was pleasurable. Her thighs were tense where they’d clung to the animal but that too felt good.

  She wanted Marco inside her as soon as possible, wanted him to ease the excitement deep within her body with slow strokes that went deep.

  Sarah reached out her arms to him and he came over her, nuzzling her breasts and sucking at her nipples, his long cock hanging down and bumping her belly.

  He used one leg to push her thighs open and positioned his cock head at her labia, kissing her for all he was worth with deep thrusts of his tongue. She pushed against, on fire with an aching desire, and he met her with a downward thrust, pinning her hips to the blanket. But he kept his arms straight and strong so she could watch him fuck.

  Holding so steady made his biceps bulge. She ran her fingers over them, turned on by the sheer power of his body. Marco’s eyes closed as he pumped blissfully, driving down into her snug pussy, pushing her ass into the soft blanket on the sand with every stroke.

  He began to tremble and go faster, and she knew he was close to orgasm. Sarah raised herself halfway and clutched his buttocks, pushing her clit against his tight groin and making herself come exactly when he did. He raised his head and shook away the sweat, groaning softly, then collapsed on her.

  Sarah stroked his back, knowing at that moment how much she loved him. Just to make love like this, naturally, out in the open, was so perfect. She whispered as much in his ear. But telling him she loved him…that was something else. She wasn’t ready for that.

  In a little while, they got up and peered out of the tent. Federico was still far down the beach. Marco looked at Sarah and Sarah looked at Marco.

  “Let’s do it,” they said at the same time. They scrambled to their feet and ran into the sea, laughing wildly and kicking up spray. The Adriatic was calm and warm enough, with gentle swells that came up to their waist. Sarah didn’t dip down. She hadn’t forgotten that she was about to meet his ex-mistress, and she wasn’t going to do it with salt-encrusted hair.

  They went back to the tent, drying themselves with a towel from the basket that’d held the blankets. The housekeeper had thought of everything. They dressed…and then they sat in the tent, picnicking out of the basket and talking about nothing.

  Sarah knew she couldn’t put the moment of truth off forever. They would have to pick up the trail of footsteps and find Veronica. She marveled at the loneliness of such a beautiful beach.

  Marco went to look for driftwood to build a fire in time to ward off the chill when the day began to wane. Federico came back with a fair-sized fish in his hand, which he was kind enough to gut and clean where she couldn’t see him do it.

  Marco built his fire, got it started, and Federico brought the fish over to cook it. Sarah and Marco couldn’t stay. There would be no way to find Veronica’s footprints by twilight, although she had undoubtedly had her servants build a fire.

  They said good-bye to Federico, and Marco told him to head back by morning, that they would return with Veronica.

  The gondolier asked no questions. They tended not to. Sarah had noticed that.

  They started at the dock where the two gondolas were and followed the slender prints. They walked for a mile in silence, in a solemn mood, holding hands. As swift as the trip back in time had been—as swift as sleight of hand—the return to the future was an unknown.

  They walked another mile, and Marco spotted a fire. “There she is. Are you nervous?”

  “Yes.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Don’t be.”

  As they came closer, Sarah could see a handsome Oriental-style tent pitched in the sand, a pole at each corner with a fluttering banner at each finial. The front flaps were held back with tassels, and Sarah could just make out some of the symbols woven into the colorful material of the tent. The ones she could see were the same as the ones on the gondola. The effect was luxurious and mysterious. Veronica Suona traveled in style.

  She was standing outside, looking out to sea, while two servants, a stocky man and a robust-looking woman, sat near her on a large piece of driftwood. They had set up a much smaller tent of plain canvas for themselves.

  Veronica wore robes in colors that blended into the beginning of twilight but her hair was nearly white. Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. As they got within a few yards of her, Veronica turned, and Sarah saw with a start that her face was youthful and unlined. She was extraordinarily beautiful. Her eyelashes were jet black and long, framing eyes that were an odd green, almost…chartreuse. Like the cat.

  “Ombra.”

  A slight smile curved Veronica’s full lips. “Ah, yes. My familiar. I sent her to watch over Marco.”

  Sarah hadn’t realized she’d said the cat’s name aloud.

  “Come in,” Veronica sighed. “It’s going t
o be a long night.” She pulled back a flap of the tent, which was lined with light rugs.

  Her servants looked strong and sturdy enough to have carried all that, Sarah thought.

  Veronica made herself comfortable on the rugs and, with a regal gesture, invited them to do the same. “I assume you’ve eaten. I would offer you tea but your bodies must be as light as possible. Going forward is harder.”

  Marco seemed unwilling to look at her, so Veronica spoke to Sarah. Her voice was calm. “Has he explained this to you?”

  “No. I don’t know what you are going to do, Veronica,” he burst out. “You showed me the book but you would not give it to me. Are we not using a spell from it?”

  “There is no return spell as such.” She took the book out of a deep pocket on the side of her robe and held it in her hands. “You know that.”

  Sarah was dumbfounded. Just as when she had held it for the first time, the letters on the cover glowed faintly. Seeing it again, she realized that it exerted a magnetic attraction no matter where it was. She clasped her hands to keep from taking it out of Veronica’s grasp.

  “I thought she could say the same one in reverse,” Marco said.

  Veronica shook her head. “That way will only be strong enough for one of you.”

  Even considering all that she’d been through, Sarah could not fathom this strange conversation. They talked about spells the way people in her and Marco’s time talked about, oh, EZ Pass systems that let you whizz right through a tollbooth.

  Sarah was dying of curiosity. Despite the tension in the air, Marco and Veronica talked like people who had known each other for a very long time, getting right to the point. She couldn’t very well ask the older woman to fill in the blanks and she had a feeling Marco never would, even if she got him alone at some point tonight.

  Veronica smiled faintly, not looking at either one of them as she waited for Marco’s reply. It was clear that the sorceress was a woman who kept herself to herself. Very like a cat.

  Sarah remembered the sympathetic look that Ombra had given her, more puzzled than ever by that connection. Veronica’s little familiar had been quite friendly. Sarah had supposed that Marco’s ex-mistress was bound to see her as a rival when they met, but the older woman seemed somehow to be beyond such things, aloof and self-contained.