Fortune's Favorites by Colleen McCullough

Author:Colleen McCullough [McCullough, Colleen]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Literary, Ancient, Historical fiction, Caesar; Julius, Biographical fiction, Fiction, Romance, Rome, Rome - History - Republic; 265-30 B.C, Historical, Marius; Gaius, General, History
ISBN: 9780061582400
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2008-11-04T00:00:00+00:00

Fortunes's Favorites

PART V

from SEXTILIS (AUGUST) 80 B.C.

until SEXTILIS (AUGUST) 77 B.C.

Fortunes's Favorites

- 1 -

This time, Caesar sailed to the east. His mother's steward, Eutychus (really his steward, but Caesar never made the mistake of thinking that), soft and semi-sedentary for years, discovered that traveling with Gaius Julius Caesar was no leisurely progress. On land- particularly when the road was as respectable as the Via Appia-he would cover forty miles in a day, and anyone who did not keep up was left behind. Only dread of disappointing Aurelia enabled Eutychus to hang on, especially during the first few days, when the steward's fat smooth legs and pampered bottom dissolved into one enormous pain.

“You're saddlesore!” laughed Caesar unsympathetically when he found Eutychus weeping miserably after they stopped at an inn near Beneventum.

“It's my legs hurt the worst,” sniffled Eutychus.

“Of course they do! On a horse they're unsupported weight, they just dangle off the end of your behind and flop about-particularly true of yours, Eutychus! But cheer up! By the time we get to Brundisium they'll feel much better. So will you. Too much easy Roman living.”

The thought of reaching Brundisium did nothing to elevate the steward's mood; he burst into a fresh spate of tears at the prospect of a heaving Ionian Sea.

“Caesar’s a beggar,” said Burgundus, grinning, after Caesar had departed to make sure their accommodation was clean.

“He's a monster!” wailed Eutychus. “Forty miles a day!”

“You're lucky. This is just the beginning. He's going easy on us. Mostly because of you.”

“I want to go home!”

Burgundus reached out to give the steward's shoulder a clumsy pat. “You can't go home, Eutychus, you know that.” He shivered, grimaced, his wide and slightly vacant-looking eyes filled with horror. “Come on, dry your face and try to walk a bit. It's better to suffer with him than go back to face his mother-brrr! Besides, he's not as unfeeling as you think he is. Right at this moment he's arranging for a nice hot bath for your nice sore arse.”

Eutychus survived, though he wasn't sure he would survive the sea crossing. Caesar and his small entourage took nine days to cover the three hundred and seventy miles between Rome and Brundisium, where the relentless young man shepherded his hapless flock onto a ship before any of them could find the breath to petition him for a few days' rest first. They sailed to the lovely island of Corcyra, took another ship there for Buthrotum in Epirus, and then rode overland through Acarnania and Delphi to Athens. This was a Greek goat path, not a Roman road; up and down the tall mountains, through wet and slippery forests.

“Obviously even we Romans don't move armies along this route,'' Caesar observed when they emerged into the awesome vale of Delphi, more a gardened lap on a seated massif. The idea had to be finished before he could gaze about and admire; he said, “That's worth remembering. An army could move along it if the men were stouthearted. And no one would know because no one would believe it.

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