was telling Elena to back out as quickly as she could, but she firmly told herself that if a little boy was bold enough to go down those steps, there couldn't be anything much to fear at the bottom.
Elena pressed her hand to the wall to steady herself as they descended. The rough stones were dripping with water. They passed beneath the flames of the torch and at last she felt solid ground beneath her feet. They were in a long, low chamber that curved away to the left. The flames from the torch on the stairs barely illuminated the first few yards. The flagged floor tilted slightly towards a hole in the floor on one side of the chamber steps, more than big enough for a man to climb through, and the moisture from the walls ran in little rivulets towards it, falling in a pattern of loud, resonant drips into the dark maw below.
But it was not the sound of the dripping that captured Elena's attention. She could hear something moving beyond the curve of the cellar wall, as if someone was shuffling through straw.
'Is there someone here?' she whispered to Finch.
She was answered by a low, deep-throated growl coming from somewhere ahead. She started back, but Finch was quicker.
He darted past her and back up the stairs and, for a moment, Elena feared this was a trick, and he had lured her down to lock her in, but moments later he returned with a lit rush candle in his hand, carefully shielding the dim light from the draught of his movement with his other hand. He walked a few paces around the curve of the wall and held up the pitifully feeble light.
'Look there.'
The light did not penetrate far, but something caught it. Two great glowing spots blazed out in the darkness and, with an icy rush of fear, Elena realized they were a pair of eyes. The deep-throated growl rumbled again, echoing through the chamber, only to be answered by a snarl from somewhere deeper in the shadows.
Elena gasped in horror and tried to run towards the stairs. She slipped on the slimy wet flags and, tumbling over, landed in a heap. She scrambled to her feet, trying to catch the boy's hand and pull him up the stairs, but Finch resisted.
'But you haven't seen them properly yet. It's all right; they can't harm you. They're in cages. See?'
He edged forward and Elena, her legs trembling, followed him, her hand gripping the small boy's shoulder ready to pull him back out of harm's way. Finch swung the flame to his left. A stout iron cage was set against the oozing wall and inside a large creature was padding back and forth in the small space. The floor of the cage was littered with large gnawed bones and, by the stench of it, a good deal of dung.
Elena moved closer, trying to make out the grey shape in the smoking light of the rush candle. It turned its head towards her and snarled, baring its sharp white teeth. Elena had seen such a beast only once before in her life, and then it was dangling lifeless from a hunter's pole. As a child she'd been disappointed, for the dead creature had looked not much more fearful than a large dog, but now, as she saw the living beast and watched the muscles rippling in its shoulder, smelt its hot breath and felt the amber glow of its eyes fix on hers, she understood for the first time why men shuddered at the mention of a wolf.
Without warning the wolf hurled itself at the iron bars. Elena stumbled backwards into something hard. She felt something snatch at her skirts and whipped round, almost falling again as she found herself staring into a second cage. She had never seen anything like it before. The creature reared up roaring, its massive paws clawing at bars inches from her face. The great head of the beast was surrounded by a mane of yellowish-brown fur. A long, black-tipped tail lashed angrily back and forth. Elena ran from between the two cages and flung herself back against the wall of the cellar, her heart pounding in her ears.
'What is that beast?'
'That is a lion,' a voice answered, but it wasn't Finch's.
The tiny figure of Ma Margot was standing at the foot of the stairs. She held a lantern in her hand. In the light shining up from below her face became a grinning