n denied this opportunity to kill
them, at least he had seen where the Tartars were.

He had sat in his hiding place, relaxed but alert, listening to the
Monaldeschi bowmen shout encouragement to one another as they fired on
the Filippeschi trying to cross the piazza. The arrow slits were cut
through the thick walls in angled pairs so that two archers side by side
would have a full field of fire. After a while Daoud began to despair of
ever getting into the cellar.

Several times servants came running to fill buckets from the cask to put
out fires in the atrium. Crouched in the darkness behind the cask,
Daoud saw, grouped around it, buckets, pots, and kettles, all sorts of
vessels, already filled with water for immediate use.

Long after the battle began, a pageboy came running down the stairs to
the ground floor with an order for the archers to come up to the roof.

They left only one man to watch through the arrow slots. His back,
sheathed in a shiny brown leather cuirass, was turned toward Daoud. The
noise of fighting from outside was loud enough, Daoud thought, to mask
any sound he might make.

He slipped from behind the cask and picked up a wooden bucket full of
water. Carrying the bucket he stepped, silent on his soft-soled boots,
to the cellar trapdoor. Keeping his eyes on the crossbowman, he put the
bucket down and, holding his breath, grasped the handle of the trapdoor
and lifted it. The archer moved as Daoud crouched by the open trapdoor.
Daoud froze. But the man's back remained turned. He was only shifting
from one arrow slot to the one beside it, to get a view of the piazza
from a different angle.

When the archer was settled in his new position, Daoud crept down the
cellar stairs, bucket in one hand, and lowered the door over his head.
He watched the archer until the slab of wood cut off his view. He was in
a pitch-black cellar smelling of wine.

He saw a crack of light from under a door and heard voices. He was about
to go and knock, pretending to be a man-at-arms with a message. When the
two Armenians within opened the door, he would douse their lantern with
the water he was carrying, and then move in on the Tartars in the dark.

Just then the trapdoor above had opened. He hid behind the wine barrels
as de Gobignon, the friar, and two more Armenians came down to join
their Tartar charges.

* * * * *

Stones were slamming into the walls in such rapid succession tha