It was not a very large room, and it was stone-floored and stone-walled.
It was Lady Philippa's bedchamber. The bed was oak, built into the wall
like a cupboard, and almost black with age. There were carved doors of oak
that could be shut, making it look like an armoire, but these were usually
open, displaying pillow-slips of fine linen and a linen coverlet, spun,
woven, and embroidered with black silk, by the lady herself. On the floor
were strewn rushes and fragrant herbs. There were two straight carved
chairs of old oak, an ivory footstool and a small table which held a few
books and an ebony work-box inlaid with ivory, and writing materials. Two
carved chests set one on the other served as wardrobe. As for washing
conveniences, these were brought in as they were needed, by the knight's
body-servant or the lady's own maid. The real luxury in the room was the
window, which was more than twice the size of the narrow slits that
lighted the great hall, and opened to the south. On pleasant days the sun
looked in early and lingered late, as if he loved the room and its gentle
mistress.

The room had been much the same for more than a hundred years, the castle
having been built during the tenth century. The thing that made it Lady
Philippa's own particular room, which could have belonged to no one else,
was the set of soft yet brilliant tapestries which covered the walls. They
had been worked by her in her girlhood, and she sometimes felt that more
than half her life was wrought into the quaint figures and innumerable
flowers and leaves and emblems of those narrow panels of embroidery. They
had adorned the room which had been hers in her father's castle, and
single panels had curtained or covered wall-spaces in many other castles
during her life as Queen Eleanor's maid of honor. Little Eleanor had heard
the story of the pictures as soon as she was old enough to hear stories at
all, and there was some story connected with the making of each part of