Free The Boat of Fate by Keith Roberts Page B

rang hollowly on the metalling. Ahead was the Way of Hercules; at its end, seventeen hundred miles away, was Rome.
     

Chapter Four
     
    Dawn found us still on the road. The sun rose directly ahead, flinging mile-long shadows down the paving at our backs. Away to our left loomed the mountains that ring Baetica; nearer at hand stretched the river that gave the district its name. It flowed silently, its broad surface washed with pink. Its banks were lined with clumps of reeds; flocks of duck and bustard erupted from them as we approached, with a clamour of wings. As the sky brightened the flanks and high slopes of the hills seemed to glitter; they hung stark and detailed in the clear air, looking almost close enough to touch.
    The sun had lifted clear of the horizon when we came in sight of a cluster of low huts. Marcus rode to the nearest, leaned from his horse to rap at the crudely fashioned door. There was a long wait; he hammered again before the door was opened a grudging few inches. A halting exchange ensued with whoever was inside; then he swung from the horse, gesturing to me to join him. I stooped on hands and knees, crawled after him through the low portal.
    Inside, the place was almost pitch dark; the air seemed chokingly thick after the cool freshness of dawn. A fire burned in the centre of the hut; smoke from it swirled in the confined space, stinging my eyes. Some light filtered through the outlet in the conical roof; by its aid I made out rough beds, mere bracken-filled niches in the thick mud walls, a crude table built of slabs of stone. In one of the beds sprawled three or four naked children. Their bodies showed dimly, pale and smooth as the undersides of slugs.
    Suspended above the fire was a smoke-blackened pot, from which the peasant ladled soup into two platters. Marcus passed one to me. I had no desire to eat; I took it from him anyway, not wanting to anger him again. The stuff was hot and thick. Marcus flung down some small coin, and helped himself to another cup.
    I had never been inside such a place before. I sat uneasily till he had finished, crawled ahead of him back to the open air. As I straightened up a sharp irritation made me slap at my wrist. I looked down. We had only been inside the hut a matter of minutes, but already I was alive with fleas.
    We rested through the heat of the day, pushed on again in the evening, still with the mountains marching to our left. We slept in the open that night; or rather Marcus slept. I lay huddled in my cloak, staring up hour by hour into the vault of sky. I was glad when dawn came and I could rise and saddle my horse. In this way we reached Corduba, two days’ travel to the east. Marcus bought a tent there and certain essential stores. In the morning we moved on, following the road as it plunged down to Carthago Nova and the coast.
    I was a poor enough companion without a doubt. I rode always a pace or so behind, wrapped in a sad cloud of thought. I relived the events of that terrible day, time after time; my mind, circling uselessly, balked over and again at the monstrous fact of Calgaca’s death. I felt her weight against my arms, saw her head loll, smelled the stench of fear and blood that had thickened the air of the room. I heard my father’s clipped voice repeat that speech he must have planned a score of times, felt the shame and terror that had filled me. Sometimes I would indulge in fantastic dreams. I would make my fortune in Rome, return rich and powerful, dispossess my father as he had dispossessed me, build for Calgaca the most splendid tomb in the world. At others I saw more clearly how my callowness and stupidity had cost me everything I thought I owned; then I would writhe in futile self-contempt.
    Some nights we camped, pitching the tent a little way from the road; others we spent in the inns that bordered it, ramshackle and dirty for the most part and full of itinerant tradesmen, tinkers and the like. The beds, when they existed, were