The Great

‐ Something came.

It‐it's from‐‐ ‐ I know who it's from.

What's it made of? Butter?

‐ Mm. "Because you melt in my‐‐"

‐ Enough. Thank you.

‐ Is it supposed to look like you?

‐ Shit.

‐ Pineapple.

At first lick, that sweet sharp taste,

and then the longer it went, it grew into a sherbet of pine and raspberry.

‐ I've heard I taste of cherries and custard.

‐ What do you mean you've heard?

‐ Well, didn't you tell me that?

‐ No. I felt a bit strange doing it.

I thought Paul might be worried by her agitation

so was whispering as I licked,

"It's okay, Paul, it's okay, Paul." Yeah.

‐ We must still un‐throne her, my point.

Uh, the great love story aside.

‐ She may sit on your face but not on your throne.

Uggh!

It was a joke.

‐ And once it was an acceptable jape,

but my love is strong and my instinct to protect clearly sharp.

Apologies. Hm.

‐ Arkady and I have been strategizing.

He has made a board. ‐ Oh.

‐ It works better on a wall.

‐ We've made a list of factions for you to win over.

The nobles, the military, the Church, rich merchants.

Cherries and custard.

Maybe the Emperor said it to me when we were young.

You did feast on me like a starving man.

‐ Oh, and Catherine's aura after the moment,

a sunlit haze seemed to hang around her.

‐ Oh, did something happen between you? I hadn't heard about that.

‐ Oh, rabbit!

‐ Not to be critical, but can you actually focus on the "unseating her" plan?

I did not leave George to be trapped in your rooms the rest of my life.

‐ Relax, Grigor. I'm on it.

‐ Actually, should we not be worried about being out here?

You are technically escaped.

‐ Ah. It is in hand.

Mm.

Marvelous.

You may go with my many, many imperial blessings.

And your arse is a credit to our country.

‐ Pugachev, do not steal from us.

‐ An opportunity presents, I take it, that is just common sense.

To not would mean I'm a fucking moron, and I is not that, dear Aunty Aunt.

‐ Where is he? ‐ Hunting.

He'll be gone awhile if you'd like me to fuck you.

‐ Once was enough.

I thought it would be interesting, but it was too weird even for me.

‐ Might I suggest, just to be helpful, I do you from behind,

so you don't see my face, you merely register my sensual power

while I whisper filthy Cossack oaths in your delicate ears?

‐ Oh, you're incorrigible.

But no.

‐ Are the guards fooled by you?

‐ I made the tall one give me a hand job so it seems so.

‐ Ah.

Ah! Aunt!

Look at this.

A partridge which I shot as it was sitting in a pear tree.

What are the chances of that?

Ah, Pugachev, you can fuck off.

‐ Empty your pockets as you go.

‐ Fucker.

Still, the only good one I have.

‐ Has she been back for more yet?

‐ She has not, but when she comes,

I am ready with a wave of love that will bring her to her knees.

Look.

A heart made out of rubies.

I also had some pineapple‐based floral arrangements sent to her this morning.

I am now toying with love sonnets, but trying to get anything to rhyme

with "indescribable lust," other than "dust," is immensely difficult.

‐ Her body is saying yes, now her mind must follow.

‐ Say more.

‐ This is a brilliant woman whose mind is always seeking answers.

You must create a question mark.

A mystery.

She has an idea of you, and that idea must evolve.

‐ You are a befuddling, strange creature. Everything you are saying is ridiculous.

‐ At the moment you're playing hard to want when you should be playing hard to get.

‐ Seems a bit strong. She came to me unbidden.

‐ And that is a battle won, but not the war.

Did I capture your father?

‐ Oh.

‐ How, you ask? ‐ No, I did not ask that and I never‐‐

‐ I knew my body had caught his eye‐‐

‐ Is this some annoying story where he ends up sodomizing you in a boat or some such?

I will not listen to it.

‐ It is an illuminating story.

He wanted to fuck me, I knew that,

but I also knew that would be nine minutes of a busy day for him,

quickly forgotten.

