"You will wear my life out. Well, yes, a convent will be the best place for thee."
"Nay, madam."
"Hold thy peace, if thou canst say nought but 'nay,'" said the irascible Domina.
Her temper, her irritability and impatience, had alienated many from her cause. Perchance it would have alienated Alain like the rest, only he was a favourite, and she was seldom sharp with him.
How like her father she was in her bearing! even in her undress, for she wore only a thick woollen robe, stained, by the art of the dyers, in colours as various as those of the robe Jacob made for Joseph. Sometimes it flew open, and displayed an inner vesture of rich texture, bound round with a golden zone or girdle; and around her head, confining her luxuriant hair, was a circlet of like precious metal, which did duty for a diadem.
Little of her sainted mother was there in the Empress Queen; far more of her stern grandfather, the Conqueror.
The chamber, of irregular dimensions, was lighted by narrow loopholes. There was a hearth and a chimney, and a brazier of wood and charcoal burned brightly. Even then the air was cold, for it was many degrees below the freezing point, not that they as yet knew how to measure the temperature.
She sat and glowered at the grate, as the light departed, and the winter night set in, dark and gloomy. More than once she approached the windows, or loopholes, and looked upon the ruined city in the chill and intermittent moonlight.
It was nearly all in ruins. Here and there a church tower rose intact; here and there a lordly dwelling; but fire and sword had swept it. Neither party regarded the sufferings of the poor. Sometimes the besiegers made a fire in sport, and warmed themselves by the blaze of a burgher's dwelling, nor recked how far it spread. Sometimes, as we have said, the besieged made a sally, and set fire to the buildings which sheltered their foes. Whichever prevailed, the citizens suffered; but little recked their oppressors.