The accent with which David's first question was inflected bore a strong resemblance to the modern Irish language as spoken as a point of heritage in the Republic of Ireland. However, as Nuada speaks he tilts his head slightly in fractional acknowledgment, and he listens to what Nuada is saying, but he also listens--and learns.

When he opens his mouth again he hesitates, like he's about to clear his throat, though he has no breath to clear. Then he speaks: "My grasp is limited, I'm afraid, by my exposure." And his voice has changed: or rather, the way he says things, his pronunciation of the Gaelic now altered to mirror Nuada's own words untainted by the strength of a human accent. "Living languages are my expertise. My only familiarity with the English of Geoffrey Chaucer's time is passing--"

"--but I myghte ye yeven my bet," he switches into the seamless voice of a professor of English, 'British' again. "Had I muche to yeve. I nam of men." Gaelic again: "Middle English would not suit the description of what I am. The language suits the people and the time--not, of course, that you would need me to tell you so."

The one constant in all these shifts has been the pitch of his voice, the same placid, modulated tenor: perhaps something he cannot or will not alter.