They walked for about 2 minutes. Will coughed quietly as the air grew thick with dust. He let his hand trail on the wall and pulled it away quickly. There was dust caked on his hand and had clouded up, covering his face and hair. He noticed that Pauline's gown had gone from white to gray with streaks of dirt. But she had avoided getting as dirty as he had. They went down a great many staircases but they eventually reached a small wooden door that Pauline stopped in front of. Will turned the knob and opened the door. Inside were tall shelves stacked close together with bottles, casks, and barrels of wine and other types of alcohol. The room went pretty far back, with probably at least 50 racks of wine, beers, ales, and other stronger drinks. Looming in the front of the room was the huge double doors with chains wrapped securely around the knobs and padlocked. Near this was a table and some benches, put there for when guests would come wine tasting. Will scanned the room to make sure they were alone, and then grabbed Pauline's hand and lead her into the room. He took her over to the benches and they both sat down together for a moment in silence. Then Pauline felt a stickiness on her fingertips, glanced down, and realized there was blood on her hands, but it wasn't hers. She looked sharply at Will's hands. "Will, are you bleeding?"

"What? No I don't think so..." Will looked down at his hands. They had cuts on them and they were oozing a little blood. He reached down and pulled up the leg of his pants to reveal some bruising and cuts along the inner sides of his right calf, but his left calf was just bruised. Pauline pursed her lips and stood. She walked over to a cupboard and flung open the doors to reveal some linen cloths normally used for chilling wine. She grabbed a large stack of them and brought them back over to Will and helped him wrap up his hands and leg. He pulled his pants back over the bandage and flexed his hands gratefully. "Thanks, but really, I'm alright."

Pauline raised her eyebrows skeptically. "Are you sure about that? Do you want to explain everything that happened in detail? Then we will decide if you really are alright."

Will started at the beginning, describing the main hall, the soldiers, the interrogation, and the startling discovery of seven Genovesans.

"Seven..." Pauline whispered thoughtfully.

Will continued with the soldier escaping, him following it, and everything after that.

"So, let me get this straight. You sent this soldier off with a message for Halt. Then the Genovesan comes into the room and you roll under the table. The Genovesan paces around for a while, you grab the bottom of the table and hold yourself perfectly still for at least 3 minutes, even when he screams at you. By some small miracle he doesn't see you, and then you get back to the tapestry." Pauline smiled proudly at Will. "I've never, in all my years of knowing you, gotten the chance to work with you. I have worked with many a Ranger in my time, and let me say that only a few could have pulled that off."

Will flushed a little, and said, "Thanks, Pauline, really, it was nothing."

She raised her eyebrows. "It was a lot more than nothing. So when did you hurt your hands and leg?"

Will frowned thoughtfully. "I think I probably cut them when I was clinging to the bottom of the table for so long. I probably held on to the metal so hard that I cut my skin."

She winced. "It probably hurts. Here, I'll go open one of these bottles and get you something to drink to help with the pain." She got up, grabbed a wine tasting glass, and went over to one of the wine flasks. She pulled out the cork and let a few mouthfuls of wine trickle into the cup. Suddenly she heard a small noise behind her. She dropped the cup and whirled around, whipping her knife out of her sheath in her dress. But Will had already heard the noise, and had the gleaming blade of his saxe pressed against the intruder's chest.

"Wait - wait - " the person said in a gruff, deep voice. The person was most definitely a man, and a large one at that. He was built up and wore a long dark gray cloak with the hood pulled up. He was pushed up against the wall by Will, who pressed his knife deeper into the broad sternum of the man.

"Quiet. Drop your sword on the floor now," Will said softly. The man fell silent and dropped his sword on the ground. "Now, who are you? And how did you get in here?"

The man said, "Wait, Will, it's - it's me - "

"I didn't ask for my name, I asked for yours." Will said softly, pushing the knife in deeper, slicing the front of the cloak.

Then the man laughed. "Rodney. Will, it's me. It's Rodney."

Will stood there for a moment, his narrowed at the cloaked figure, then said passionately, "My God, Rodney." He immediately sheathed his knife and stepped back as the man lowered his hood, revealing the dirty but smiling face of Sir Rodney. "I don't know who I thought you were, but I sure wasn't expecting you."

Pauline stepped in front of Will and shook hands with him, and then lead him over to the chairs and they all sat. "Rodney. I heard from Will that he hadn't seen you in the audience hall, and I hoped you had escaped. It's good to see you safe, and - well, mostly clean. What happened to you?"

"Yes, it's good to see you, Rodney, but what happened?" Will said.

"Well..." Rodney walked back over to the cask of wine and filled some new cups for himself, Pauline, and Will. "I was just in the courtyard, overseeing a group of trainees for my intermediate class when all the portcullises started shutting. Now of course that means there's an emergency, so I evacuated my classes out a back exit. I ran up towards the Baron's office to find him, but he wasn't there." He took the three filled cups back over to where Will and Pauline were sitting and gave them their drinks. "Next thing I knew there were packs of soldiers I didn't know running down the hall after me. I cut a few of them down and ran. I tried to leave but the exits were shut and guarded, so I hid in here via the linen closet on the landing." He took a large gulp of his wine.

Will leaned forward a bit. "But why didn't you come out when we came in?"

"I was way in the back of the cellar, and I couldn't tell who you were. Of course it didn't help that I could barely see you, Will. You sort of merged in and out of view as you entered the cellar, and I didn't think about the fact that it could have been you or Halt."
Will grinned sheepishly. "Sorry, can't really help it."

Rodney shrugged. "It's alright. I didn't even see Pauline, since I was focused on you, Will. I could hear you talking, but you were still to quiet to understand, so I waited. As soon as I recognized Pauline's" - he nodded at her, "voice, I came up behind you. You know the rest."
Will's brow furrowed thoughtfully. "So you managed to hide. Did they recognize you when they saw you?"

"Nope. I pulled my cloak on." Rodney tipped his glass back and finished off his wine, then got up to go refill his glass from a different cask at the end of the cellar.

Will turned to Pauline and smiled faintly at her. "Speaking of subterfuge, when I got back to the tapestry and you weren't there, I was so worried..."

"Yes, but I had to move. It was too exposed and you were gone for too long." Pauline sipped her wine, glad for the smooth, strong taste wetting her throat, which was dry from the long nerve-wracking minutes of waiting for Will.

"Looking back on it, it was irrational panic. I think was just strung up too tightly," said Will.

"Strung up too tightly indeed," Pauline smiled, her eyes glittering with humor, but then became serious again. "What are you planning on doing now?"

"Well..." Will thought for a moment, organized his thoughts, and then continued. "Looking at the hall, right now our priority should be to get most of the people out of there, which would be mostly castle staff and soldiers. They should be the easiest to get out, since the Genovesans don't have any real reason for keeping them hostage other than for ransom or bargaining. And of course, we have Sir Rodney."

He paused again, and Pauline urged him on. "So how will we do that?"

"Well, I was thinking about a decoy..." He looked meaningfully at Pauline, and she smiled widely at Will.

"This is going to be so much fun," she said softly.

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Little shorter this time... More coming soon! I'm almost done writing this short story, and I need ideas for another! Need suggestions! Thank you all so much for reading, please vote and comment! Love you all. ;)