An awareness of your surroundings is difficult to teach, unfortunately. Dain considers Detlef for a moment, head tilted thoughtfully to the side; and then he decides maybe his knowledge can be useful for something after all.

"If you think someone has seen you," he says, "don't act like your guilt is a foregone conclusion. Don't panic, don't invent excuses. Assume they didn't see anything at all. How could they, if there's nothing to see? Give them a smile, or a wave, or ask how their day's going. You would be surprised how many people question the evidence of their own senses if they're not given a reason to believe them. I --" A pause. "-- I probably would have dismissed it myself, when we first met, if you didn't then act like I'd caught you red-handed. If it's unreasonable to expect that you desist completely whenever a Shepherd is in the village, then you should at the very least learn how to manipulate what they see."