Paris and Calais
[S: I figure that Calais and Paris _must_ talk more often than we've recorded. This could have happened any evening on the walk from the palace to Jouet square when Calais would tell about his day and Paris would tell about hers. Any ordinary day when they didn't have more pressing plans to discuss.]
Calais announced, pride in his voice,"... and Irolo at last said 'bevel' for my handling of the task!"
[D: It does seem likely that by now Calais would've happened to repeat one or more conversations to Paris word for word in the course of telling her about his day, so some of the odd words have probably come up. (And he might've even done some imitation of the accent at such times.) Besides "bevel", other odd words include "wunderbar" and "viesel", for a vice (the workshop kind). Why, has Paris bumped into Irolo in a back-in-time and you're wondering if she realises who he is?]
[S: No, Paris has never met Irolo, but -- putting such information from Calais together with what she has learned from the Prince and what she learned 'way back in Lions -- Paris could and would have made a comment.]
[D: Yes, see the 99-11-04 notes in which Irolo spoke of the "Gearheads", whom Calais guessed were Know-Men (and Irolo was pleased that Calais knew of them, though he didn't confirm or deny that that's what the Gearheads are). It seems clear that Irolo is one of that brotherhood, so it would make sense for him to be a Know-Man. Calais sort of chalked it up as a possibility, but with no real idea what a Know-Man looks like he didn't pursue it ]
[S] It was not actually clear IMO that the Gearheads were/are all Know Men, particularly when it seems possible that Calais could be sponsored to their membership. It is, in fact, vaguely possible that Irolo is _not_ a Know Man but, rather a native of the Lyons area who apprenticed early and long to a Know Man. However, as I am under the impression that Pat has reserved the accent and the dialectical words as distinguishing features, both Sheryl and Paris feel comfortable with Paris' assessment.]
[D: I agree, it's clear that the Gearheads accept non-KnowMen, but I agree that Irolo's accent might indicate that he is one.]
Paris commented, "It sounds as if your teacher Irolo might be a Know Man himself."
Calais asked what she knew about the Know-Men.
Paris answered, "What I learned in Lions is, basically, what I know about Know Men. They immigrated into the Lions area from far beyond the mountains through the passage we followed to meet Fortitude and her lion, long, long before the people of the Isles conquered Tara. The librarian of Lions is a Know Man although I did not understand that at the time. I should have, though; his speech patterns matched closely that peculiar book wherein I found the clues that led to our finding the passage. The Know Men are very clever at the construction of things -- which makes a lot of sense when I think of Irolo as the Duke's artificier. There was a peculiar ticking box in the library at Lyons that contained a bird-thing that shrieked at me on occasion. Very un-nerving at first. I think that box was of Know Men construction."
"I remember that passage from the book at Lions," Calais mused. "Irolo doesn't talk like that; he has an accent, but he doesn't leave out words or turn his sentences inside out that way. Still, I suppose the book could be the result of translating too literally from the Know-Men's own language or something, and Irolo's gotten used to speaking our language since then. How did the librarian sound?"
[S: Occasionally like Yoda. :-)] Paris replied, "Irolo has probably been a long time away from his own people, to be so entrenched in the Duke's trust and service as he is. The librarian wasn't nearly as bad as the book although, sometimes his verbs tended to come at the end of his sentences. And 'bevel' was the word he used for approval."
Calais added, "But that ticking box you described sounds exactly like the device Irolo showed me. He said you have to be able to build something like that to be able to apply for membership to the brotherhood. Still, as you just said, just because he's a member doesn't mean he has to be a Know-Man."
Paris, interested, "What was it? I don't think it was an alarm against intruders; I had the librarian's permission to be where I was, reading what I was reading."
Calais explained. "Well, it had numbers on it, like some of the fancier sundials. And from taking it apart I'm pretty sure that the ticking part is designed to be at very regular intervals. So I think it's a way of keeping track of time."
She paused, curiously. "Do you want to apply for membership in that group, Calais? I can't think that you would develop such an accent just from associating with Irolo. Accents usually develop when one is very young; that is why I think Irolo would be an actual Know Man. Not but what," she grinned at him, "you're not pretty good at mimicking accents when you want to."
Calais grinned back, and replied in a particularly thick accent, "For membership, it is not needed, I think, to develop the accent." He switches back to his normal voice. "Though learning the Know-Men tongue might still be a good idea. The way a language says things can sometimes tell you something about how the speaker thinks. For instance, I don't know of any way in Fell Tongue to say 'please' -- the closest I can think of is really more like 'I beg for mercy'. [There! I'll establish this conversation as taking place _before_ the trip to the giants, where we met 'polite orcs'.] So it may be that Know-Men speech would give insights as to how they think about artificing or other things.
"But to answer your question, I think I would like to join that group some day. But I think I'll have to get a lot better, first."
"Try 'the accent to develop' and I think you'll be closer to the native form," Paris laughed. "Just that says something, perhaps: lay out all the pieces first, then apply the action. That seems to be how the language is structured." She pauses. "You know, Lorraine's pretty good at mimicking accents too. I wonder if she was interested in acting once upon a time. Not that I expect you to know, I was just thinking aloud," Paris smiled. [This must have been a pretty good day; Paris seems in a better mood than we usually catch her in. :-)]
"Knowmen" copyright 1999 D.Woods & S.Knowles. The contents of this site are copyright 2004 Sheryl A. Knowles unless otherwise specified. All rights reserved.