Being a Green Mother by Piers Anthony

She wanted to learn this.
    “But I can’t understand your words,” Orb said. “It would really be better if we understood each other.”
    Tinka, having heard the magic, was eager to cooperate. She was not a stupid girl, and soon she was meeting Orb more than half way. She pointed to herself and said her name, then touched her new dress and said a word for it, and a shoe with its word. She was telling Orb her language.
    Orb considered only briefly. It occurred to her that if she wanted to get real information from the Gypsies, it would help to speak their language. It should be as easy to learn Calo as to teach Tinka English.
    There was a great deal more to it, but that was the point of decision. Orb proceeded to learn the Gypsy language, and Tinka learned to invoke the magic orchestra. They went at both projects with almost total immersion, so that in a day Orb knew a few basic words and some of the syntax, and Tinka had succeeded in making the orchestra respond in a minor way. In a week they were communicating freely with each other on both the verbal and musical levels, though with far to go on each.
    Orb discovered that the Gypsy language had no words for what in her own were rendered as “duty” and “possession.” This was because these concepts were foreign to the Gypsy nature. Gypsies felt something like duty only in the manner they honored their own culture, and they owned only what they wore and used. They had no vested property, no estates, no mortgages; they acceded to such things only in deference to the demands of the other cultures with which they interacted.
    This explained a lot. Others might call the Gypsies thieves—but how could there be theft, when there was no ownership? Others thought them shiftless—but that only meant that the Gypsies felt no need to do anything other than survive. To hold a regular job, to serve in a nation’s armed forces—this sort of thing simply did not relate to theGypsy nature. The bad qualities the Gypsies were judged to have were mostly the misunderstandings of outsiders. Gypsies did have values, and these, when understood, did honor to them. Music, joy, sharing, love, loyalty to one’s own—the Gypsies were like one huge, scattered family, and Orb related to that. She had always wanted to belong—to something.
    Tinka stayed with Orb, at Orb’s expense. It was obvious that the Gypsies had no money; this was the only way it could be done. Orb didn’t mind; she had never dreamed she would be in such a situation, but she felt really fulfilled when she worked with the Gypsy girl, making steady progress. The quest for the Llano could wait long enough for this.
    One day the urchin showed up again. “Nicolai says come to the dance.”
    “Dance?” Orb asked blankly.
    But Tinka came alive. “We must go,” she said in Calo. “I know where.”
    Satisfied with that, the urchin departed. Now Tinka became the instructor, getting Orb properly dressed for the occasion. This was a special challenge, as Orb had no wardrobe of her own, only the magic cloak. The girl had to describe the necessary costume, and Orb asked questions about detail, and finally they got it right. Orb now looked very much like a Gypsy woman, and the mirror told her that this guise became her.
    They went out, as evening closed. Tinka led the way, but was guided by Orb’s cautions about steps, buildings, and traffic.
    Hundreds of people were gathered at the central village square, dancing in pairs, snapping their fingers with marvelous precision. The beat was so accurate that Orb suspected that some of her own magic ran in the blood of the Gypsies—for indeed, these were Gypsies, revealing themselves to her at last. She realized that Tinka was her pass; she had come with the blind girl, and the girl was obviously in good health and spirits. Perhaps Nicolai had spread the word—or perhaps it had been enough just to be seen with Tinka, on those prior days. Certainly it was no liability to be seen