Another Short Script I Wrote - Set During the Battle of Monmouth - MONMOUTH

MONMOUTH
1. EXT. WEST ENGLAND COUNTRYSIDE, MORNING, 1645
During a huge battle, three men, HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH, a loud, wild, colourful, avuncular rotund Scot, dressed as a vicar, the slow, diminutive, balding, aging learned manservant, DUGALD BILLETT and the twenty-something, handsome, effeminate RONALD MERE (the youngest of the three men) are leaving. DUGALD pulls a cart, full of vegetables and weaponry. It is sunny. The hill is green. The skies are blue.
DUGALD (stentorian, butler voice)
Sir, 'tis a marvelous morning!
HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH (stopping DUGALD, cheerful)
I know, I know. Monmouth will be proud.
DUGALD (sibilant, raises a rough clay cup)
King James III, our Catholic majesty, long may he rule over England, Scotland and Wales.
RONALD MERE (quiet)
Indeed, and shall he establish a land for the free! But why should we embrace him, for we are atheists?
HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH (curious)
Why do ye suggest, dear boy?
RONALD MERE (philosophical)
Well, we do not believe in God. Why should we involve ourselves in a battle for a Catholic king, when we already have one?
DUGALD (wise, sibilant)
Out in merry abandon do we not believe in God. Our beliefs in the existence of a cosmic force does not matter. What matters is the legality of regality. The king is God's rightful representative on Earth, but there are many different kings, queens, emperors. That statement alone is enough to prove that there is no God.
RONALD MERE (in realisation)
So, we are fighting for him to be king, because it is rightful for the first-born son or daughter to win, that the gender of a heir should allow he or she to be first in line, regardless of siblings.
HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH (nodding)
Indeed, that is why, and he is first-born, though he is a bastard.
DUGALD (laughing)
But we are all bastards if we are soldiers, therefore we are murderers, therefore we are bastards, therefore we are the aimed victims of God's might, and should thus embrace the might of Satan...
RONALD MERE (childish curiosity)
But if God does not exist, what made the world?
HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH (jolly but informative, like your favorite uncle or teacher)
The world is flat, flat as a squashed daisy. The seafaremen whho say they have traveled through one sea andinto another, proving that the Earth is a ball of decayed plnt matter and rock did not journey back into our world, but into another world, exactly the same, like a row of mirrors, each world is onthe same until they trail the back. It is in a spiral path, thus you shall go back your way, but it will grow, thus making the path to return home longer.
RONALD MERE (amazed)
The world is alive?
DUGALD (emphasising the "SHE")
SHE is alive! SHE is Mother Earth. She is our mother, she is Mary, she is the world and all its children. The stars are her excrement, the planets mere moons. They are not spheres, as some do say, but merely circles hung to entertain young babes.
HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH (nodding in agreement)
Indeed, Dugald, dear sir, that is true!
DUGALD (to HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH)
Master Mackintosh, where are we heading to?
HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH (both mocking and affectionate)
Dugald, dear slave, we are going as we men can to escape from the signs of war, without being noticed. If we see any soldier, he shall die. If we see any innocent bystander, he or she shall join us in the quest.
CUT - RONALD MERE looks and sees an animal, unbeknownst to him THE DEVIL, a small, innocent-looking simian not unlike a cloven-hooved Capuchin monkey with the skin of a cow and bar a mane of reddish-brown hair on its face that has little horn-like tufts, entirely hairless. It has a tail of barbed wire. It has deep eyes. It suddenly vanishes.
RONALD MERE (haunted)
What in Monmouth's name is that?
DUGALD (unassuming)
What-what?
RONALD MERE (confused)
I saw an animal.
DUGALD (confused)
What type of animal?
RONALD MERE (trying to think)
I barely saw it. It was very quick, but it seemed to be a type of monkey...
HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH (laughing)
A monkey, what the heaven would a monkey be doing in England?
RONALD MERE (confused)
Surely, you have monkeys in Scotland?
HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH (laughing it off)
Yes, but Scotland is a wild place!
RONALD MERE (exasperated)
This is a wild place!
HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH (emphasising the word "USED")
It USED to be a wild place. It USED to be full of animals, and grown trees. But ever since the war came here, came the men. First came the war, then came the men!
DUGALD (takes out a pipe and smokes it)
War does not create the wild! War destroys it! What war creates is civilization in its microcosm!
CUT - Suddenly, a young blond ROYALIST SOLDIER in redcoat and ragged uniform appears, aiming a rifle.
RONALD MERE (horrified)
Kill him!
CUT - HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH charges in, whips out a harpoon and beheads the ROYALIST SOLDIER, his head breaking off and splattering the green green grass.
HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH (consulting DUGALD)
Is he dead?
DUGALD (bending down, checking ROYALIST SOLDIER's heartbeat)
Yes, sir, I think we should better reach home.
RONALD MERE (pointing at a cave, again seeing the DEVIL)
There's something down there, a cave, we could camp there.
CUT - Out of the cave a caped figure in a rangy black wig and wide-brimmed hat and red velvet cape, pale skin, and a sword appears. This is DE DURAS, the DUKE OF FEVERSHAM.
HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH (knowing, uncomfortable)
Don't go in! It's De Duras.
DE DURAS (laughing, sarcastic, firing a pistol randomly)
Well, hello, hello, hello, just who I have been looking for.
CUT - DUGALD cowers behind the cart. DE DURAS comes over and pushes the cart over him, holding his forehead. It is brutal and harrowing.
CUT - INSIDE DUGALD'S HEAD, a twisted approximation of the countryside, as blindfolded milkmaids with blonde pigtails, ANGELS OF DEATH whip him, as his head is crushed by the unruly wooden splinters. He sees inside the cave (thanks to the thrust of the camera), a large office with ornate gold-trimmed furntiure and a large desk. Again, he sees the DEVIL. He screams. RONALD tries to help him. There is no dialog. Inside his mind, there is only upbeat jazzy lift muzak until RONALD MERE cries something.
RONALD MERE (anguished)
That's no cowskinned monkey, that's the Devil!
CUT - DUGALD's neck is chained by the ANGELS OF DEATH, who seem to be genuinely there, the chains around their necks. As they move, DUGALD's head begins to be ripped off. HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH lies in the background, his left leg cut off by an enormous scythe, rising from a hole in the ground.
CLOSE-UP - DE DURAS laughs. The CAMERA pulls out to him romancing a chain-necked ANGEL OF DEATH. He removes her blindfold to see solid glowing white eyes. They fire heat-rays that cremate DUGALD.
CUT - RONALD MERE is dragged into a suit of armor full of nails placed in the inside. As the suit is removed, he is covered in cuts.
DE DURAS (malevolent)
The Death of A Thousand Cuts, voila!
CUT - Horrified, RONALD MERE begins to fantasise (as signalled by a pink filter) that he and DE DURAS are in love. RONALD MERE realises in horror that he is gay and moves DE DURAS' hand, cutting him apart, but he cannot kill him, as he is fantasising. The blade is actually cutting into MERE.
FADE-OUT/CUT - RONALD MERE lies dead. HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH escapes, a broomhandle substituting for his left leg. He is running off, dreaming of escape.
CLOSE-UP- In HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH's mind, a sign in the sky reading "Our Catholic Majesty - King James III", which then mutates into QUEEN RONALD MERE I, and an image of RONALD MERE in regal drag. He is clerly a homophobic Scot shocked by this announcement. Almost in resignation, he reverts to reality. FADE TO BLACK.
FADE-OUT/CUT - HONEST JOCK MACKINTOSH lies limply, hung from a wooden cross on the middle of the hill by the mad-eyed, black-hooded JACK KETCH, still dressed as a vicar, surrounded by a crowd including DE DURAS and soe un-blindfolded milkmaids/ANGELS. JOCK is blessed by a real PROTESTANT VICAR, (Latin, grey-haired, pebble-spectacled), not a Catholic priest. On the top of the cross, smiling is the little Cowskin Capuchin DEVIL, smiling mock-innocently a la DAMIEN in "The Omen".