There were noises from outside, so far, twice. He heard Stanislav’s resonant voice echo down the walls, then fade away into the distance. He was questioning the guard, but getting no answers. Sometime later, a woman’s sobbing came and went. He couldn’t tell who it was from the sound, and the door had no grating. The shadows under the door flickered as they passed, then it was quiet again.

He kept on rubbing. He couldn’t see if it was doing any good, neither could he feel any extra give. Eventually, if he kept it up long enough, one of the cords around his wrists would wear thin, and then he could break it. Once broken, he should be able to work out the loose end and the whole knot should unravel.

This, he knew. He’d learnt this: a little bit of his schooling was useful after all. This was how materials behaved.

His legs started to cramp with the tiny up-down movements he was making. As he stretched his calves, his shoulders flexed, and something snapped.

A third person was led past. Voluble, outraged Romanian infiltrated his cell, and like before, faded away. It ended with a sharp bang – a door being closed, but nearby. If he pressed his ear against the wood, he could still hear the complaints.

He wriggled his wrists, easing them apart, slowly unravelling the cords, pulling and relaxing, twisting and turning. Then his hands were free.

They hurt, not just from their prolonged captivity, but from shielding himself from the kicking he’d received. He had a lump on the back of one hand that hurt exquisitely when he pressed it with his thumb, and now that normal circulation had been restored, it started to throb with every beat of his heart.

All his fingers seemed to work, however. That was something. He squeezed his wrists and felt the deeply indented grooves in his skin made by his bindings.

He looked around his cell again. He had a bag, and a long twisted leather thong, still tied at the loose ends but broken in the middle. He gathered up the thong and put it in the bag, which was rough hessian, like a potato sack.

Without his turban, his comb, his sword, his bracelet, he felt naked. Four of the five symbols of his faith had been stripped from him. Part of him, the zealous part that felt the affront most, wanted to get them back, as soon as possible and at whatever cost. Only then would he be ready and fit to deal with whatever came next.

But the other, more wary part, the whisper from a deeper teaching, was telling him that he should be patient, that he wasn’t going to offend the gurus or go against their teachings if he waited and watched and yes, learned from his captors.