Speech Script: The Kings Day

CAST

• King Caspian Witlock III – King of the Brits

• Dame Blackwood – Knight of the realm

• King Burkley – King of the Scots

Scene: The morning before the battle
Setting: Medieval Times

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SCENE ONE

FADE IN. A TREE STANDS CENTER STAGE WITH A YOUNG MAN RESTING BENEATH ITS BRANCHES. A SWORD IS PLUNGED INTO THE GROUND BESIDE HIM, AND HE HOLDS A BOOK IN ONE HAND. A WOMAN, CLAD IN ARMOUR, ENTERS FROM STAGE RIGHT.

DAME BLACKWOOD: Caspian! Caspian, where the devil… there you are!

CASPIAN: What is it now? Can’t a man catch a moment's rest?

DAME BLACKWOOD: My king, you are required in the war room.

(CASPIAN FLINCHES AT THE WORD "KING.")

CASPIAN: Can’t you see I’m busy? I’d hardly call my presence necessary…

DAME BLACKWOOD: My lord, with all due respect, we need—

(CASPIAN CUTS HER OFF.)

CASPIAN: You are all far too qualified to need my input! My father may have been a leader of war, but I am not. You would be wise to place your faith in someone else. Someone prepared for that burden.

DAME BLACKWOOD: Like it or not, you are king, my lord. You have a responsibility—not for your tactical mind, but for your moral one. Your father may have started this war, but perhaps you’ll be the one to end it. Your way. Not his.

CASPIAN: Since when did you become a woman of wisdom?

DAME BLACKWOOD: I’ve always been one. You just never listened.

(LAUGHING, SHE HELPS HIM UP.)

CASPIAN: I’m not sure I have the right to wield his sword. It feels… heavy in my hands.

DAME BLACKWOOD: You are his blood. There is no greater right.

CASPIAN: Blood, maybe. But his blessing, I do not have. I doubt I’d be here today if I were not born pure, unlike my many possible brethren. Ah, the fortune of being the only non-bastard my father sired.

DAME BLACKWOOD: Perhaps. But until you claim a new blade, it will have to do.

CASPIAN: Very well, I will concede to that at least.

(CASPIAN DRAWS THE SWORD FROM THE GROUND, STRUGGLING TO LIFT IT HIGH.)

CASPIAN: Let us head to the meeting then. I sense the storm draws near.

END SCENE.

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SCENE TWO

The Meeting Site, England. Early Morning.

King Caspian, dressed in royal attire, sits at a banquet table in the neutral meeting site. His hands shake slightly, but he sits ready and determined. Around him are knights clad in armour. He is the only one not bearing arms. Sitting across from him is King Burkley, leader of the rival kingdom.

KING BURKLEY: So then, they send a boy, barely of age, to lead these negotiations? Have your people really sunk to such levels of incompetence?

DAME BLACKWOOD: Watch your tongue, or I’ll cut it out myself.

(CASPIAN HOLDS UP HIS HAND TO SILENCE HER.)

CASPIAN: Do not mistake my age for weakness. I’ve come to put an end to this conflict, once and for all.

KING BURKLEY: An end? AHAHA!

(KING BURKLEY LAUGHS LOUDLY.)

There is no end. Not until one of us is dead in the ground.

CASPIAN: One of us is already dead. My father died for this war, and his father, and his father’s father. As I’m sure many of your lineage have suffered and died in this conflict.

KING BURKLEY: Once I kill you on the field of battle, your line will end here, and my problems will be solved.

CASPIAN: Perhaps. Perhaps not. I am no more in control of this war than you are.

(BURKLEY STANDS UP DRAMATICALLY, SLAMMING HIS MUG DOWN.)

KING BURKLEY: And what’s that supposed to mean?!

CASPIAN: It means our people will never stop fighting until there is nothing left. Even if you and I are long dead and gone. Not until the last two poor souls stand bare in an empty battlefield, with only tears of sorrow as their consolation prize.

War… it’s all our people understand. It’s all any people understand. An endless contest of who has the biggest, meanest, sharpest stick. Climbing over an ever-growing pile of corpses to reach the sunlight, even for a moment.

Isn’t peace obtainable? Is it so obscene a concept? To pull each other up out of the dirt and mud, so we might all feel the sun’s glow on our backs together?

Must we be slaves to the ideals and ideas of dead men who lay cold in their graves? Whose only contribution to the endless chaos is clawing at the ankles of the youths of tomorrow, pulling them into the murky depths of death and misery with them?

I beg you, I implore you, to reconsider your stance. Is this war worth dying for? Worth sacrificing everything for? Worth mutual annihilation? So you can die in meaningless solace, knowing that they died too?

You must choose, right here, right now, today. To die for your people, or choose to live for them.

I choose to live.

(KING BURKLEY IS SILENT FOR A MOMENT AS HE CONTEMPLATES CASPIAN'S WORDS.)

CASPIAN: Don’t let our people suffer any longer.

KING BURKLEY: We cannot forget the crimes your people have committed. Villages burned. My people raided and slaughtered like animals.

CASPIAN: And we cannot forget your acts of violence either. Our cities sacked, our farmland destroyed, and our wealth plundered.

But we can forgive.

I will never ask you to forget what you have lost, just as I will never forget what we have lost. But this conflict can only truly end if we move on and remember those sacrifices.

Mourn our losses, yes. But give up the hatred we hold for each other.

(KING BURKLEY PAUSES AGAIN AS HE CONSIDERS CASPIAN'S WORDS.)

KING BURKLEY: Forgiveness… A boy indeed.

I had you pegged wrong, Caspian. You may have the body of a young boy, but you show greater wisdom than most men. We will consider your offer of peace. But we have conditions.

(CASPIAN SMILES AND NODS AS TENSIONS DEFLATE.)

CASPIAN: And we are ready to hear them.

END SCENE.