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miserable and starving, then now was the perfect time to get himself some decent clothes. “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” he muttered, and darted out of hiding to snatch a pair of boots left to dry on a doorstep.
    Safely back under cover, he pulled off the ruins of his soft-soled shoes and pushed his feet into the damp leather of the boots, wrapping the bindings tightly around his legs to keep them on. He stood up, grinning with satisfaction. He was Phillipe the Mouse, the only man who had ever escaped from the dungeons of Aquila. For him, this was child’s play. Quickly he visited another yard, yanking a hooded woolen tunic from a clothesline, rejecting a pair of pants nearly as ragged as his own.
    The tunic engulfed him like a shroud as he pulled it on. Rolling the sleeves up until his hands were free, he made his way on around the edge of the village. Behind a house that was either under construction or collapsing, he found another clothesline with a better-preserved pair of pants on it. He crept into the yard, straightened briefly to inspect them at close range. He made a face. “His tailor could be a better friend to him, but . . .” Shrugging, he jerked the pants from the line. He glanced away suddenly, as he caught the odor of food and woodsmoke in the air. Between the houses he spotted a sagging tavern. Smoke wafted from its chimney. Barely stopping long enough to change his pants, he hurried down the muddy street.
    Villagers sat outside the dark tavern entrance, enjoying the last of the outdoor half of the year. They ate and drank at wooden tables beneath the shelter of a vine-hung lattice in the squalid yard. A crackling blaze in a central firepit took a little of the chill from the air. Phillipe glanced from face to face surreptitiously as he entered the walled tavern yard. The patrons seemed oddly subdued; the range of expressions that he saw ran from mean to indifferent. A sullen barmaid moved silently among the tables. Just beyond the wall a blacksmith worked at a stable forge.
    The patrons went on talking in desultory tones, not even glancing up as Phillipe moved past. No one showed the slightest interest in him, or even his borrowed clothes. At first he was only relieved; but as the moments passed, his ego began to prickle. Surely they couldn’t get that many strangers in this town. He might be small, but he wasn’t invisible. After all, he was Phillipe Gaston, who had escaped from the dungeons of Aquila and lived to tell about it.
    Impulsively, he pulled out his heavy money purse and dropped it on a table in front of the barmaid. “A drink of your most expensive,” he said in a loud voice. “And the same for anyone who’ll join me in a toast!” This time the patrons did glance up at him in curiosity; but only for a moment, before they all turned back to their own conversations.
    The barmaid returned, carrying a heavy earthenware mug. Phillipe looked critically at her as he took the drink from her hand. “Not much of a recommendation.” He jerked his head at the drink. She shrugged and walked away without answering. Phillipe began to wonder uncomfortably whether the whole town was under some kind of spell.
    “Let’s hear your toast,” a voice said suddenly, behind him.
    Phillipe turned. An enormous, surly-looking man wearing a heavy cloak stood up, moving toward him.
    “We drink to a special man, my friend,” Phillipe said recklessly. “Someone who’s been inside the dungeons of Aquila and lived to tell the tale.” He raised his mug and took a long drink.
    The stranger’s mouth quirked in an unpleasant smile. “Then you drink to me, little man. My name is Fornac, and I’ve seen those dungeons.”
    Phillipe looked the other man’s thick-necked, heavily muscled body up and down, nonplussed, and grinned at what he assumed was a joke. “A blacksmith, perhaps. A woodsman, or even a stonecutter. But a prisoner from Aquila?”
    “I didn’t say I was a prisoner.” Fornac