They left the stables and went back to the house, turning once or twice to look back as though to assure themselves the horses were all right, both of them thinking it strange that the animals gave every sign of sharing their own bad dreams. Marjorie swore to herself she would spend time with them over the next few days, until the trauma had passed.
Other matters intervened, however. Among them was the arrival of the craftsmen’s committee for Newroad. who went through the summer rooms of Opal Hill making lists.
“You want it done in the local manner, don’t you?” the spokesman of this delegation asked in trade lingua. He was a stocky, bald-headed man with froggy bags around his eyes and an engaging grin. His name was Roald Few. “You don’t want anything that will make the bons’ tongues clack, right?”
“Right,” she had agreed, amazed, and amused at herself for being so. What had she expected? Poor ignorant fools like those in Breedertown? “You’re very quick, Mr. Few. I thought we were the first embassy Grass has had.”
“The only one now,” he replied. “There’ve been a few. They can’t winter it, you know. Can’t stay. Too lonely. Semling had a man here for a while. Here, I mean. At Opal Hill. Semling built the estancia, you know.”
“Why weren’t the summer quarters furnished?” “Because it was coming autumn by the time it was built, and by the time autumn was half gone, you know, so was the man from Semling. He never got to the good part of the year. So, what have you to tell me about colors and all that?”
“Can I depend upon you to make us look acceptable?” she asked. “If I can, there’s a bonus in it for you. My husband likes warm colors, reds and ambers. I prefer the cooler ones. Blue. Soft gray. Sea green. Hah,” she paused. “There is no sea on Grass, but you apprehend.” He nodded. “Perhaps, if it is in keeping with local usage, you could give us a little variation?”
“Variety and make you look good,” he said, pursing his lips as he noted it down “Do my best, madam, and may I say you show good sense in leaving it to us. Us on the Newroad work well together, and we’ll do you well who trusts us.” He gave her a sharp look, meeting her open gaze with a frank nod of his own “I’ll tell you something, just me to you. You and the family come over the forest into commoner territory every now and then. Commoner Town, the aristos say, but we say Commons, meaning it’s for all of us. We’ve got food there you’ll never get but here, things we ship in for ourselves. It gets damned lonely out here if you’re not all turned inside out like these bons. You might even decide you’d like to live in Commons during wintertime, if you’re here that long. You’ve got animals, too, and they’ll do better in Commons than they will out here. We’re set up to winter animals there. There are hay barns we fill every summer, and cow barns down along our own quarters. All the villages close up, wintertime, and move into town. Among the aristos nobody’d know, did you or not. Anybody calls you on the tell-me. splice you through to Commons and who’ll know you’re not out here, sufferin’ winter. Do you speak Grassan, by any chance.”
“I thought Grassians spoke Terran or trade lingua,” she replied, dismayed. “Obermun bon Haunser spoke diplomatic Terran to me.”
“Oh, they’ll do that if they like,” he said with a nasty grin. “They’ll speak diplo and some of them will even lower themselves to speak trade lingua, and then the next time they’ll turn their backs to you and pretend they don’t understand you at all. You’ll get further with ‘em if you know Grassan. Way I understand it, it’s a mishmash of languages they all spoke when they came here, and then it’s changed since. Each family speaks its own variety of it, kind of a family dialect, a game they have, but mostly that’s a matter of family words and you can understand the sense if you know the language. You’ll get further yet if they don’t know you speak it until you speak it pretty good. I can send you a teacher.”