- The gate
- One, between two towers
- Width
- Only a few men abreast
- Turns
- Up to four
- Defeats
- The battering ram, and the charge
The single gate sits between two massive towers, in a space so narrow that only a few men can pass abreast. Behind it the passage does not run straight: it bends, and the published descriptions count as many as four turns before you are inside.
The reason is the battering ram: a bent entrance exists precisely to stop the castle being stormed with one. A ram needs a straight run and room to swing; give the passage a right-angle turn and it becomes a heavy beam in a stone box that nobody can aim. The same turns break up a charge, because men cannot keep formation round a corner.
And every one of those turns is a place where the defenders are above you and you cannot see what is next. The Arabic name for this is الباب المنكسر, the broken door — broken not in the sense of damaged, but in the sense of bent.