d so he got a place in the castle to wash the dishes. And he
waited and watched, and he listened and said nothing, and he hid in dark
places, and woke up at night and looked out, and he heard things and he
saw things that he thought were very strange. And he was so sly that he
told the girl that waited on the lady that he was really a young man,
and that he had dressed up as a girl because he loved her so very much
and wanted to be in the same house with her, and the girl was so pleased
that she told him many things, and he was more than ever certain that
the Lady Avelin was deceiving him and the others. And he was so clever,
and told the servant so many lies, that one night he managed to hide in
the Lady Avelin's room behind the curtains. And he stayed quite still
and never moved, and at last the lady came. And she bent down under the
bed, and raised up a stone, and there was a hollow place underneath, and
out of it she took a waxen image, just like the clay one that I and
nurse had made in the brake. And all the time her eyes were burning like
rubies. And she took the little wax doll up in her arms and held it to
her breast, and she whispered and she murmured, and she took it up and
she laid it down again, and she held it high, and she held it low, and
she laid it down again. And she said, 'Happy is he that begat the
bishop, that ordered the clerk, that married the man, that had the wife,
that fashioned the hive, that harboured the bee, that gathered the wax
that my own true love was made of.' And she brought out of an aumbry a
great golden bowl, and she brought out of a closet a great jar of wine,
and she poured some of the wine into the bowl, and she laid her mannikin
very gently in the wine, and washed it in the wine all over. Then she
went to a cupboard and took a small round cake and laid it on the
image's mouth, and then she bore it softly and covered it up. And Sir
Simon, who was watching all the time, though he was terribly frightened,
saw the lady bend down and stretch out her arms and whisper and sing,
and then Sir Simon saw beside her a handsome young man, who kissed her
on the lips. And they drank wine out of the golden bowl together, and
they ate the cake together. But when the sun rose there was only the
little wax doll, and the lady hid it again under the bed in the hollow
place. So Sir Simon knew quite well what the lady was, and he waited and
he watched, till the time she had said was nearly over, and in