It was a noble room hung with sky-blue arras dusted with silver stars, and over by the window stood a great bed covered with a canopy of purple cloth. Hutches and chests had been broken open, and rich clothes and stuffs of cloth of silver and gold had been scattered about the floor. In the bed sat the Princess, the King’s mother, white as her own night gear. Three women cowered in a corner. A dozen or more peasants were crowded round, snapping their fingers in the Princess’s face, jeering, and threatening to pull the clothes from her, and thrusting the points of their pikes into the bed. “Men of Kent, have you forgotten Edward the Black Prince?” She faced them fearlessly, in spite of deathly fear, and the white pride of her face was like a white flame, keeping the men back. They were awed and, a little ashamed, faltered, grinned at each other, and then slunk back towards the door. Isoult hid herself in a dark recess in the thickness of the wall, and they went crowding down the stairs past her. “I’ve seen the King’s mother a’bed, Jock!” “That be some’at to remember!” Isoult was still in hiding when one of the Princess’s women came to the door and ran down the flight of steps. She looked this way and that like a frightened deer, and then, putting her hands to her mouth, called up the great stairway. “Eustace! Geoffrey!” She stood listening, her face strained and expectant. Down the stairway came two men, descending step by step, the one in front craning his head forward to see that the way was clear. “Quick, for the love of Our Lady. The wretches have been here!” They disappeared with the woman into the Princess’s room. Some instinct kept Isoult hidden in the dark recess. She heard voices, eager, conspiring voices that spoke in hurrying undertones. Then, footsteps approached. The door creaked; there was the sound of heavy breathing. A woman came out and went gliding down the stairs to see that they were clear. She called back, “Come.” Isoult saw the Princess carried out on a mattress laid upon the frame of a pallet bed. The men were at the head and foot, a woman at each side. A purple quilt covered the Princess, who lay with a veil thrown over her head. They disappeared round a bend of the stairs, and curiosity made Isoult follow them, shadowing them round each corner and along each gallery as they went down and down into the deeps of the tower. She nearly betrayed herself at the end of a long, dim passage where a door had to be opened and the Princess’s bed forced through. Then an oblong patch of daylight shone out abruptly. A flight of steps went up towards it, and Isoult saw the bed-bearers struggling up towards the light. Near the top of the steps one of the men missed his footing and slipped sideways against the wall. The bed tilted. There was a cry. One of the women clutched the Princess, but Isoult saw a lad’s head and shoulders jerked out from under the quilt.