Carnival Row (2019) s01e03 Episode Script

1 (SOLDIERS SINGING INDISTINCTLY) It's a hard way But there's no other We are soldiers of the Burgue Of the Burgue! Wreathed in glory Mates forever Ever brothers of the Burgue Of the Burgue! (THUNDER RUMBLES) (SONG CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY) Anything? Sir.
(WHISPERS): Yeah, that's the place.
Leave the wagons! We're going up! Hold the wagons! (HORSES HUFFING) (WHIRRING IN DISTANCE) (HORN SOUNDING) Show the colors.
(HORSE WHINNIES) Show the colors.
(WHIRRING CONTINUES) (CREAKING) (WHIRRING CONTINUES) (WHIRRING CONTINUES) We're Burguishmen.
We mean you no harm.
(MURMURING) (WIND WHISTLING SOFTLY) Per the terms of the Tain Treaty between your proud kingdom and the Republic of the Burgue, these premises are hereby commandeered by the 13th Light Dragoons for use in defense of these lands.
The telegraph line that crosses not far from here connects High Bresail with the front and is crucial to the war effort.
We've been tasked with its protection.
This is a holy place.
Conduct yourselves accordingly.
(BLEATING) (INDISTINCT CHATTER) Sergeant Philostrate.
I don't like this.
This whole place is riddled with corners and shadows.
Search the buildings and the grounds.
Check for hiding places, for traps, for weapons.
Weapons, sir? We need to be certain that this Mimasery has not been infiltrated by faerish guerrillas.
These are refugees, sir, not guerrillas.
We don't know what they are, Sergeant.
Pact fae look exactly the same as our fae, do they not? I don't want a repeat of what happened at Fort Tarlington.
I lost a lot of good men that day.
Usual drill? Deploy detachment, work in pairs? PHILO: No.
Better to keep it discreet.
Why don't you take a look around the dwellings? I'll sweep the grounds.
Be friendly, eh? (WIND WHISTLING SOFTLY) (WIND WHISTLING SOFTLY) (GRUNTS) (DOOR CREAKS OPEN) (GRUNTS) Easy.
Easy, now.
And who might you be? I'm a sworn steward of this sacred library, and you are trespassing.
Well, that was not my intention, miss.
If you'll kindly stay your blade, I'll be on my way.
Oh, so you can scurry back to your commander and report this place? I assure you the commander has no interest in books.
There are books in this room that are older than the first words your oafish species ever uttered.
And I will gladly spend all day mopping your blood off this floor before I see them crated up to be gawked at in some fucking Burguish museum.
Well, you needn't worry, miss.
I won't tell anyone.
You have my word.
And why should I trust you? It's either that or kill me and risk my commanders finding this place when they come looking for the body.
What's your name? Rycroft Philostrate.
And you are? The last face you'll see if you break your word.
Now get the fuck out.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER) You can feel them staring at us.
This fucking place.
God's noose, I never thought I'd miss High Bresail.
- That whole city stank like a piskie's armpit.
- BLIGH: Yeah.
- At least they had whores.
- Bligh, is there any sort of animal you wouldn't fuck? Sure, Crabbe.
Your mum.
(BOTH LAUGHING) Find anything to worry about? Me neither.
MIMA ROOSAN: Do you think he'll keep his word? He's faan-troigh.
You never know with them.
Keep a close eye on him.
Yes, Mima.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER) What happened? The line's gone down.
I rode out to check.
It's snapped over the ravine.
- Snapped or cut? - What, you think it's a trap? I don't know that it isn't.
Let's put together a repair detachment.
That ravine's a furlong wide.
We don't have the equipment to run a new line across.
A fae could do it.
You got someone in mind? As it happens I do.
All clear.
Go on.
I don't want to be here any longer than you do.
(KNIFE SCRAPING) You know, you can go ahead.
Leave if you want to.
Leave? You've done what we asked.
Why not? Flit on home.
You don't have to worry.
I do have to worry.
It's my job to worry about that place.
I'm not gonna tell anyone.
I like books.
Is it for children? It's a scientific romance.
Stiver novel.
Kingdoms of the Moon.
What's the premise? A rogue inventor journeys to the Moon and falls in love with the princess of a lunar tribe.
That is, without a doubt, the maddest thing I've ever heard.
It's actually quite well-reasoned.
How is it well-reasoned? How would one even get to the Moon? - Would you like to borrow it? - No.
I'm just curious.
Well he constructs a sealed capsule and a massive cannon to fire it beyond the stratosphere.
That is preposterous.
And he just finds people up there? Living on the Moon? (SCOFFS) Go on, take it.
I've read it.
Many times.
It's far more enjoyable than listening to me try to explain it.
VIGNETTE: Vignette.
I'm sorry? My name.
I'm Vignette.
