The Clocks

As she progressed the newlyweds' training, Miranda found that Sara had a particularly interesting skill. She couldn't manage Eugenia's invisibility or silence, but while trying to see if such could be taught, something similar and potentially even more useful emerged.

Sara was able to become totally unremarkable. People saw her, they moved around her if they were about to run into each other, but they paid no attention to her at all otherwise.

For Genie's talents to be of use, she had to invoke her spell when she was some distance away from her target location and then sneak in. It was extremely useful if she were not otherwise able to be where she wanted to go, such as a military installation or a palace.

Sara, on the other hand, could enter anywhere that one of her class might frequent or be invited. As the wife of a priest, and the daughter of a prominent banker, that was a great many places indeed. Once inside she could invoke her talent and move around at will, listening to any conversation she wished without being noticed. When she was finished, all she had to do was return to a public area and gradually let her spell fade. Nobody would ever know that she'd left the room.

The only restriction was that she had to be somewhere she would be welcome, or at least generally tolerated. If she were somewhere inappropriate, such as the guard barracks, she was always spotted in short order.

Paolo's strongest skill was of a different nature altogether. He'd touched on the edges of it in his childhood. He'd learned a great deal by listening. Now that he was undergoing training to be a priest at the Church of the Placid Heart, he found that total strangers would come up to him and empty their hearts to him. Priests were not gossips who betrayed confidences heard in the private consultation rooms. However, anything he overheard elsewhere was fair game. Sometimes what he heard was of use to his mother, and he passed that along. However, in the beginning, that was haphazard. Fortunately that didn't remain the case for very long.

His primary mage talent was discovered as a result of all that listening. If he focused his mind, he could hear, clearly, any conversation taking place within approximately 10 meters of him, no matter how crowded or loud the area was. That allowed him to seemingly have all his attention on whoever was speaking to him, while he was at the same time taking in everything his target was saying.

Given Sara's long practice at getting along at school, their social status, and Paolo's ability to match his speech and behavior to that of any social class, there was hardly anywhere in the entire city they couldn't go. The one exception was the gambling halls. As a matter of principle, Priests didn't go to such establishments. Brothels, yes, more often than you might imagine, though not for the normal reason. In a brothel, the residents knew that they needed priestly help now and then. Gamblers usually don't realize that they need help at all.

One of the most effective techniques they developed was to have Paolo begin a conversation with a group and, after a brief chat, wander off. Sara would stay behind to hear what was said after Paolo left. It's amazing what people will sometimes say after you leave, especially if you've dropped a few subtle hints prodding them to talk about what you're interested in.

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Thereafter life settled into regular patterns, as it usually does. Eugenia was studying her head off, trying not to disappoint Blair and, most especially, her mother. At least twice a week she was studying karate, something that Mr. Macklin said he had learned during the seven years his family had lived on an island called Okinawa when he was still a child. What did she think of it, you ask? She absolutely adored it!

Its combination of precision with mental focus appealed to her in a strange way that nothing else other than dancing had ever done. She'd been promised that if she did well, both with her karate and her studies, Master Hiroshi (which he preferred to be called when teaching) would introduce her to something called kobudou before the end of the year. When he demonstrated some basic techniques for her, she almost swooned with excitement.

Motivation is a wonderful thing. Within six weeks her academic standing had risen to where she was solidly in the middle of her class, exactly where her mother and Blair wanted her. Genie never told her mother, but she was finding school almost intoxicating. Learning how tiny, apparently insignficant, actions had spawned major changes in the nations and confederations surrounding Italy, and in Italy as well, totally fascinated her.

At the same time, she was beginning to come to see at least a little bit of what she was being trained for. Blair intended her to be, for lack of a better word, a nudger. Someone who helped make sure that those "tiny" events had results favorable to stability in the region instead of leading to local or, gods forbid, regional wars.

As for Paolo and Sara, they'd easily fallen into their new roles. He found that he loved helping other people solve problems. Sometimes, of course, he couldn't. But even then the people who came to him were grateful for his compassionate listening. Oft times being able to calm down by sitting with Paolo for a while helped them arrive at a solution to their troubles by themselves.

