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friction burned his hands and pieces of hemp found soft spots in his callused palms and were driven into the flesh, but he was not tempted to slow his pace. The rope jerked as a sword was brought against it, but swords are not efficient chopping weapons, and the rope held for two more blows. When the last strand parted and dumped Hugh, his legs were bent to absorb the shock and he was near enough to the ground to land without injury. The slope of the ditch below the rampart was steep, however, and he rolled helplessly down, bumping and scrabbling for a hold on the rocky, fire-scored earth.
    Hugh did not mind the bruises, although each time he rolled over, his sword, dagger, and pouch dug painfully into various parts of his anatomy. What he objected to was the noise he was making. One of his gyrations gave him a flashing sight of the wall, but it was enough to show several more torches. Then fire blossomed just below him, and he twisted wildly to avoid rolling onto the torch that had been thrown down to light the area. His body would not extinguish the flame; most likely the soft, burning pitch would stick to him and set his cloak afire. Other torches followed, but none so close, as Hugh finally hit the bottom of the ditch in a shower of earth and stones.
    In the quiet that followed his impact with the far side of the ditch, Hugh heard the whirr and thunk of arrows behind him. The men on the wall had expected him to be stunned and lie quiet or to waste time trying to climb to his feet, and that first concentrated flight had missed because Hugh had crawled forward immediately, straight ahead for a few feet, and then irregularly from side to side. Still, the only thing that saved him was that the excited men began to shoot separately instead of blanketing the area with a series of flights.
    A moment later, Hugh was out of the lighted area, and he stopped abruptly, swept up a handful of earth and pebbles, and threw them a short distance ahead. As he levered himself painfully to his knees, he grabbed for more with both hands, letting fly first with his left hand and then, harder, with his right.
    To Hugh, the spattering did not sound much like a man running or crawling, but the noises must have been very faint by the time they reached the palisade, and for a few minutes arrows whirred off into the dark, well ahead of Hugh’s position. The brief respite gave him a chance to stretch himself face down, not along the bottom of the ditch but vertically against the rise of the slope toward the palisade, and he lay immobile, trying to quiet his gasping breaths.
    More torches began to rain down at last as the archers realized they had lost their target, but the dirt-encrusted fur of Hugh’s cloak was an adequate disguise in the flickering, uncertain light they gave. Lying flat and still, he seemed no more than another irregularity of the rain-carved side of the mound. Finally the chase moved on around the palisade. By then the torches that had been thrown first were guttering out, the soft pitch having picked up enough dirt to leave little surface to burn as they, too, rolled down the slope. Quietly, Hugh turned over, eased himself upright, and returned, as near as he could estimate, to where the rope still hung from the wall. Of all the places they would look for him, the last, he hoped, would be where the symbol of his escape marked his route.
    Slowly and carefully Hugh began to climb the other side of the ditch, feeling for handholds and footholds that would not set loose stones rolling. Fortunately, this side was not so carefully burned over to eliminate brush to make it difficult to climb. The purposes of the ditch and rampart were first to discourage attackers and second to make it hard for them to get into the keep. As a result, the mound rising to the palisade was denuded of anything that might assist climbers or shelter them.
    No one cared how fast invaders ran away, though, so only brush large enough to divert the aim of