That night we slept at
Matavonium, eighty-four miles forward and but seventy-four miles from
Marseilles.
So far we had had no adventures, had been accepted without question
everywhere, had seen no look of suspicion from anyone, had encountered no
other couriers, except those whom we met and passed on the road, we and
they lashing, spurring and hallooing, each party barely visible to the
other through the cloud of dust both raised.
On that day, our eighth out from Rome, at noon at Tegulata, we had
adventure enough.
The common room of the inn was low-ceiled, I could have jumped and touched
the carved beams with my hand. But it was very large indeed, something
like thirty yards long and fully twenty yards wide, with two Tuscan
columns about ten yards apart in the middle of it, supporting the seven
great beams, smoke-blackened till their carving was blurred, on which the
ceiling-joists were laid. The floor was of some dark, smooth-grained
stone, polished by the feet which had trod it for generations; there were
six wide-latticed windows, and, opposite the door, a great fire-place,
with an ample chimney above and four bronze cranes for pots or roasts.
Each arm had several chains and actually, when we entered, four pots were
boiling, and a kid was roasting over the cunningly bedded fire of clear
red coals, the fresh caught wood at the back, where the smoke would not
disflavor the roasting meat.
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