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count too much on my admirable conscience,” I warned him. “I might be biding my time, debating exactly the right moment for my flight. It has happened before—any number of Hunters could tell you that. If they could still talk.”
    “Well, I would not wait too long on choosing that moment,” he answered dryly. “Another moment approaches, one that concerns you greatly.” And though we were both maintaining a jocular tone, I noticed the next morning that the young guards in the guest wing had been replaced by older, harder-looking monks who carried fewer weapons—some none at all, like the Hunters.
    I made my first attempt to escape during full daylight, reasoning that while the guard on my cell was always strengthened at night, even doubled, a certain confident laxness prevailed during the day. I have also always believed that an air of authority is everything; thus, when a guard who had just arrived at his post saw me strolling confidently down the corridor, beaming as benignly as some visiting dignitary, he actually let me come within reach before it occurred to him to try to cry out and brace himself to repel boarders. He never got a sound out of his mouth, though I am glad I did not have to kill him. I dropped him sleeping in a corner and moved on, sauntering straight ahead, as though I had every right to be doing so. A very old trick, but it works more often than you might expect.
    It got me through three guards, and very nearly as far as the big double doors before a dozen monks fell on me from all sides, putting paid to that particular getaway. As before, they made every effort not to damage me, but simply bore me down with the weight and mass of themselves. They returned me to my cell, outside which the first guard was sitting up, looking dazed and reproachful. I apologized as I was rushed by him, but we never really established a trustful relationship after that.
    “I am pleased to see you in condition for such a gallant and stylish endeavor,” Master Caldrea said, “but I did warn you that it would be useless. As every other will be.”
    “Whatever festivity you and your Hunters may have planned for me,” I assured him, “I will not be in attendance. You will have to send a messenger to inform me of the outcome.” Master Caldrea smiled without replying.
    Maintaining form, I made two more straightforward efforts to escape, both of which failed resoundingly. The first involved me dressing in a guard’s clothing, over the strenuous—and rather too loud—objections of the guard. The second try had to do with my discovery—thanks to the shy little kitchen boy who came every evening to clear away my food tray—of a small hatchway a few yards down the corridor, through which it was loaded onto a belt that was then wound on rollers back to the kitchen. It is still something of a sore point that I would have easily gotten away unseen if I had known to wait even half an hour for the brother on the night shift to close up the kitchen and go to bed. But he happened to be an extremely conscientious monk, who liked to see the belt completely clear of dirty dishes and utensils before he considered his work done. I crawled out of that hatch to a grinning welcome, and was cursing myself—not my captors—all the way back to my cell.
    Actually, it was a different cell this time: one without a mattress of any sort, nor any light, except when the door was opened. This did not happen, as a rule, more than once a day, even on the occasions when Master Caldrea brought my single meal himself. Despite the severity of my punishment, he could not resist praising my inventiveness, saying that no prisoner had ever thought of such an attempt, and that he almost wished that mine had succeeded. “Not that it would have made any difference in the long run—but all the same, I do wish you and I were to have a bit more time together. It would have been pleasant. Ah, well, the moon is the moon.” With that, he bowed, as he