First Cook Run for it.

Second Cook He’ll kill us –

First Cook Come on!

Second Cook We won’t work in better kitchens than hers –

First Cook By now our lovely kitchens are gone up in flames – her great house with it –

Adona Where is the whip?

Steward I beg you my love –

Adona stands. She throws her veils back. She is disfigured by plague.

A silence.

Second Cook Help me. What’s she got?

Someone, what’s she got? Oh help me, please.

The Second Cook vomits.

Adona Yellow plague.

What do you expect when civilisation dies? Good health?

Steward Stay in her service.

That’s your best chance.

Carry around someone with that, no one will dare come near you.

And come the winter – the fields empty – no crops for the English to scavenge for their troops – it’ll all stop.

Powerful men will drink themselves back into some kind of Government, through the winter.

The great houses will be rebuilt. Kitchens with big ovens.

I beg you, don’t leave us! It’s only a disease! It can only kill you!

First Cook (low) On the whole, is the world falling apart?

Second Cook (low) On the whole, yes.

First Cook (low) Run up to that little wood.

Second Cook (low) Right.

Steward If you won’t help us out of fear, how about pity?

Adona Whip them! Chain them!

(To the Cooks:) You’re staring at a Roman matron.

Restore the Empire! Rebuild the towns. Appoint magistrates. Drive the raiders back. Set up gibbets in the fields to punish deserters.

First Cook Lady, the Romans left Britain a hundred years ago.

Adona Whip him! I am a Roman.

Second Cook There weren’t any Romans. And if there were, they’re all dead.

A silence.

Adona The slave’s right.

We are ghosts. Roman standards lie rotting on the ground. We stoop to pick them up. Our hands pass through them, like smoke.

First Cook (to the Second Cook) Run.

The Cooks run off.

Adona Now you have no one to carry me.

Steward No.

They stare at each other.

Adona Rob me then.

Steward I have to, my Lady.

He goes to the stretcher. He takes three small sacks from beneath the covers.

Adona Like a dog.

No, not a dog. A dog would sniff around my grave. Whine for me.

The Steward takes out a knife.

Adona I was a great lady. I took you into my bed. You were my pleasure, my fields were my pleasure, my gardens, my harvests, the roofs of my house in the sun, my place in a civilised world.

Steward Now you’re a refugee too. With runny bowels and a dangerous disease.

She tries to run, falls and crawls. He takes her by the shoulder and puts the knife into the back of her neck.

She screams, then is silent.

What kind of animal am I?

A survivor.

I was a bondsman. I was a servant. I was a prostitute.

Goodbye my dead Lady, goodbye my dead masters. Now I’m free of you.