Dedication
To you, whose love did come
And oft did sing to me,
When I was working in the furrows.
Epigraph
[Inmates of her house] SADA, a Saxon EUNICE, a Greek
ELDRIS, a Briton, a convert to Christianity
WARDO, a Saxon, a slave in the house of Eudemius
VALERIUS, a Roman, a soldier of fortune
TOBIAS, a Hebrew, a worker in ivory
RATHUMUS, a British peasant, bound to the soil
SUSANNA, a Hebrew woman, his wife
NICANOR, a story-teller, their son
WULF, the Red, a Saxon free-lance
CEAWLIN, a Saxon chieftain
FATHER AMBROSE, of the Christian church
NICODEMUS, the One-Eyed, a British freedman
MYLEIA, his wife
MARCUS, a slave in the house of Eudemius
BALBUS, a convict
JUNCINA, a fish-wife on Thorney
SOSIA, her daughter
A flower-girl, a Saxon singer, slaves, trades-folk, soldiers of the military police; guards and overseers of the mines, and miners; Roman nobles and patrician women; Saxon men-at-arms, and men of the outland nations
Scene: Britain in the last days of Roman power
Time: between A.D. 410 and 446