Tengu second. Like that."
"What about you? Can you talk so you fit in with us?"
"Speaking highborn in the wrong place is stupid. In a tavern, I talk like Giorgios, or close. Easy."
"Remember to do it. Gudmund is the trader; I'm his wife. You don't look like us so you're my sister's boy. Rest of Gudmund's decade gives us five guards, four drivers. Poor traders—no servants. Guards are easy—cats. Erik is Gudmund's second and speaks some Tengu, so he can be guard captain. The rest, decide who's what for yourselves. Problems?"
One of the younger cats spoke.
"Suppose I'm a driver. Not from the Vales, what am I? Don't speak much Tengu."
"Good question. We want drivers from somewhere edge of beyond, nobody recognizes what they look like, how they talk. Kiron?"
"Northeast, beyond Belkhan? Lots of hill tribes."
"What do they call themselves?"
"Damned