I wanted him to want to know me and feel like he never could.

‐ What did you do?

‐ At dinner one night as he regaled the rapt room with tales of his derring‐do,

I plucked a moth from the air.

He kept talking, and as he did,

I smiled bemused and then slowly picked the moth apart

and ate the pieces,

bewildering and beguiling him. ‐ A moth?

‐ Then later that night, he sodomized me in a boat.

‐ Oh, Jesus! ‐ It is a jest.

He did not.

Point is, you must make her believe there is more to you than there is.

‐ More? Fuck me. I'm the full buffet, what do you mean more?

‐ I mean, let her into the new man you're becoming.

‐ Uh, demonstrate kung fu, for instance?

‐ She values ideas, so show her so do you.

‐ Hm.

‐ Shoo!

Sh‐Shoo!

Shoo!

‐ I have been asked to speak to you by the Empress.

I know some of you now, have made love to many of you.

Some softly, some savagely.

This marvelous...

‐ Are they the scientists you bribed to come back?

...dreams of your Russia... They were excited to join the new Russia.

...leading the world in science and reason. ‐ And yes, to be paid well for it.

‐ A dreamer perhaps, perhaps not.

Probably so.

But dream we must.

The enlightenment is warming nations across Europe.

Reason has opened a new world to us.

Who knows what marvels that change the world will erupt

from the inside of these people's brains?

A cure for syphilis perhaps.

I for one hope so.

‐ How exciting were Voltaire's words?

And that Olga's explanation of wind power uses in the Netherlands?

‐ Mm. My face was literally numb with boredom.

‐ Marial, if we are to change this country,

we must change the way people here think.

‐ You could just tell them what to do and shoot them if they don't.

Well, just saying. That is the way we've always done it.

‐ Which is why we need Voltaire.

I cannot free the serfs and give women rights and education

if people do not believe in the inalienable rights of all, for instance,

and that reason overrides greed and tradition.

And... I have a more personal issue to discuss.

Or no, I will just act.

‐ Apparently, the girls' school saw a big lizard.

‐ A lizard? Great.

‐ I heard it might have had wings. ‐ What are you both talking about?

‐ The lizard.

‐ I shall leave you, I must go riding.

We have a problem.

Apparently, Ambassador Sunduk arrived home, but without his head.

‐ What do you mean without his head?

‐ I mean he had it, but it was no longer attached to his body.

Our treaty proposal stuffed in his neck hole.

‐ What? ‐ They have unsurprisingly taken this as an affront and a fuck you.

‐ We didn't do it!

‐ I will send our ambassador to make that point.

Bandits, I assume. Those roads are a nightmare.

But they already had a dim view of you, so this does not help.

‐ They will be making plans to war. We should attack them.

Soon as possible.

‐ No. I will not be dragged into a war that makes no sense.

‐ Let me run this.

Your war is my business, and you agreed I could run it as my business,

"all guns blazing," you said to me.

‐ And when we are at war, you shall have your way with our blazing guns,

but we are not.

Uh, send the Sultan a carriage full of gold bullion and ask for an audience with me.

I will meet him.

‐ Well... why not just tell him you fear a fight?

Let him take Orlo back to Constantinople to eat in a salad?

‐ You have made your feelings known, Velementov.

‐ No, I feel I have barely started.

‐ And I feel you have finished, so you have.

Orlo, I have something to do.

‐ Do you want to talk to the parents about the lizard?

‐ Am I the Empress of Russia or a gamekeeper?

I have something to do.

Which I must do. I just must.

And so I will. What?

You‐‐

This is, this is madness.

No, it's, it's clear who did it.

What?

‐ They did it themselves.

To justify a war and rile their people up.

Open your eyes, Orlo.

‐ General!

‐ Good morning.

‐ Morning.

‐ I wanted to talk to you about the party last week.

‐ Hm.

Sorry?

‐ The, um...

Are you reading? ‐ Galileo.

It's interesting. ‐ Hm, right.

‐ What is your topic of concern?