The man hesitated at her question, stopping for a mere second before continuing to steadily pull her behind him up the steps, though not ignoring her question.

"To the royal stables," he said softly and flatly,"there's a carriage waiting for you there."

They climbed the fourth and final flight of stairs and came to yet another oversized door, it's edges rimmed with heavy iron. The soldier pushed the door open slowly, peeking around it as he did, and pulled Cecilia through behind him and closed the door gently. They stood in a long and rather bland hallway. The stone floor and walls held no decoration of any sort, only lonesome tinder lanterns which hung down the length of the gray hallway on both sides. A single door stood at the hallway's end, a door of iron bars like those of the dungeon cells. This door led into the northeast section of the North Wing of the castle, the stables were just outside of the East Wing.

The man escorting Cecilia suddenly muffled a curse from his mouth as he saw a guard standing on the opposite side of the door, facing away from them fortunately. 

Cecilia's escort released her and lowered into a half-crouching position, looking around to her with a finger over his lips, indicating silence.
He slowly and precisely crept down the hall, taking each step as carefully as possible, motioning for Cecilia to follow and do as he did.
He continued to stealthily approach the door, the oblivious guard never turning around.

As he finally close in, without hesitation nor warning, the man with Cecilia leapt forward and reached through the bars, wrapping his arms around the red-clad guards' neck and pulling him back hard against the iron door, rattling it slightly. The guard gagged and thrashed wildly, trying to break free from the grizzly soldier's iron grip.
Slowly he stopped his struggle, a ragged wheeze escaping from his mouth as he went limp in the arms of Cecilia's rescuer, who released him and let him drop to the carpeted floor with a muffled [i]thud[/i].

He then craned his neck through the bars and, after ensuring the hallway empty, turned the handle and oushed the door open, shoving the unconscious guardsman away from the door.

"Sorry lad," he mumbled,"wrong place wrong time."