To my surprise I touched bottom, for I had deemed that the water was very deep thereby.  Next I found that I was standing on a step of hewn stone, and that a concealed staircase, cut in the rock, goes down, in that place, to the very bottom of the moat; for what purpose I know not, but so it is. {11} I climbed up the steps, shook myself, and wrung the water out of my hair, looking about the while for any sign of my enemy, who had blasphemed against my country and the Maiden.  But there was nothing to see on the water save my own cloth cap floating.  On the other side of the fosse, howbeit, men were launching a pleasure-boat, which lay by a stair at the foot of the further wall of the fosse.  The sight of them made me glad to creep further up the steps that rounded a sharp corner, till I came as far as an iron wicket-gate, which seemed to cut off my retreat.  There I stopped, deeming that the wicket must be locked.  The men were now rowing the boat into the middle of the water, so, without expecting to find the gate open, I tried the handle.  It turned, to my no little amazement; the gate swang lightly aside, as if its hinges had been newly oiled, and I followed the staircase, creeping up the slimy steps in the half-dark.  Up and round I went, till I was wellnigh giddy, and then I tripped and reeled so that my body struck against a heavy ironed door.  Under my weight it yielded gently, and I stumbled across the threshold of a room that smelled strangely sweet and was very warm, being full of the sun, and the heat of a great fire.

“Is that you, Robin of my heart?” said a girl’s voice in French; and, before I could move, a pair of arms were round my neck.  Back she leaped, finding me all wet, and not the man she looked for; and there we both stood, in a surprise that prevented either of us from speaking.

She was a pretty lass, with brown hair and bright red cheeks, and was dressed all in white, being, indeed, one of the laundresses of the castle; and this warm room, fragrant with lavender, whereinto I had stumbled, was part of the castle laundry.  A mighty fire was burning, and all the tables were covered with piles and flat baskets of white linen, sweet with scented herbs.

Back the maid stepped towards the door, keeping her eyes on mine; and, as she did not scream, I deemed that none were within hearing:  wherein I was wrong, and she had another reason for holding her peace.

“Save me, gentle maid, if you may,” I cried at last, falling on my knees, just where I stood:  “I am a luckless man, and stand in much peril of my life.”

“In sooth you do,” she said, “if Robert Lindsay of the Scottish Archers finds you here.  He loves not that another should take his place at a tryst.”

“Maiden,” I said, beginning to understand why the gate was unlocked, and wherefore it went so smooth on its hinges, “I fear I have slain a man, one of the King’s archers.  We wrestled together on the drawbridge, and the palisade breaking, we fell into the moat, whence I clomb by the hidden stairs.”