Even so, he did not try to presume on the small change in her attitude. He could tell that she chafed at being kept here, even though she had made no further arguments for him to let her go. But he thought he had also learned something of her temperament during the time they had spent together. While she did not seem afraid to stand up for herself when necessary, she was not the sort of woman who thrived on conflict, and indeed did what she could to avoid it. They achieved a somewhat fragile peace as the week wore on, and he made sure not to upset that peace.
What he did do was continue his explorations in the local area, finding at first a hamlet off to the northwest called Cerrillos, a town even tinier than Madrid. Nothing lived there except a pack of stray dogs, all of whom looked heal