(GRUNTS) (HOWLING IN DISTANCE) - Are there wolves around here? - No.
- (HORSES NEIGHING) - MAN: Whoa, easy, easy.
(MAN SCREAMING) - (GUNSHOT) - Stay here.
That's an order.
(GUNSHOT) (HORSE GROANING) Darius! Darius! (GROWLING) (GUNSHOT) (GROWLING) (PHILO GRUNTING) (BOTH PANTING) (TWIGS SNAPPING) (GRUNTS) You okay? (PANTING): I'm fine.
That's a lot of blood.
- It's not mine.
- You sure? I'm fine.
I ran one down.
It's dead.
(WHIMPERING) Fuck.
We found these up on the ridge.
I'd heard rumors going around the men.
It's hard to believe that the Pact were infecting their soldiers with the wolf's curse, turning them into monsters.
But the Moon isn't full.
Some kind of catalyst.
Induces the change.
Was anyone bitten? No one who survived.
Is there nothing the Pact won't stoop to to take this land and its riches? Very good, you're dismissed.
Yes! (LAUGHS) Hello.
Careful.
It's a long way down.
PHILO: It is, isn't it? How are you liking it? The book? I finished it.
And? It's extraordinary.
At first, it seemed to be a droll little colonialist fantasy.
A valiant human explorer romances some native princess But then he leaves and it's 20 years later.
And you find out that the narrator is actually The daughter telling the story.
And she spends the whole second half looking for her father.
Hmm.
Brilliant, right? And the ending.
Gods.
I was sobbing.
I'm so pleased you liked it.
I loved it.
I really did.
Keep it.
No, I can't.
It's your favorite book.
I can just get another copy back in the Burgue.
Where are you gonna find one? I insist.
For your library.
I can't thank you enough.
Would you like to see it? - See what? - The library.
Properly, I mean.
(FLUTTERING) This is the largest library in the Kingdom of Anoun.
Right.
Is there another room? You know, where the books are kept.
You're so peculiar, you faan-troigh.
You only think in two dimensions.
How many books are in this place? (ECHOING): I couldn't tell you.
Don't know that anyone's ever counted.
Holy texts, maps.
Scientific research.
Histories going all the way back to the Queen of Crows.
There's one I wanted to show you.
I saw you looking at it before.
Oh, yeah.
What was that? It's a 700-year-old illuminated manuscript.
It tells the tale of the first human in Tirnanoc.
Ah.
Here it is.
He was an explorer called Isen who'd washed ashore after a storm, and was taken to Queen Aradis, who became utterly fascinated by him.
He stayed as a guest of her court for quite a while, and Well, they fell desperately in love.
- PHILO: So I see.
- This is nothing.
Some of these books have pages that would make a faerish sailor blush.
PHILO: What's this? He just left her? Yes.
Sadly, Isen yearned for home, so he built a ship and left.
No one knows if he returned, but he did leave something of himself behind.
They had a child.
A son.
A half-blood.
He was a mysterious figure.
Spent his life searching for his father.
It all sounds rather like my book.
I thought so, too.
It could be a coincidence, but maybe Isen did find his way home and brought the story with him.
Or maybe the writer of my book heard the tale as a child from his faerish nanny.
Exactly.
I like to think there's a connection, at least.
Why? I like the idea that a story like this might cross the world and somehow find its way back centuries later, changed by constant retellings, but familiar.
As if to tell us something.
That maybe we're not so different in the end.
- (RHYTHMIC CLICKING) - (INDISTINCT CHATTER) It's Fort Sovereign.
They were shelled.
The Pact, that far north? They've been advancing further every day.
CRABBE: Scores wounded.
They need blood.
All types.
They're asking all units for donations.
Fort Sovereign's over a hundred leagues away.
It's a pity we can't help.
Our blood may be of no use to your wounded, but our wings can be.
We could have relief there within hours.
All right.
- (ROLLING THUNDER) - Listen in! I need every able-bodied man here now.
We need to get blood to the front.
MAN: Aye, sir.
Call Mayweather.
- MAN 2: Yes, sir.
- Set up the first aid post.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER) (THUNDER CRACKS) (CLICKING) (WIND WHISTLING) Do you want me on your mind Or do you want me to go on? I might be yours as sure as I can say Be gone, be far away Ooh, ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh Ooh, ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh To the town we go Into your hideaway Where the towers grow Gone to be far away Sing quietly Along VIGNETTE: That represents my surname.
- Stonemoss? - Mm-hmm.
And this one? The year I was born.
Which is? Oh, that would be telling.
What about this one? That is the one a lass gives away when she gives her heart.
(SIGHS) It's a childhood injury.
(PHILO SIGHS) - How? - I don't know.
I was too young to remember.
All I know is the headmaster said it was how I turned up at the Foundling Home.
