Ma standing in front of him at this door. She'd stood on tiptoe, reaching up for something. He remembered that. Was it a hidden key?
Raffe groped back and forth along the door until he felt a small hole. It came back to him now. She'd used a knife. He withdrew his own knife from his belt and slid the point inside until it hit metal. Wriggling the blade, he managed to slide it under the metal bar and felt the latch rise on the other side. He pushed the door and it swung open.
It was as well that he'd had to bend double and almost crawl through the doorway, otherwise he would have surely cracked his head open on the stone archway on the other side, but once under it, he could just about stand upright at the top of the stairs. The stench of animal piss, rotting meat and dampness hit him with the force of a siege engine, making his eyes sting and water. Surely it hadn't been this foul before? He groped his way down, sliding his hand along the dripping walls until, half-way down, he reached the torch burning on the wall and removed it from the bracket.
As he passed each cage, the animals snarled or growled, some shrinking back from the blazing torch, others hurling themselves at the bars, their sharp teeth glistening in the flames. How many times had they beaten themselves on those bars over the long days and nights that stretched together to form interminable years? And yet they had still not learned that the iron would not yield. Was it impotent rage or unshakeable hope that made them do it, Raffe wondered, or perhaps making humans flinch just amused them.
He threaded his way past the animals, keeping to the middle of the passageway so as not to brush against any of the cages. He knew what such beasts were capable of. Behind him he could hear the rasp of hot, fetid breath and the click of sharp claws on iron as the beasts restlessly prowled up and down in their straw. The heavy animal odours of fur and dung filled his nostrils and burned the back of his throat. He closed his eyes, wondering just how long it would take a man to get used to these smells and sounds and know it for his home.
Opening his eyes again, Raffe edged forward until the light from the torch fell on the last cage. Its occupant was awake, sitting up, no doubt roused by the disturbance of the beasts and the flames moving towards him. He stared at Raffe, blinking in the sudden light. His expression revealed no recognition, only curiosity. He lifted his arm, brushing the wild hair back from his eyes with his stump, and tilted his face up. He shuffled forward on his knees, dragging the twisted remains of his legs behind him, holding out his mutilated arms as if he was begging, though Raffe noticed he didn't extend them through the bars, as if afraid that someone might hurt him. The bars were as much his protection as his cage.
Raffe crouched down until he was on a level with the man.
'You know me?' he asked Softly.
The man blinked his startlingly blue eyes, holding out his arms again, this time more insistently, but with no sign of recognition in his face. Raffe cursed himself that he hadn't brought food. Then he remembered the leather bottle he always carried at his waist. He felt for it. He'd drunk most of the contents on the journey here, but there was a little wine left. He took out the wooden stopper and held the mouth of the bottle through the bars. For a while the man in the cage simply stared at it as if he had forgotten what the object was.
'Drink,' Raffe urged.
Slowly the man shuffled forward again, finally putting his lips to the bottle. Raffe tilted it and the liquid ran down, making the man choke and cough, but when Raffe tried to ease the flow, he grasped it with both stumps, pulling it towards him and sucking and sucking until finally convinced there was not a drop more left inside, then he it let go.
Raffe squatted down on the damp flags of the cellar opposite the cage. For a long time the two men stared at each other.
'Do you remember me?' Raffe asked again, searching for the merest flicker of recognition, but the man's face was expressionless. He offered