He laughs.

They’ll even take away death as you know it. No sweet fields, rich woods beyond the grave. You’ll go to a Roman underworld of torture, a black river, rocks of fire.

We must have nothing to do with them. Nothing.

Abandon the life we know.

Change ourselves into animals. The cat. No, an animal not yet heard of. Deadly, watching, ready in the forest. Something not human.

First Village Man And live off what, priest?

Marban Visions. Visions. Stones. Visions. (A silence. Then, dead voiced:) The ghosts of our ancestors, slink away. The fabulous beasts, their claws crumble. The Gods grow small as flies.

He weeps quietly.

First Village Woman Give him a knife.

The Third Village Man puts a knife before Marban. He looks up from weeping, at the knife. He holds it upwards in his fist, on the ground, his arm extended. He raises himself up and is falling on the knife –

Scene Seven

Dawn. The north bank of the River Thames.

Conlag and the Slave are wandering downstage, she helping him to hop along. He is feverish.

Conlag The sea!

Slave (aside) It’s not.

Conlag The beach!

Slave (aside) It’s the River Thames.

Conlag The shingle’s slipper.

Slave (aside) It’s mud.

Conlag Don’t get the dogshit on my bad foot! In a day, in a night, how can a foot puff up, right up to your groin? It’s not fair! It’s not right! After all I’ve been through! There’s a boat.

Slave (aside) It’s a log.

Conlag Sh. Fishermen.

Slave (aside) Branches on the log.

Conlag Down down down down.

They fall in a heap. He crawls over her, toward the ‘log’.

I’ll kill them.

Slave (aside) He did rape me in the forest.

Conlag and the Slave pick up stones at the same moment.

Conlag Pick up a stone. Sharp edge. Cut off their heads. Blood on the sea. A holy road, over the waves.

The Slave walks to the crawling Conlag and hits him on the back of the neck with her stone. He grunts, then turns over on his back and looks up at her. She stands there relaxed, the stone in her hand.

You can be my wife, in the forests, in that land. The animals are so tame, you just kill them for food. They’ll not learn fear of men and women. For generations.

She raises the stone high above her head and brings it down hard on Conlag’s forehead. He dies at once.

Slave (aside) On the island where I was born. Over the sea. Where he wanted to go. Only stone. Nets for the fish. The tomb, where my mother was buried, along with all the others. The children saw the ship first, with a sail with an animal on it. We were clever with stones. All the children. Wherever I am it’s not left me. When they kept me in a pit. When they fucked me in the forest. When they made me work in a field. I always knew what stones were near me. How many steps to them. Count one, two – and what stone would be in my hand. The men from the ship burnt my home. now home is where I have a stone in my hand.