First Cook No wait, wait.

Where are the soldiers you’re with then?

Morgana Don’t you try and touch us. We’re sisters – we killed our father –

First Cook Oh really?

Corda Oh really. We’ve got a Saxon sword.

She raises the sword.

Morgana And we don’t care! We’ve killed once so we’re going to hell anyway.

First Cook So he’s dead. Your father.

A silence.

Our Mistress is dead too.

Second Cook He’s right! That was her! Don’t you think her smell’s like a little cloud – over everything?

First Cook Shut up.

(To Corda and Morgana:) So what you going to do?

Morgana What’s that to you?

Corda Go on the road. Get away. Kill the Saxons.

Second Cook Oh aye –

First Cook Look – now don’t wave that about. And don’t run off. But maybe we’d better stay together for a bit – be a bit of an Army.

Corda laughs.

Corda An army of cooks? What use are cooks now?

Second Cook That had crossed our minds.

Morgana They’re dangerous men –

Second Cook We’re not dangerous. Utterly fucked, actually.

Corda So what can you be?

First Cook What can you be?

Corda A mother of killers, Cook. Children brought up right. Like stoats, like weasels, like otters.

A cook’s not going to be much good for that.

First Cook I’m changing my trade.

Corda To what?

First Cook Poet.

Second Cook What are you talking about? You can’t even read –

First Cook Shut up. We’re on here –

Morgana What do we want with them, Corda?

Corda We’re going to have to travel a long way. We need all the men and women we can find.

What poem you got then? In your new trade.

First Cook ’Bout a King!

A silence.

Corda Yes?

First Cook King.

Not any King.

Corda No?

First Cook No.

Corda Did he have a Queen, this King?

Second Cook Yes.

He hesitates.

Yes, oh very sexy –

First Cook Look let me do the meat, right?

Second Cook Oh yeah, I do the vegetables even when it comes to fucking poetry.

First Cook Actually, he was a King who never was.

His Government was the people of Britain. His peace was as common as rain or sun. His law was as natural as grass, growing in a meadow.

And there never was a Government, or a peace, or a law like that.

His sister murdered his father. His wife was unfaithful. He died by the treachery of his best friend.

And when he was dead, the King who never was and the Government that never was – were mourned. And remembered. Bitterly.

And thought of as a golden age, lost and yet to come.

Corda Very pretty.

Morgana What was his name?

First Cook Any old name dear. (To the Second Cook:)

What was his name?

Second Cook Right. Er – any old name.

Arthur?

Arthur?

Bloomsbury Methuen Drama

An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Imprint previously known as Methuen Drama