“I can’t,” she interrupted him mournfully, thinking of how pleasant it would be if only he could stay, and continue to regale her with tales at the fireside. “I told you, Mother has locked the doors. I can’t let you in.”

“Then I shall bid you good night, and return on the morrow.” He bowed to her, and strode off around the side of the tower. She ran to the other window, but he must have been walking close to the wall of the abbey where she couldn’t see him. So frustrating!

But it had been a wonderful day, and he had promised to come back. She could hardly wait for morning!

She awoke to the sound of her name being called from below, and flew to the window, her braids nearly tripping her, as she hurried to answer him. She stuck her head out of the window—she had left it open to the evening breeze last night, and one of her braids slithered over the sill and dangled down above his head.

He laughed, and pretended to jump for it. She giggled—he couldn’t reach it, of course. As long as it was, the end was still a good twelve feet above his head, but he looked so funny, like a kitten with a string, trying to snatch the end out of the air.

She pulled it back up and he mock-frowned at her. “Temptress! I hope you are prepared to feed me breakfast in exchange for teasing me with a way to climb up to you!”

“Of course I am!” she promised, and ran down to the kitchen without bothering to change out of her nightdress first.

She wanted to impress him, so she made a real breakfast: sliced ham, beef, tongue, three kinds of cheese, some of the precious bread (toasted over the fire, since it was getting a little stale), and generous dollops of butter and jam in a little bowl. His eyes lit up when he saw the feast in the basket. She tied the string to the shutter hinge so she could leave the basket down there with him until he was finished, and raced off to change and get her own meal.

When she returned to the window, he looked up at her and snapped his fingers as if he had suddenly had an idea. “I know what we can do!” he said, and laughed. “If you cannot come down, I will come up!”

She stared down at him, baffled. “How?” she replied. “The stones of this tower are like glass, they are so smooth. There isn’t enough of a chink between them for a bird to catch his claw.”

“This!” he said, tugging on the string that was tied to the basket he had just put the plates back into. “I shall go back to my shelter and bring my rope. I can tie it to your string and you can pull it up. You needn’t even try to find something to tie it to that will bear my weight—just tie it to the middle of a fireplace poker.”