He looked at her dumbly. He could scarcely credit what he had to tell Chay Zanlan; he had not thought how to word it. “No,” he said. “Is there some way I should address him? Some title he goes by?”

“There are no titles among the gulden, but if you do not know a man, it is considered polite to refer to him by his full name every time you speak to him. As he will address you by yours. And do not come directly to the point. Make civil inquiries first. Ask about his health. Comment on the beauty of the landscape in Geldricht. These show you have an interest in the man, not just the issue.”

“All right. But what I have to tell him is fairly urgent.”

“He will have guessed that,” she said dryly, “by your very appearance at his door.”

“Does he speak bluetongue?”

“Fluently.”

“Once we get to—to the issue—can I speak straight out? Or must I talk in that roundabout way that I have heard the gulden use?”

“No. If you are speaking in bluetongue, be plainspoken. If you were conducting the conversation in goldtongue, you would have to be more careful about how you phrased things, but in your own language, speak as you always would.”

“Why is it,” Nolan asked with a certain exasperation, “that the gulden always speak so obliquely? Do they do it just to be annoying? Because that’s what it seems like.”

Kitrini smiled faintly. “Well, sometimes they do. When they’re dealing with blueskins. But their own speech is very circuitous—and that’s because their language is mined with pitfalls. There is a certain case you use when you’re addressing an inferior, a different one when you’re addressing a superior, a neutral case if you’re addressing someone to whom your relationship is not yet established … Very tricky. Thus, the syntax is designed to be indirect, so that no one is offended by the accidental misuse of a word. There are so many different ways to say ‘you’ in goldtongue that sometimes even I get confused, and I acquired the language as a child. It’s so complicated it’s almost impossible for nonnatives to learn it. Even if you know goldtongue, and you’re conducting delicate business, you’re better off using some other language, because it’s so easy to make a mistake that will have you evicted from the room.”

“Maybe you can stay and make sure I don’t make any grave mistakes.”

“I’m surprised you would ask for my help. You don’t even know me. How do you know I wouldn’t mistranslate on purpose?”

He looked at her a long time. “Because I trust you,” he said at last.

“You have no reason to.”

He spread his hands; a gesture of resignation. “But will you?”