Sara did what she'd always done best. She was a friend. Within less than three months she was meeting regularly with several groups of immigrant women and children whose only needs were friends who could ease their transition into the hodgepodge culture of The City. It doesn't sound like a big thing, but, as was planned for Genie's nudges in the political arena, her nudges in the social fabric of The City did a great deal to relieve tensions among a population composed of people from two continents and dozens of disparate cultures.

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One night Sara and Paolo were in bed, and, as they usually did, they were reviewing their day before they fell asleep. They were on their sides facing each other, and Sara reached out her right hand to stroke Paolo's cheek. "You know dearest something happened today that I've never thought much about before."

Paolo took her palm off his cheek, brought it to his lips and kissed it. "What's that my love?"

"Stop that, it tickles. I can't concentrate."

Paolo let go of her hand and focused his attention on her words, at least for the present.

"I was at a market square, you know, the one they call the Twin's Market. A woman was talking to one of the vendors. She asked him, 'How are your wives?' and he answered her, 'Just fine, just fine. Grace is expecting somewhere around October and Momo has finally weaned the twins, so we're all sleeping better at night. How are your husbands?'"

Sara made an unpleasant face. "The way one of the women passing by looked at them would probably have shriveled them on the spot if she'd had any power. I don't understand why she was so angry. It's not like they have any choice."

Paolo nodded. "You're right of course. What else can they do? You'd think that woman would have known better. I mean everyone knows what happens to twins if they're separated too far for too long....

"Hmmmm. Maybe that's the problem. Everyone knows that, even most of the foreigners who moved here or come to do business, but maybe they don't know everything. To be fair, it wasn't till I was about nine or 10 that I understood that some twins get physically ill if they don't at least sleep in the same house every night. I've heard that some even need to be in the same room."

He shook his head. "That must be pretty rough when they're adults."

Paolo felt lucky that it was dark enough that Sara couldn't see him blush as he said, "The day I proposed to you, I was only barely able to keep myself from asking if we could bring you home with us, so I think I sort of understand a little of how those twins feel."

Sara chuckled. "You silly boy, but, thank you for that. I didn't want to be separated from you either." She leaned forward and kissed his forehead, reasoning that if she did more than that they'd lose track of what they were talking about.

"So, go on Dear, tell me the rest."

"Right. OK. Well, that's really about it. I mean if you have to live in the same house as your twin, especially if you have to be in the same room at night, what else can you do? If it took me till I was 10 to realize that, for some twins, their only choice is to marry the same person, what would strangers think if they didn't know that?"

Sara nodded, though it was now dark enough that Paolo couldn't see her. "You're right. That makes sense."

She sighed, somewhat sadly.

Paolo asked, "What is it Love?"

She whispered, now half asleep, "It's Hibiki and Yoko. They may be one of those sets of twins. Yoko had a sleepover with a friend from school for the first time last week. When she came home the next morning, she was sick, and so was Hibiki. I thought that maybe they'd eaten something weird, but I heard that both of them were fine after they took a nap together."

Paolo stretched and yawned. "When I was studying for the City Exams I chanced across a law that said that here was the only place in Italy where it was allowed to marry more than one person, and it stipulates that it must be twins, and not two random people you've taken a fancy to.

"A couple months ago I decided to look up what it said in the Church Law, but basically all it says there is that if people are in love, go ahead and marry them. The only prohibitions are against coercion. Well, that and the minimum age requirements.

"We're probably not going to have to worry about that with your sibs for some years yet, and maybe never. A certain meddling someone seems to keep things from getting too extreme, or at least that's what I think, since it never happens to fraternal twins and triplets aren't born here. Speaking of which, or who, I wonder how the whole thing of twins marrying the same person got started in the first place."

Sara nodded again. "Yeah. Me too. It would be fascinating if we could find out how it happened."

Paolo laughed. "You're a knowledge pack-rat. If it can be learned, you want to know it."

He laughed louder. "Not that I'm much better."

"So that's how it is, is it? You both want to know about it? Well, I see no harm, and perhaps a great deal of good resulting if I tell you. If I do it right, I can finish before you have to get up in the morning, and I ALWAYS do it right. So let's go."

Before either of them could react to Lady Blue's words they....