I have one, too.
A scar? Where? From what? Find it, and I'll tell you.
(FIRE CRACKLING) (EXHALES) (EXHALES) It's cold.
You all right, mate? I know it sounds mad, but I swear sometimes I think I can still feel it.
It's not mad.
Just don't try standing on it, eh? WINSHAW: So, Sergeant I saw you talking to that chap.
What do you think of the fae? They're an interesting people.
Are they? In what sense? Well, they've been around so much longer than we have, for a start.
And yet, their industry lags far behind ours.
Why do you think that is? I really couldn't say, sir.
Perhaps they've pursued different ends to ours.
Indeed they have.
Idolatry, intemperance, fornication.
Their ways have built the very empire that now crumbles around us.
And we must be careful not to be seduced.
(SIGHS) (INDISTINCT CHATTER) Fucking wait.
(PANTS) All right.
I'm all yours.
(RETCHES) (PANTING LOUDLY) (SCREAMS) (GROWLS) (HOWLING LOUDLY) (HOWLING) (LOW GROWLING) (WIND BLOWING) (WIND BLOWING) It's not what it looks like.
How the hell could it possibly be anything else? I've got it under control.
It's only once a month.
And I've got a whole forest to get myself lost in.
What are you gonna do when we get back to the Burgue? Nowhere to run there.
I'll hand myself in.
(SIGHS) And they can do whatever they do.
They'll take care of you is what.
(DARIUS CHUCKLES) You're their soldier.
Not anymore.
Not to them.
To them, I'm-I'm this.
A bloody Critch.
Except worse, because I'm a Critch that could turn them Critch.
They'll put a bullet in my head on the spot.
They won't.
I'll take care of it.
Anyway I'm not the only one with a secret, am I? I can smell it all over you.
(CHUCKLES SOFTLY) The wolf fades slowly.
It's that pix you been doting on, isn't it? Don't change the subject.
You're really in deep.
Aren't you? I get it.
I look forward to the change.
I'll be shitting bones and leather for a week.
(DARIUS CHUCKLES) But in the moment when the wolf comes out, it's freedom.
It's like the wolf was what you were all along, underneath it all, and the bite was just permission to stop pretending.
And that's what this whole fucking place is.
(WINGS WHIRRING IN DISTANCE) (HORN BLOWING) (INDISTINCT SHOUTING) (BABY CRYING) (SOBBING) Tourmaline.
(GASPING) Oh, Vignette! Oh! (INDISTINCT CHATTER) What happened? We were attacked.
(SNIFFLES) Kish it's fallen.
(CRYING) (FIRE CRACKLING) TOURMALINE: It was awful.
They waited to start shelling until they could surround the city with sharpshooters.
Once it began and we tried to get away, they started picking us right out of the air.
Fecking Pact.
Like the Burguish are any better? - They're our allies, aren't they? - Please.
They're Imperialist shites, same as the Pact.
They play the fae against each other so they can take home the spoils.
So you flew all night? It's, um it's funny how a crisis brings all your regrets into focus.
I saw my whole life go up in flames, and all I could think was that I had to get to you.
(SNIFFLES) What? I've met someone.
You know I regret how it ended between us.
- I do.
I really do.
- I know.
It never ended.
It just changed.
You're still my closest friend.
(SNIFFLES) Is it someone you met here? He's a soldier.
Oh.
The wing brigade.
He's a Burguish soldier.
He's a good man.
Oh, I I'm sure he is.
I'm sure he's a right proper gentleman.
Now.
Come on, Vignette.
It's the oldest story there is, and it never ends well.
Soon as the war's over, he's gonna go home, find himself a fat Burguish lady, and have a big brood of fat Burguish kids.
You don't know that.
You haven't even thought about what happens when the war ends, have you? (SIGHS) I'm exhausted.
Let's not talk about this anymore.
You're wrong about him.
(PANTING) Your wings, they didn't brighten this time.
It's not supposed to happen with faan-troigh anyway.
You all right? What's gonna happen to us when the war is over? I don't know.
Hadn't really thought it through yet.
Right.
- Vignette.
- What am I to you, Philo? - Where's this coming from? - Because if I'm just some exotic fuck, then No.
How can you say that? You're You're like coming home.
(SIGHS) I lost a part of myself a long time ago.
I tried to forget, tried to ignore it, but it was always there.
There's a soldier here, one who lost a leg - Ivos.
- Ivos.
He told me he could still feel it, as mad as that sounds.
But it didn't sound mad.
Not to me.
Your scars.
It must have happened when I was a baby.
I can't remember it.
But I know what was taken from me.
Because you still feel them.
I always have.
I've felt them my whole life.
You're half fae.
I can imagine how that must look to you, a lifetime burying all the parts of me - that are like you - Stop.
You didn't do this.
It was done to you.
