“Where do ye keep your prisoners?” Harcourt asked.
“Ah, so he isnae dead then,” she said as she stood up and started to walk out of the great hall, waving at the two of them to follow her. “I wasnae sure.”
“Nay, he is nay dead,” said Gybbon. “Does have a wee wound that he should probably have tended to though.”
“That might be best,” she said as she led them into the ledger room. “E’en if he is one of Sir Adam’s hired swords, I am nay too fond of letting anyone rot down there.”
She unlocked a door at the far end of the room, one that blended perfectly with the heavy wood panels covering the walls quietly telling the men that it was also the door that led to the bolt-hole. She shivered a little as she lit a torch with Harcourt’s help. The air drifting up from below was cool and a little damp. Annys knew that small shiver was also born of a deep dislike of going down into the bowels of the keep. As she led them down the narrow steps, she repeatedly reminded herself that her fear was no more than a childhood scar on her heart and had no place here. This was not her parents’ holding nor was it as cramped, dirty, or smelly as those few cells her father had kept for the occasional prisoner awaiting the sheriff.
As her right foot touched the floor of the cellar, something ran by and she had to clap a hand over her mouth to hold back a scream. Harcourt reached around and took the torch out of her trembling hand. He lit the torch stuck in a sconce on the wall at the base of the steps and she breathed a sigh of relief. Out of the corner of her eye, between her and the cells, was a mouse.
“Oh, that is nay a rat, thank the Lord,” she muttered only to tense when it started to run again.
A heartbeat later something much larger raced out of the shadows only to disappear into them once more as it ran after the mouse. Annys heard a strangled high-pitched sound escape her and she leapt up on Harcourt. He caught her to him with one strong arm, still holding the torch in his other hand. It took a moment for Annys to calm down enough to begin to feel embarrassed by her fear.
“What was that?” she asked, trying to look around without losing her grip on Harcourt. “A rat?”
“Ah, poor Roban to be so cruelly insulted. Nay, t’was no rat. I cannae see that far down into the shadows but I suspicion there is no mouse now, either.”
Attempting to pretend she had not just climbed the man like a tree in her blind panic, Annys eased her stranglehold on him and put her feet back on the ground. “That was Roban?”
“Aye, it was chasing the mouse.”
“But, how did he get down here?”
“How does the cursed beast keep getting into the keep, into your bedchamber, and solar?”
“Mon’s getting heavy,” said Gybbon. “Can we discuss the cat’s skills later?”
“Oh, Gybbon, I am so sorry.” Annys took one cautious step toward the cell, looking everywhere for any sign of a rat.
“Give me the keys, sweetling,” Harcourt said, and gently pried them from her clenched hand. “Ye can walk behind me. I will protect ye from the wee mousie if that cat hasnae killed it yet.”
Annoyance at his teasing did a lot to banish her fear, as did walking with him between her and anything lurking in the shadows. “The wee mousie doesnae bother me. ’Tis rats I cannae abide. They bite and they gather in the dark like some army so that they can hunt their prey with nay fear.”
“So, ’tis rat armies ye fear. Weel, that does sound frightening. Just where did ye come by the knowledge that rats wander in the dark gathered up in little rat armies?”
Annys softly cursed as they stopped before one of the three cells and she pointed to the key he needed to use to unlock the door. Harcourt stuck the torch he held into another sconce set in the wall next to the door, unlocked it, and helped Gybbon get their unconscious prisoner settled on the narrow bed. They were quick and efficient but, in the short time that the men left her side, her panic began to rise again. Having avoided coming down into the bowels of the keep for any reason, she had forgotten how deep and strong her fear of rats was.