One could think of no current
danger that he had not encountered, no horror that he had not
witnessed. His gaunt face was dull red, as if baked by the heat of
blazing towns. His coarse black hair had been thinned by the
friction of his helmet. His nose was broken, his arms and legs were
covered with scars, and under his chin ran a seam made by a woman who
had tried to cut off his head while he lay asleep. From this wound
Lapo Cercamorte's voice was husky and uncertain.
With a hundred men at his back he rode by night to Grangioia Castle.
As day was breaking, by a clever bit of stratagem he rushed the gate.
Then in that towering, thick-walled fortress, which had suddenly
become a trap, sounded the screaming of women, the boom of yielding
doors, the clang of steel on black staircases, the battlecries, wild
songs, and laughter of Lapo Cercamorte's soldiers.
He found the family at bay in their hall, the father and his three
sons naked except for the shirts of mail that they had hastily
slipped on. Behind these four huddled the Grangioia women and
children, for the most part pallid from fury rather than from fear,
silently awaiting the end.
However, Cercamorte's purpose was not to destroy this clan, but to
force it into submission to his marquis.
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