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Gaillard was at the door trying to lift the bar, but some weight from without had jammed it in the sockets. He stood listening, sniffing the air, and watching grey puffs of smoke come curling in through the crevices. Then he shouted an order through the hall, an order that brought his men crowding forward for a sally. Some of the strongest of them put their shoulders to the bar. It flew up, letting the door swing in with a gush of smoke and a crash of falling faggots.

“Out—out!”

Gaillard and his men broke through, hurling the brushwood aside, dragging it into the hall, cursing as they realised the devil’s trick that had been played them. Only the outer faggots were alight. There was a gush of flame under the hooded entry, but Gaillard and his men sprang through it with a weird glitter of gold upon their harness, and an uprush of smoke and sparks. Dark figures flitted about the priest’s garden. Arrows whistled and struck the walls as the Savoyard’s men came tumbling out over the burning faggots.