She dropped her eyes and seized my hand. I almost jerked it away.
"It will look better if I enter leading you."
I swallowed my comments, and followed her, like Samson in Gaza.
Inside, my last thought met with a strange correspondence. The Matriarch's quarters were a rather abstract version of what I imagine the tents of the tribes of Israel to have been like. Abstract, I say, because it was all frescoed brick, peaked like a huge tent, with animal-skin representations like gray-blue scars, that looked as if they had been lai on the walls with a palette knife.
The Matriarch, M'Cwyie, was short, white-haired, fifty-ish, and dressed like a Gypsy queen. With her rainbow of voluminous skirts she looked like an inverted punch bowl set atop a cushion.
Accepting my obeisances, she regarded me as an owl might a rabbit. The lids of those black, black eyes jumped upwards as she discovered jny perfect accent. —The tape recorder Betty had carried on her interviews had done its part, and I knew the language reports from the first two expeditions, verbatim. I'm all hell when it comes to picking up accents.
"You are the poet?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Recite one of your poems, please."
"I'm sorry, but nothing short of a thorough translating job would do justice to your language and my poetry, and I don't know enough of your language yet."
"Oh?"
"But I've been making such translations for my own amusement, as an exercise in grammar," I continued. "I'd be honored to bring a few of them along one of the times that I come here."
"Yes. Do so."
Score one for me!
She turned to Betty.
"You may go now."
Betty muttered the parting formalities, gave me a strange sidewise look, and was gone. She apparently had expected to stay and "assist" me. She wanted a piece of the glory, like everyone else. But I was the Schliemann at this Troy, and there would be only one name on the Association report!
M'Cwyie rose, and I noticed that she gained very little height by standing. But then I'm six-six and look like a poplar in October: thin, bright red on top, and towering above everyone else.
"Our records are very, very old," she began. "Betty says that your word for their age is 'millennia.' "
I nodded appreciatively.
"I'm very eager to see them."
"They are not here. We will have to go into the Temple—they may not be removed."
I was suddenly wary.
"You have no objections to my copying them, do you?"
"No. I see that you respect them, or your desire would not be so great."
"Excellent."
She seemed amused. I asked her what was funny.
"The High Tongue may not be so easy for a foreigner to learn."
It came through fast.
No one on the first expedition had gotten this close. I had had no way of knowing that this was a double-language deal—a classical as well as a vulgar. I knew some of their Prakrit, now I had to learn all their Sanskrit.
"Ouch! and damn!"
"Pardon, please?"
"It's non-translatable, M'Cwyie. But imagine yourself having to learn the High Tongue in a hurry, and you can guess at the sentiment."
She seemed amused again, and told me to remove my shoes.
She guided me through an alcove .. .
... and into a burst of Byzantine brilliance!
No Earthman had ever been in this room before, or I would have heard about it.
Carter, the first expedition's linguist, with the help of one Mary Allen, M.D., had learned all the grammar and vocabulary that I knew while sitting cross-legged in the antechamber.
We had had no idea this existed. Greedily, I cast my eyes about. A highly sophisticated system of esthetics lay behind the decor. We would have to revise our entire estimation of Martian culture.
For one thing, the ceiling was vaulted and corbeled; for another, there were side-columns with reverse flutings; for another—oh hell! The place was big. Posh. You could never have guessed it from the shaggy outsides.
I bent forward to study the gilt filigree on a ceremonial table. M'Cwyie seemed a bit smug at my intentness, but I'd still have hated to play poker with her.
The table was loaded with books.
With my toe, I traced a mosaic on the floor.
"Is your entire city within this one building?"
"Yes, it goes far back into the mountain."
"I see," I said, seeing nothing.
I couldn't ask her for a conducted tour, yet.
She moved to a small stool by the table.
"Shall we begin your friendship with the High Tongue?"