Widdershins and annotations

In which Tuccio di Piero Landucci encounters a monster The monster lay breathing beneath the walls of the town. It was huge and black, with a tail that could swat an armoured knight clean off his horse with the most casual of flicks. Topomagro's idlers were already jostling on the walls for a better view, though no-one had yet ventured from the parapet, through the Porta del Mare and onto the beach. The monster was far too monstrous, almost y thirty braccia in length, and looked capable, had the mood taken it, of swallowing the town's largest fishing boat at a gulp. And yet, against the vast pewter plain of the evening sea, it had a shrunken look, like any fish out of water, while its great rolling eye, the plumpness of its barnacled belly, and above all, the sardonic twist of its curious clownsmile, made it look almost comical.