After brief delay at the gate, the travellers were admitted and escorted to the place selected for them. As Constance was anxious to meet the King at once, she sent word to the seneschal and followed him to the castle, accompanied by Arthur, H?el, and Alan. A marshal met them near the entrance and called a servant to aid them in dismounting. There was in the courtyard such a crowd of knights, pages, and court people of various ranks that they made slow progress. Arthur paid little attention to the brilliant rooms through which they passed or to the persons who occupied them. His thoughts were fixed upon one object—to see Richard, his uncle.  
57
The marshal bade H?el and Alan wait in the great hall, where two halberdiers kept guard, and then beckoned to a page and ordered him to wait upon the Duchess. The page disappeared behind a door, which he almost immediately reopened. Stepping back into an anteroom, he left the guests free to enter. With rapidly beating heart Arthur crossed the threshold, following his mother, and found himself in a spacious apartment, at the upper end of which King Richard rose from a carven arm-chair and advanced to meet the Duchess.[11] Arthur almost cried out when he saw the figure of the King before him, just as he had always imagined him to look, only more stately. The grandeur about him affected him but little, for his gaze was riveted upon the face of the King, which revealed dignity joined with strength and goodness, and upon those eyes which beamed so mildly upon his friends and flashed so terribly upon his enemies.
 
58
He greeted the Duchess cordially, took her hand, and said: “It is long, dear sister-in-law, since we met, and we have passed through great sorrows. But you have had one consolation,” he added, placing his hand upon Arthur’s shoulder. Arthur took the King’s other hand and kissed it. King Richard invited his guests to be seated and took his place between them. Then he looked at Arthur again, murmuring to himself, “Geoffrey! Geoffrey!” Tears filled the Duchess’s eyes as Richard continued: “We loved each other dearly. Geoffrey was less impulsive, and restrained me from committing many a rash act, but he stood by me to the last. Do you know, Lady Constance, when I was engaged in that unfortunate revolt against my father, how I came to you alone in the darkness of night, pursued by his soldiers? They dema............