Page 56 of Something Human

“Say that again?” Adares said, in Pseuchaian—probably without intending the switch.

“My friends call me Rus.”

“I’ll bet they do. But”—switching back to Luth—“say your name again, will you please?”

“Lachh-an Rus-ana-rath.” He separated the syllables with exaggerated care.

“He is learning our language, you see,” said Gunthanaruth.

“Yes,” said Rus, “I noticed.”

“He said I speak very well already,” Adares added.

“Did he? And I have never known him to flatter anyone.”

At that both Gunthanaruth and Adares shouted with laughter. Rus felt as if he were in a dream, and he wasn’t sure whether it was a good dream or not. From somewhere, a mead-horn had got into his hand, and it was full. He took a gulp.

In truth, Gunthanaruth hadn’t really spoken flattery. The Luth language was complex, and Adares’s grasp of it was still basic, his Pseuchaian accent so thick it could have withstood axe blows—but it didn't matter. He did “speak very well.” He was unselfconscious, obviously eager to learn. He talked with his hands more than he did in his native language.

“If he is assistant to your high priest,” he said, indicating Rus, his expression giving nothing away, “the … the dance, the play of the bull fight, is it … religion?”

“Ritual,” Rus supplied. “Yes.”

“It is! I thought that. And we should not have … ” He mimed clapping. “Yes?”

“Ach!” Gunthanaruth waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter. He’ll tell you it does, but it doesn’t.”

“I won’t,” said Rus mildly. “It isn’t usual, but I liked it.”

“Ah! You see! I knew I was right to want him as our next stathan.”

“If you are sure,” said Adares. “I do not like to defend your custom. Defend? Is that the word?”

“Offend,” Rus suggested.

“Eh?” said Gunthanaruth. “Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter.”

“It does if I want to learn,” said Adares in a deadpan tone which Rus recognized as an imitation of himself. Gunthanaruth, of course, did not.

“Rus,” said Gunthanaruth’s wife, on his left, “you are not eating.”

“Ah, am I not?”

“No.” She pushed a dish of meat toward him. “Eat.”

He murmured his thanks and made himself eat. He realized he was hungry. The food tasted better than he had expected. The rest of the kahar and the votive boys returned to the hall, costumes discarded, and found seats around the lower hearths.

Gunthanaruth was telling Adares the story of how the Luth came to leave Tios, with special attention to the role Rus had played in it. He was, in fact, telling Adares what had happened to Rus after the siege of Tios. Stealing Rus’s opportunity to tell the story himself.

“He doesn’t remember any of this, mind you,” Gunthanaruth went on. “He struck his head, and that takes away the memory sometimes.”

“I have heard that,” said Adares.

Rus looked up and realized that Adares had been watching him, unnoticed by Gunthanaruth, who was busily eating while he talked.

“But you see,” said the headman, licking his fingers, “how you owe much to that bull and to Rus here. Eh?”

“I do,” said Adares. He was still looking at Rus, his dark eyes unreadable.