Now I know why that book made such an impression on you.
A child who's half fae, searching for their parents I always wondered what their story was.
An affair.
A single drunken collision.
I wonder whether they loved each other, whether they loved me, if love would've made a difference.
I'm sorry.
They must have had a reason to give you away, but to shear you like that To understand, you have to know the Burgue.
Life's hard enough for the fae.
Half-bloods don't belong anywhere.
To the humans, you're just another Critch.
To the fae just a reminder of the boot on their throats.
They thought that if they could pass you off, you'd have a chance at a better life.
Didn't anyone at the boys' home know you'd been shorn? The headmaster knew.
Maybe he was paid for his silence.
Maybe he just took pity on me.
He kept your secret, though? He did.
He taught me to hide it.
Told me to steer clear of doctors, no matter what.
If anyone knew I had one drop of fae blood in me, I'd have been on the street.
Certainly never would have been able to join the Army.
So you never told anyone? No.
Not in the Burgue.
But then it never felt so much like home.
Not like this.
Not like you.
Where will you go? Oh.
Down the coast to Mag Mor.
It's the biggest shithole in Tirnanoc.
There's nothing much to fight over, so maybe we'll be safe there.
Good luck.
You could come with us.
Good-bye, Tourmaline.
I love you.
(TOURMALINE WHIMPERS) (SNIFFLES) - We will see each other again.
- (SIGHS) I don't know how or where, but we will.
(WINGS FLUTTERING) (INDISTINCT CHATTER) (GOAT BLEATS) Do you love her? Do you know what, it doesn't matter.
She loves you.
And it's gonna get her killed.
I've seen what's coming, and your two legs can't outrun it.
The Burgue is losing the war.
This will all be Pact territory soon.
And she will stay by your side, even when you beg her to fly away and save herself because because that's who she is.
She'll die for you.
If you love her, you won't give her the choice to.
(CONVERSING INDISTINCTLY) The Pact has taken the capital.
Whole bloody front's collapsed.
We've evacuating.
To where? Home, Sergeant.
We're to rendezvous with the fleet at Port Moradoon.
PHILO: How long have we got? They'll be here by morning.
DARIUS: Philo! (INDISTINCT CHATTER) MIMA ROOSAN: Vignette.
It's time.
Go seal the library.
Yes, Mima.
You should go with them.
- You should leave now.
- Without you? No.
Get yourself to Port Moradoon, I'll evacuate with my men, - we'll meet there.
- Unless we don't.
Unless the Pact catches up with your troops and I never see you again.
Vignette, listen to me.
- We go together, Philo.
- Where? It doesn't matter where, as long as we have each other.
A Burguish soldier won't last long in Pact-occupied territory.
Then we go east, over the mountains, across the Gulf to Ignota.
All right.
All right.
We go together.
I'm going to seal the library.
Meet me in the Garden of Stones.
I'll see you there.
- I love you.
- I love you.
(ALARM HORN BLARING) Pact airships! Pact airships! Take cover! (ALARM HORN BLARING) (INDISTINCT SHOUTING) (RUMBLING) WINSHAW: Don't let the cipher logs fall into enemy hands! (SHOUTS INDISTINCTLY) Yah! (SHOUTING) Let 'em go.
(BOMB WHISTLING) (EXPLOSIONS IN DISTANCE) (SCREAMING) Mima Roosan.
I need you to do something for me.
(EXPLOSIONS IN DISTANCE) (EXPLOSIONS IN DISTANCE) (WHISPERING INDISTINCTLY) - (EXPLOSIONS) - Hup! Hup! Give over! DARIUS: Philo! Your men are halfway down the hill.
Come on! It's time to ride.
(EXPLOSION) - (SHOUTING) - (HORSE NEIGHS) (DISTANT EXPLOSIONS) (RAIN FALLING) I'll tell him I don't know where you are.
No.
I'll talk to him.
- What are you doing here, Philo? - The flag you took was We both know you don't give a shit about that flag.
- You threatened to tell them.
- I was angry.
- You know I wouldn't.
- Do I? You should.
We were close once.
Or was any of that even real to you? How can you even ask me that? Because you left me, Philo! You left and had Mima Roosan tell me you'd died.
You think that was easy? It nearly ripped my bloody heart out.
Then why? I didn't want you to die for me.
You think I haven't spent the last seven years wishing I had? I was a liability to you.
I was your weakness.
You were my hope, Philo.
And you survived.
We would've done more than survive.
We would've had a reason to.
We would've worked it out.
It could never have worked.
I'm a broken thing.
Not to me.
I accepted you.
All of you.
Can this world say the same? Have you told anyone the secrets that you told me? Oh, gods, Philo.
You're so lost.
I will say a prayer for you tonight that you find where you belong, but I know now - that it's not with me.
- Vignette.