With a cry, Finch dropped the rush candle on the floor and rushed to hide behind Elena, clinging to her skirts.
'You're wise to hide from me, Finch,' Ma said sternly. You have not been given permission to come here.'
The boy gave a little whimper. Elena slid her arm behind her and held his hand.
'It's not the child's fault. I'm to blame. I made him bring me.' She tried to sound defiant, but her breathing was still ragged from the shock of seeing the creatures.
Ma smiled, as if she didn't believe a word. 'You want to be careful down here.'
She pointed to the great dark hole in the sloping cellar floor. 'Bottomless, that well is. They say the merchant who built this place thought his young bride was spending too much time with her confessor. He reasoned she couldn't have that many past sins to tell, so she must be committing new ones and he knew it wasn't with him. So he caught the young priest and brought him down here to do a little confessing of his own.
'He lowered the priest into the hole, to loosen his tongue, but when he came back a few hours later and hauled up the rope the merchant found it had snapped in two. The merchant's wife was beside herself when she heard the priest had drowned and threw herself down the hole after him. At least, that's what the merchant told everyone, which, like he said, proves they were guilty. But who's to say for sure, for their bones are still down there.'
Elena shuddered and Finch pressed himself into her skirts more tightly.
Ma watched them, a slight smile of satisfaction flitting across her mouth. 'I prefer it that no one comes here, for I would hate my poor creatures to be teased or goaded. But since you are here already you may as well see them.'
She raised the lantern and Elena saw that in her other hand she carried a basket. As she approached the wolf's cage, his snarls changed to excited little yelps. Ma handed the basket to Elena. Elena, thinking it light, having seen Ma carry it easily with no effort, staggered under the unexpected weight of it.
Ma pulled out a raw and bloody shank of mutton from the basket and tossed it over the top of the bars. The wolf seized it and dragged it off to the far corner of the little cage, where it began to gnaw at the bone.
Ma turned around to the lion whose pacing had become even more excited. It rubbed its shaggy head against the bars and Ma stroked the rough mane before tossing a haunch to it too. The great cat lay down with the meat between its paws, licking the flesh with a great rasping tongue.
'That is a lion?' Elena whispered. 'But I've seen lions on banners and they don't look like that.'
'The golden lion, no doubt, King Richard's standard.' Ma chuckled. 'Men have a way of making the creatures they fear into gods. They put them on pillars, cover them with gold, worship them and by doing so think they have tamed them, but they will not be tamed. Beasts and monsters, God or the
Devil, they're all the same, my darling, and they have only one purpose, to kill and destroy. Don't you ever forget that.'
Ma led the way further round the curving chamber. Beyond were more cages. An eagle flapped its useless wings in one, in another a brown bear sat upright on its haunches, its piggy little eyes staring with malice at them as they passed. Some of the creatures crouched in the shadows at the back of the cages, their fur as black as the tunnel itself, and Ellen could see little of them except their glowing eyes. But to each one Ma gave a portion of raw meat.
'Why do you keep them?' Elena asked.
'They're my guardians, my pets. But they have other uses. They earn their keep as we all do here. But I am fond of them and they are fond of me; they have to be for I am their god. I bring them food and water and they know it. Who knows,' she chuckled, 'maybe when I am late in coming they pray to me. Panem nostrum quotidianum da nobis hodie — give us this day our daily bread.'
There was one more hunk of meat in the basket and Ma lifted her lantern and led the way a little further on. The creature in