James Goldman's "The Lion in Winter" 144 words

Will you boil me or stretch me... which? Or am I to be perforated?

You think I'm motivated by love of hills and dales?

The king of France and I will shortly have a tactile conversation,
like two surgeons looking for a lump.

I've borne six girls, five boys...
and connubial years of you.

Jesus won't begrudge them, and the chaplain works for me.

Did you rehearse all this, or are you improvising?

What kind of spindly,
rickett-ridden, milky, wizened, dim-eyed,
gammy-handed, limpy line of things will you beget?

I'm vilifying you, for God's sake!

Liking what he found, he scrutinized her many years.

Do dinghies bearing gifts float up the thames to you?

Like a glutton loves his lunch.

That's a mean and tawdry way to talk about your fiancee.

Don't stand there qulvering in limbo.

Let's have one strand askew.

Men coveted this talon once.

You think I'm motivated by love of hills and dales?

If I'm so devious, why don't you go?

That's clear, concise and well presented.

It nettles her to see how much I need you.

I'm famished.

Think: On the loose in london, winters in provence,
impromptu trips to visit Richard anywhere he's killing people...
all that for a signature.

I thought I'd come and gloat a little.

If you're broken, it's because you're brittle.

I spent three months annulling Louis, then in may, in spring,
not far from here, we married...
young count Henry and his countess.

Tusk to tusk through all eternity.

I fancy I'll relent.

I conjure it before I sleep.

I'll be more responsive then.

How's that for blasphemy?

Our alchemists have stumbled on the art of boiling burgundy.

It's no fun goading anyone tonight.

You can expire.

To your interminable health.

I'm going to lose you, Henry, aren't I?
Alais, in my time I've known...
contessas, milkmaids, courtesans...
and novices, whores, gypsies, jades...
and little boys,
but nowhere in God's western world have I found anyone to love but you.

I say be gaudy and to hell with it.

The nation will be shocked to learn our marriage wasn't consummated.

My position...
well, frankly, Philip, it's a tangle.

Fragile I am not.

Is this an audience, a good-night hug with kisses or an ambush?

So your lust is rusty.

Well, things look a little bleak for Henry, don't they?

I don't know who's to be congratulated.

Well, it was just a whim.

In that lull, I've found how good it is to write a law...
or make a tax more fair or sit in judgment to decide...
which peasant gets a cow.

Who could I have chosen to love...
to gall you more?

Yes.
I even made poor Louis take me on crusade.

Men coveted this talon once.

You can't think Richard's going to wait for your grotesque to grow.

It's not the power I feel deprived of.

Dead bodies rot in field and stream because the living ones are rotten.

And when you die, which is regrettable but necessary,
what will happen to frail alais and her pruney prince?

For the duration of this joyous ritual you will give to your father your support.

Let's have one strand askew.

What kind of spindly,
rickett-ridden, milky, wizened, dim-eyed,
gammy-handed, limpy line of things will you beget?

If you're a prince, there's hope for every ape in africa.

Don't fret.

True, but academic, lad.

From the cradle on, you cradled him.

Gorgeous.

If you tell, there'll be a rash of executions, and you don't want that.

For the duration of this joyous ritual you will give to your father your support.

I'd push him through the nursery door.

- It is time its terms were executed.

They've been marching down the aisle for years, and that's a long walk.

There are no written records or survivors.

Don't look sullen, dear.

I never knew whose birthday we were celebrating.

Is that menace you're conveying?

Not that monument to muck, that epic idiot.

If poison mushrooms grow and babies come with crooked backs,
if goiters thrive and dogs go mad...
and wives kill husbands, what's unnatural?

The king of France and I will shortly have a tactile conversation,
like two surgeons looking for a lump.

Is it rich, despising me?

His arms were rough,
with scars here.

Racing after boar, you flying first,
me scrambling after, all day into dusk.

I've blundered onto peace.

Who's to say it's monstrous?

Bluff away.

Fantastic.

Because you put your ass on purple cushions?

We could tangle spiders in the webs you weave.

Decaying, I suppose.

For moving John to treason.

It's the way I register despair.

It's and we're barbarians.

He's wheels and gears.

He would have gone to Henry and betrayed you.

I haven't kept the great bitch in the keep for ten years out of passionate attachment.

If poison mushrooms grow and babies come with crooked backs,
if goiters thrive and dogs go mad...
and wives kill husbands, what's unnatural?

And I wish you plague!

I want to see how accurate I am.

After all these years,
still like a democratic drawbridge, going down for everybody.

I'll never know how I survived.

You've burbled every bit of strategy you've got.

You're still a marvel of a man.

I'm so relieved.

It's going to be a jungle of a day.

I would appreciate a little qulet confidence.

Is that menace you're conveying?

If you oppose me, I'll strike you any way I can.

I'll scratch a will on this.

I follow all your slaughters from a distance.

You bullied him,
you bellied with his wife,
you beat him down in every war,
you twisted every treaty,
you played mock the monk,
and then you made him love you for it.

"The richest woman in the world... she owns the Aquitaine,
the greatest province in the continent, and beautiful as well.

The vexin is a little county, but it's vital to me.

There's a legend of a king called Lear, with whom I have a lot in common.

I can handle John.

Why did I have to have such clever children?

I've studied law.

How will you force me to... threats?

I recall them all.

Conquer china, sack the vatican, or take the veil.