Chapter Two

Conn had been born the very day Tiberius' son Drusus Julius Caesar had died. He was now six twelvemonths old the very image of his father at that age but with his mother's reddish-brown eyes.

In the atrium Claudius, now nine and thirty, sat with a wooden sword in hand as Conn hit it with a wooden sword of his own. He was quite bored with this was Claudius. All Conn wanted to do was swordfight and it was not the most stimulating of activities. His symptoms had improved in the fifteen twelvemonths but his limp, slight deafness and stutter were ever present, at least the stutter was when he wanted it to be.

"Conn, please, I'm tired of this. Let us go for a walk." Said Claudius, his voice ever to belong to no land animal but to him alone.

"No!" exclaimed Conn. "I just want to swordfight!"

"Of course you do." Muttered Claudius.

Then entered the third son of Germanicus. He had been born Gaius Caesar but ever since Germanicus' campaign in Germania, on which his third son had been present, the lad had been known as Caligula. He was a lean individual of seventeen twelvemonths with both brown hair and eyes. Clad in a white tunic and wearing a pair of heavy-soled hobnailed military boots, he looked upon Conn and Claudius and let a smile that would have been called cruel on the face of anyone else but on him it was just a regular smile because in the fifteen twelvemonths since his great-grandfather's death Caligula had grown to be cruel. Once kind to his mother's maternal half-brother Romulus Caligula was as scornful to him as Tiberius had once been and to his cousin, Romulus' son, Caligula was the cruelest man to have ever walked the earth.

"Well, well, what have we hear?" asked Caligula, his voice deep and gravelly. "My dear uncle C-C-C-C-Claudius and my barbarian cousin with his barbarian name, the most barbaric Conn." Immediately, Caligula walked over to Conn and knocked him down with a kick after which Caligula burst out with laughter that would be called cruel were it to come from anyone else but was regular coming from him. So sure of himself that Conn would not retaliate, Caligula turned to face Claudius only for Conn to get up and hit Caligula in the back of the knees with such a force that one would not expect from a six twelvemonth old that Caligula actually screamed out in pain. Falling to his knees, Caligula looked up at his uncle Claudius. "Uncle Claudius, say something!"

Claudius merely looked at Conn and with an uncaring voice said: "D-D-Do n-n-not d-do t-t-that, C-Conn. C-C-Caligula is a-a-a v-v-very w-w-weak m-man."

Caligula glared at Claudius. Just for that insult he would never stop tormenting his uncle. He would never kill Claudius because that would be a release from the torment.

Upon his own entrance to the atrium, Romulus looked at Caligula and said: "Get off your knees, Caligula, it makes you look pathetic."

Caligula got to his feet and to Romulus said: "I'll make you pay for that insult one day!"

"Keep telling yourself that." Romulus then turned his eyes to Conn and said: "Your step-great-grandmother wants to see you."