'No need to look like a calf that's seen the butcher's knife. The man's not for you, it's a boy he wants. Come on, hurry up. Ma will kill me if the boy isn't ready.'
Elena scarcely had time to pull her shoes on before Luce was tugging her out of the door and towards one of the upstairs chambers.
'It's Finch,' Luce grumbled. 'He won't get dressed. And he won't let me dress him neither. If I try to touch him he goes rigid and starts shrieking. If I fetch Ma or Talbot they'll take a switch to him, but he trusts you. I thought you could persuade him.'
'You're dressing Finch for this man?' Elena grabbed her arm. 'No, not him, please, Luce. He's so little. You can't make him do it. Send one of the other boys.'
'Ma's orders. She's chosen Finch.' She smiled ruefully. 'You know how it is, Holly. He has to work, same as the rest of us.'
Luce marched along a passage with Elena scuttling behind her. Then, opening a heavy wooden door, she pulled Elena inside.
In the centre of the room was a huge wooden bed curved up high at either end. A wooden cupboard leaned drunkenly against one wall and against the other was a long table on which stood a flagon and goblets, together with platters of spitted duck, hare and heron and a glistening haunch of venison. Crowning the table was a roasted hog's head with savage fangs, its face blackened with grease and soot to resemble the coarse dark coat it wore when alive.
The walls of the chamber were painted with scenes of hunting. Bulls were being slaughtered with spears. Bears pawed wildly at the arrows sticking out of them, and men and women dressed in skins cowered from the swords that were hacking at them. Each of the triumphant hunters was naked, their muscles taut as they ran towards their victims, their scarlet mouths wide with the cries of battle.
Even as Elena stepped forward, she was aware of a strong animal stench filling the room, overpowering the smell of the roasted meat. With a shudder she remembered the creatures in the cellar. The stench was not nearly as strong or rank in here, but there was no mistaking some creature was or had been in the room.
In the same instant as the thought struck her, Elena heard a deep snarling. Before she could locate where it was coming from, she glimpsed a movement as something hurtled towards her from behind the bed. She flattened herself against the wall as the creature sprang up, only to be dragged back in mid-air by the chain around its neck. It fell with a heavy crash on the floor before scrambling to its feet, glowering and panting. The creature was black as the Devil's hounds, with short, close fur and eyes ringed with yellow. It looked for all the world like a cat, but that was impossible, for it was the size of a wolfhound. The muscles on its shoulders rippled under the fur. After a moment or two it slunk back behind the bed.
'What is that?' Elena whispered, her heart still pounding from the shock.
Luce wrinkled her nose. 'Ma calls it her witch's cat. But if that's a cat, the mice that brute hunts must be the size of bloody badgers. It's all right though, the beast can't get free. That chain would hold a charging boar, as I keep trying to tell him.'
She gestured to the corner of the room furthest away from the cat, and for the first time Elena realized there was someone else in the room. Finch sat in the far corner of the chamber, his legs drawn up to his chin and his head buried in his arms.
'He's got to get dressed in that. Ma's orders.'
She pointed to the floor where a long drape of dark fur lay crumpled. The hair was dense and short, and it looked as if it had been made from the skins of numerous rats sewn together.
Elena crept across the room with her back pressed against the wall to where the little boy sat, and squatted beside him, stroking his hair. She kept a nervous eye on the bed, but the creature remained crouched behind it, though she could hear the rasp of its hot breath as it panted.
'Are you scared, Finch?' Elena asked, her own voice none too steady. 'Is that why you won't get dressed?'