Around the bridge-head, where Stephen the Marshal had his host, the battle sprang into being with an unexpectedness. There had been meant but a heavier than ordinary support to the endangered barriers, a stronger outward push against Aimeric the Bastard and Gaultier Cap-du-Loup. But the tension of the atmosphere, the menace and urge, the storm-light affected alike Roche-de-Frêne and Montmaure. Each side threw forward more men and more. From the bridge-head the shock and clamour ate into the plain. The mêlée deepened and spread. Suddenly, with a trampling and shouting, a lifting of dust to the skies, the whole garment was rent. There arrived, though none had looked for it on this day, general battle.... The leaders appeared, barons and famed knights. Here was the marshal, valiant and cool, bestriding a great steed, cheering on his people, wielding himself a strong sword. The battle was over open earth, and among the tents and quarters of the soldiery, and against and from the cover of the works that guarded the bridge. Now it shrieked and thundered in the space between the opposing camps, now among the tents of Roche-de-Frêne and now among those of Montmaure. Banners dipped and fell and rose again, were advanced or withdrawn. There were a huge number of banners, bright-hued, parti-coloured. They showed amid the dust like giant flowers torn from a giant garden and tossed in air. It became a fell struggle, where riderless war horses galloped hither and yon, and the footmen fought hard with pike and sword, and the crossbowmen sent their bolts, and the archers sent whistling flights of arrows. And still the clouds hung grey, and the town and castle drawn against them watched breathlessly. Aimar de Panemonde had joined his brother-in-arms. A brave and beautiful knight, he rode in the onset beside Garin of the Golden Island. The two lowered lances and came against two knights of Montmaure. The knights were good knights, but the men from Palestine defeated and unhorsed them. One was hurt to death, the other his people rescued. Garin and Aimar, sweeping forward, met, by a bit of wall, mounted men of a Free Company.... The din had grown as frightful as if the world was crashing down. Always Montmaure might remember that Montmaure had in field twice as many as Roche-de-Frêne. Garin and Aimar thrust through the press by the wall, rode with other knights where the fight was fiercest. Garin wished to encounter Jaufre de Montmaure; he searched for the green and silver banner. But there was a wild toss of colours, shifting and indeterminate. Moreover the day, dark before, darkened yet further; it was not possible to see clearly to any distance.