It was a fine place, with a vaulted stone roof and windows of coloured glass, that looked like the chancel of a church.

Only at the head of it, where the altar should have been, was a kind of dais.

On this dais were set some high-backed oaken chairs with many lanterns behind them in which burned tapers that, together with a great wood fire, gave light to the chamber.
In one of these chairs sat a gracious lady, who was embroidering something silken in a frame.

This was Queen Philippa, and talking to her stood the tall King, clad in a velvet robe lined with fur.

Behind, seated at a little table on which lay parchments, was a man in a priest's robe, writing.