fatal

Chapter 6: Sociality
In an inn, a traveler strikes a bargain with
the innkeeper for each item separately -- bed, drink,
meals, and whores. Rates including everything are
the exception. Inns vary widely in selection and
quality of provisions. Some inns offer room service,
so that a guest can request a meal brought to
them. An inn able to accommodate royalty is called
a praetoria, while an inn for peasants is called a hostel.
A fully-equipped inn offers meals and sleeping
quarters, a change of animals, carriages, porters,
veterinarians, and cartwrights. Since inns do not
include baths, a traveler must go to a public bath.
When ushered to a room, a traveler shares it
with as many fellow guests as the innkeeper can cram
into it. The furniture is minimal: a bed, chamberpot,
and candleholder. Experienced travelers carefully
search the bed for bedbugs. The decor of an
inn is minimal as well. Frequently, previous guests
vent their feelings by scribbling on the bedroom
walls. From history, “Innkeeper, I pissed in the bed.
I did wrong, I admit it. Want to know why There
was no chamber-pot!”
A standard inn is 2 stories, roughly 40’ x 70’,
with a short side facing the road. Paralleling one of
the long sides is a court for wagons and carriages.
The ground floor includes a stable that can handle a
dozen or so animals, a repair shop complete with a
blacksmith’s forge, an office, a kitchen measuring
6.5’ by 19.5’, and a dining room about the same size.
Hot-air ducts under the floor provide heat for a
chamber. The upper floor contains the bedrooms.
A large inn is a complex of stables, a court,
and buildings that covers an area of 60’ x 216’. There
is a court of 36’ x 75’ surrounded on 3 sides by 2
floors of chambers. Most rooms measure 16.5’ x
16.5’, and a few are much larger. No heating ducts
exist, so the rooms have fireplaces or braziers. Large
inns have 30 or more rooms.
A small inn rarely offers more than a dozen
rooms to rent. The smallest of inns is a rectangular
building about 47.5 feet long and 21 feet wide. It is
divided into 3 rooms, a central chamber flanked by
a kitchen on one side and a bedroom on the other.
The kitchen measures 5’ x 12.5’ and the bedroom
measures 3’ x 7.5’, leaving most of the space for the
central hall. All 3 rooms are heated, the kitchen by
its hearth, the bedroom by a fireplace, and the long
chamber by a floor fitted with hot-air ducts. The
stables, forge, and other facilities are in sheds behind
or alongside the inn.
A type of inn of low repute is a caupona. It
caters to sailors, carters, and slaves. Its dining room
has the atmosphere of a tavern more than a restaurant.
The copa (female) or copo (male) is one who
runs a caupona. A traveler is completely at their
mercy. When a character is robbed here, law declares
the character can only find satisfaction from
the thief, not the innkeeper.
Cursus Publicus
This is a government post that is part of a
network of inns. Every user has to have a diploma
signed by the king. A diploma entitles a character to
travel with the use of government-maintained facilities.
A diploma is a prized possession. Routes
have stations at strategic intervals. At a station, a
traveler with a diploma may eat, sleep, and change
beasts or vehicles. Stations are 25-35 miles apart,
the distance of an average day’s travel. The king
simply selects inns of the required quality and incorporates
them into his system, making them stations
and requiring them to accommodate any holder
of a diploma for free. Selling a diploma to an unauthorized
user occurs rarely and is punishable by
death.
AUDIERIS.IN.QUO.
FLACCE.BALNEO.PLAUSUM.
MARONIS.ILLIC.ESSE.
MENTULAM.SCITO
If from the baths you hear
a round of applause,
Maron’s great prick
is bound to be the cause.
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