I diversify to TV drama

CAPTAIN ARCADIA


Episode 1 – ‘Gap Year’

Mainz, 1572

(A shot of the cathedral. A bell tolling. A view of the city progressing from grand to seedy. A Low Tavern. Laughter and oaths in German. A red robe splashed with mud. Shot up to the shrewd face of a Roman Catholic prelate, in middle age. He is counting some gold coins as he crosses the threshold. A man in brown shouts.)

DRINKER: Lash up your purses, lads! Herr Kardinal is here…

CARDINAL: (smiling charmingly) I’m not playing tonight Hermann. I have a duty to attend to.

DRINKER: Duty? And this duty’s name…is it Gertrude?

(Shot of a repelled looking bar wench taking a step back, uproarious laughter.)

CARDINAL: Not tonight. Tell me, is the Englishman still here?

DRINKER: Herr Norton? Not likely, your Eminence. You were foolish to be so generous about that account!

SECOND DRINKER: The heretic bastard will be in Cologne by now.

CARDINAL: Cologne? I think that unlikely. Hey, Herr Albrecht, give my boys a drink. Cologne? No, I’m a spiritual gentleman, Liutpold, and my judgement is that by now…

(A hitherto silent man in a green tunic slams a knife in the table.)

MURDEROUS GOON: He’ll be in Hell, Herr Kardinal!

(Shot of a very, very exhausted man, at a roadside, pausing for breath. A flung stone smacks him in the back of the neck and he falls. Three men in green tunics surround him, pinning him to the ground. One pulls a knife.)

KILLER 1: Mistah Norton. No one defaults on Herr Kardinal, do you understand?

KILLER 2: Not without inconvenience, ja?

(Sound of hooves. The three functionaries cluster together suspiciously.)

KILLER 2: Looks like a real gentleman.

(The third killer, with the knife, laughs. We cut to the approaching rider, a young man on a white horse. Should be absolutely archetypal)

SIDNEY: Afternoon, sirs. My mount is tiring; are any of you carrying water?

(Caught in the midst of dubiety, the killers are silent and awkward.)

Come on. My German may be imperfect, but…

(The second killer pulls a pistol and shoots the white horse dead. Sidney sees the action, alights in time, elegantly, smashes the third killer out cold, takes the knife, and stabs the second killer dead through the back of the neck to the gorge. The first man runs for it. The horse aside, the killers have failed to kill anyone.)

NORTON: (gasping) Master Philip!

SIDNEY: What have we here? Lord Jesus, aren’t you the footman mother had dismissed from Penshurst for gambling? What the devil are you doing here?

NORTON: Still gambling, Master Philip.


To be continued