The Kingdom of Heaven

FADE UP ON:

RAVENS in stripped trees. Frost clings to hedges, and low fog

lies on the November fields of France. A season of mud and

snow.

TITLE:
“FRANCE, 1186”

Sustain the image of smoking fields and then (with the sound

of PICK AND SPADE...)

EXT. A CROSSRAODS. DAWN

OPEN CLOSE on the most medieval face you’ve ever seen: a

pale, injured, vengeful face, capable of a routine mask of

piety:
a PRIEST. With a dirty fingernail the Priest flicks

out part of a frozen worm from a winter apple. We are at an

INTERSECTION of two lanes of near-frozen mud in HEDGEROW

COUNTRY.

Two GRAVEDIGGERS, a cold PRIEST, a BODY, At a CROSSROADS

overlooked by a Celtic cross.

ON SOUND, as the Priest contemplates his meal (He wants

better and is sure he deserves it) we hear...the PICK AND

SPADE at work, digging the grave at the EXACT CENTER of the

CROSSROADS.

GRAVEDIGGER (OS)

(singing)

I am Francois, to my dismay

(the SPADE digs into the

nearly frozen ground)

Conceived and born in the usual

way...

(throws earth)

Son of man, yet by the way/ not of

him my mother say...

PRIEST:

(beyond cold in thin and

ragged wool)

Shut up and dig.

Chewing his apple he stares at: A SMALL BODY, wrapped in

something like burlap. Where the wrapping is parted we see a

pitiful WHITE FACE and OPEN EYES upon which snowflakes fall.

A rope-scarred neck. A WOMAN: A SUICIDE.

A SILVER CRUCIFIX around her neck.

The PRIEST, eyeing the crucifix, is for a moment unable to

eat his apple. Then he eats.

(CONTINUED)

2.

CONTINUED:

The GRAVEDIGGERS are in rags, dirty, coughing. The

GRAVEDIGGER is cleverer than his condition, watching for his

opportunity in life long after he should have stopped

looking. His right ear is mutilated.

GRAVEDIGGER:

(dangerously clever)

Denied the cross for suicide, the

suicide is then buried at the

center of a cross.

(leans on his pick, like a

scholar)

Show me the logic.

(a noticeable beat)

Father.

(digs, then:
)

Father...

PRIEST:

What.

GRAVEDIGGER:

The Devil is a practical man. If

this be a witch there was poor

return on his investments.

PRIEST:

What would you know of Logic?

GRAVEDIGGER:

(the rising, and

vindictive, Common Man)

I have ears, Father. Though one is

notched because I love justice.

PRIEST:

Thieving.

(thieving, he puts the

dead woman’s CRUCIFIX

around his own neck.)

Dig.

The GRAVEDIGGER (a man who will come into his own, has vowed

it), digs.

GRAVEDIGGER (OS)

When I was young and so the world/I

was as pretty as a girl/I am now a

man of gravitas/With a double chin

and giant arse...

The PRIEST suddenly (as RAVENS erupt from trees beyond a

frozen field) looks in the direction away from the sunrise.

(CONTINUED)

3.

CONTINUED:
(2)

PRIEST:

(at the GRAVEDIGGERS,

ceasing to dig, also

stare)

Horses.

(softly, querulously, and

as if there’s an

opportunity in it)

Knights.

Straightens his clothes. Medievally speaking, th eboss is

coming.

A PART OF MOUNTED KNIGHTS AND MEN-AT-ARMS come along the

road. They are cloaked, cowled. The colors of their clothes

are the only color in the day. The KNIGHTS ride mares, but

ready-saddled DESTRIERS are led behind the party, which also

is accompanied by a CART. A SQUIRE rides before, in rich,

dirty velvet (the livery of IBELIN.) The SQUIRE, who has a

cold, and is none too happy at the French weather, comes up

on a mudd palfrey, and looks at the gravediggers, the body. A

suicide being buried at a crossroads? Normal. The PRIEST bows

low.

SQUIRE:

(flatly, no conceit)

Clear the road.

As the sound of horses draw nearer the PRIEST and the

GRAVEDIGGERS back out of the road and bow, giving the road

to:

THE TRAVELLERS. A scowling, huge, German knight (ODO), a

worldly and scholarly HOSPITALER, and ENGLISH SERGEANT (not a

knight but mounted to fight as one despite inferior armor), a

black mercenary (FIRUZ), and two MOUNTED GENOESE CROSSBOWMEN

in leather armor. The principal of the party is GODFREY OF

IBELIN. Godfrey is what in those days might pass for a vital

sixty, battle-scarred. He wears beneath his cloak (as do his

knights) armor modified by use in the desert, padded and

quilted in the Saracen manner. GODFREY is a man riding into

his past. He seems to remember the crossroads, the

countryside-- but not with any joy. He seems a man with a

heavy obligation on his mind. He stares down at the body.

The PRIEST (standing, head bowed, with the gravediggers as

the knights pass) is in a frenzy of curiosity but does not

dare look up as GODFREY passes. THE HOOVES OF DESTRIERS,

PALFREYS, MULES, pass by the small body and the just-finished

grave. the PRIEST stays with eyes averted until the rides

(and their creaking cart) have passed.

(CONTINUED)

4.

CONTINUED:
(3)

GRAVEDIGGER:

(to the other gravedigger)

Crusaders.

(a beat)

I can smell the blood and spices.

(resentfully beginning to

dig)

I can smell the opportunity.

The second GRAVEDIGGER does not agree about “opportunity”.

Where he is now is where he will die. He digs. THE SQUIRE,

who has turned back, reins in. He tosses a coin.

SQUIRE:

For this burial, from my lord. And

a mass for the soul.

The priest bows greasily but he has other uses for the coin.

EXT. BEYOND THE CROSSROADS. CONTINUOUS

GODFREY, riding, stares around at the wintry countryside of

his youth.

His face is intelligent, lined, grave, scarred: he has seen

the world to its very end and now he has returned to where he

was born.

He sees:

AN ORCHARD. It smokes with frost. (Perhaps there is a

particularly memorable tree). He looks then at: A prosperous,

strong, thatched farm with a workshop building (a FORGE); but

it is still. No smoke rises from the chimneys.

A grubby APPRENTICE (his job, of which he is certainly

incapable, to defend the farm in its owner’s absence) stares

out at the passing nights from behind a hedge. The HOSPITALER

looks curiously at Godfrey, who is staring towards the forge.

HOSPITALER:

You know this place, my lord?

GODFREY:

I know all of it.

He spurs on. The TRAVELLERS continue towards...

THE LOCAL CASTLE.

5.

EXT. THE CROSSROADS. CONTINUOUS

The PRIEST is staring after the knights with interest, fear,

speculation. The workmen begin to throw the body into the

finished grave.

PRIEST:

You’ve forgotten.

An AXE falls to the frozen ground. The GRAVEDIGGERS look at

each other.

GRAVEDIGGER:

She was your brother’s wife.

PRIEST:

She was a suicide. Cut off her

head.

(hurries away)

And return the axe!

The PRIEST hurries after the KNIGHTS. White ambitious face.

EXT. THE VILLAGE. LATER THAT MORNING

A cloister is being added to an existing town church. The

local BISHOP, fat, shrewd, a politician, but fundamentally a

decent man, anxiously watches the progress, the PRIEST with

hm, both clerics holding up their skirts from the mud.

BISHOP:

Your brother. You have spoken to

him?

PRIEST:

(mock-concerned)

He is insane with grief, my lord,

and still arrested.

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