And men struck to its rhythm, and men died to it.

And men who heard it thus and lived never forgot it, nor ever went back in their minds to that night without recalling it.
To one man, flurried already, and a coward at heart, the name carried a paralysing assurance of doom.

He had seen Basterga fall--by this woman's hand of all hands in the world--and he had been the first to flee.

But in the lane he tripped over Fabri, he fell headlong, and only raised himself in time to gain the gateway a few feet in front of the avenging pikes.

Still, he might escape, he hoped to escape, through the gate and into the open Corraterie.