The "tumult" began on Saturday, January 31, when Turkish artillery opened fire with a salvo of cannonballs at the Swedish makeshift fortress. Twenty-seven cannonballs hit the King's brick house, but the powder charges were light and the bombardment did little damage. Thousands of Turks and Tatars massed to attack. "The whole host of Tatars advanced toward our trench and made a halt within three or four steps of it, which was very frightful to see," wrote a Swedish participant. "At ten in the forenoon, there appeared several thousand Turkish horse, after that several thousand Janissaries on foot from Bender. These were drawn up in order as if they were to attack us presently."
The attack was ready, but for some reason it never came. According to one account, the Turkish soldiers were reluctant to attack the Swedish King, whom they admired, and demanded to see a written order from the Sultan commanding them to do so. Another story is that fifty or sixty Janissaries carrying only white staves marched up to the Swedish camp and entreated Charles to place himself in their hands, swearing that not a hair of his head would be touched. Supposedly, Charles refused, warning, "If they do not go away, I will singe their beards," whereupon all the Janissaries threw down their weapons, declaring they would not attack. Finally, there is a story that, just before the assault, three rainbows, one on top of the other, appeared over Charles' house. The astonished Turks refused to attack, saying that Allah was protecting the Swedish King. The most likely reason is that the Seraskier and the Khan had simply staged the bombardment and the massing of troops to cow Charles into submission without violence. In any case, the Turkish army stood silent and still, the cannonade stopped and the ranks eventually broke up.
On the morning of the following day, Sunday, February 1, the view from the Swedish camp was depressing: "Such a vast number of these infidels that when we were on top of the Royal House we could not see over them." Small red, blue and yellow flags fluttered along the waiting lines of Turks, and on a hill behind was a huge red standard, "planted to signify that they were going to push the Swedes to the last drop of blood." Shaken by this sight, some of the Swedish soldiers and junior officers, not understanding that all this was a game and seeing themselves as the prospective victims of a massacre, began to trickle out across the barricades to places themselves under the protection of the Turks. To stiffen their courage, Charles ordered his trumpeters to blow and his kettledrummers to beat their drums on top of his house. To halt the desertions, he sent a promise and a threat to all his men: "That His Majesty did assure every one from the highest to the lowest who should stand with him for two hours longer and not desert, should be rewarded by him in the kindest manner. But whoever should desert to the infidels he would never see more."
As it was Sunday, the King went to a church service in his house, and he was listening to the sermon when the air was suddenly filled with the thunder of cannon and the whistling of cannonballs. The Swedish officers, rushing to the upper windows of the house, saw a mass of Turks and Tatars, swords in hand, running toward their camp, shouting, "Allah! Allah!" At this, the Swedish officers on the barricade called to their men, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" A few men fired their muskets, but most of the men on the barricades surrendered quickly. This act, even against hopeless odds, was so unlike the normal behavior of Swedish soldiers that it strongly implies a royal order to avoid bloodshed.
Similarly, on the other side, the Khan and the Seraskier apparently gave equivalent instructions. Although a "cloud of arrows" fell on the compound, few hit anything. The cannonballs directed at the King's house either "flew over the house and did no hurt" or, fired with a minimum charge of powder, bounced harmlessly off the walls.
Nevertheless, although the original intention on both sides may have been to stage a battle rather than to fight one, a drama involving cannoballs, musket shots and naked swords is difficult to keep entirely peaceful. Very soon, tempers became inflamed and blood began to flow. With most of the Swedes scarcely resisting, the Turks swarmed into Charles' house and began looting. The great hall of the house filled with Turks taking everything in sight as plunder. This insult was more than Charles could stand. In a rage, with a sword in his right hand and a pistol in his left, the King threw open the doors and rushed into the hall, followed by a band of Swedes. There were pistol volleys on both sides, and the room filled with the dense smoke of gunpowder. Through the swirling haze, Swedes and Turks, choking and coughing, thrust and parried in hand-to-hand combat. As so often on the battlefield, the impetus of the Swedish charge had its effect; besides, in the house itself, the numbers of Swedes and Turks were more nearly equal. The hall and house soon were cleared; the last Turks jumped out the windows.
At this point, one of Charles' Drabants, Axel Roos, looked around and did not see the King. He dashed through the house and found Charles in the High Steward's Chamber, "standing betwixt three Turks, both arms raised in the air, sword in the right hand. ... I shot down the Turk with his back to the door. . . . His Majesty lowered his sword arm and stabbed the second Turk through the body and I was not slow in shooting the third Turk dead." "Roos," cried the King through the smoke, "is it you who have saved me?" When Charles and Roos stepped over the bodies, the King's face was bleeding from nose, cheek and the lobe of an ear where bullets had nicked him. His left hand was badly sliced between thum and forefinger where he had warded off a Turkish sword by grasping the enemy blade bare-handed. The King and Roos rejoined the others, who had driven the Turks out of the house and were firing at them from the windows.
The Turks wheeled up cannon, which began to boom at close range. The balls shattered the masonry, but the thick walls held up. Charles filled his hat with musket balls and toured the house, parceling reserves of powder and ammunition to the men stationed at the windows.
By now, dusk was falling. The Turks understood the absurdity of trying to storm a house containing less than a hundred men with an army of 12,000, particularly when they were under orders not to kill the hundred. They decided to try a new tactic to force the Swedes into the open. Tatar archers fastened burning straw to their arrows and shot them at the wood-shingled roof of the King's house. At the same time, a group of Janissaries rushed to a comer of the house with bales of hay and straw, which they piled up and set afire. When the Swedes attempted to push the burning bundles away with iron bars, the Tatar archers, aiming accurately, forced them back. Within minutes, the roof was ablaze. Charles and his comrades rushed into the attic to fight the flames from below. Using swords, they hacked at the roof, tearing away as much as possible, but the fire spread rapidly. The burning beams, roaring with flames, forced the King and his followers to retreat down the staircase with coats over their heads to protect themselves from the scorching heat. On the ground floor, the exhausted men drank brandy, and even the King, equally parched, was persuaded to swallow a glass of wine. It was the first time since leaving Stockholm thirteen years before that Charles had touched alcohol.
Meanwhile, burning shingles were falling from the roof onto the top floors, spreading the flames. Suddenly, what remained of the roof fell, and the whole upper half of the house became a furnace. At this point, some of the Swedes, seeing nothing to be gained by being burned alive, proposed surrender. But the king, in great excitement, possibly inspired by his unaccustomed gulps of wine, refused to yield "until our clothes begin to burn."