Scene 1: The Court
The clerks, Raphael and Gabi are sat facing Ivan. All their paperwork is covered in letters (a-d)[1].
Gabi, is the Prince of Darkness going to attend?
I don’t think so, he seems to have some problems with the female demons. They want equal rewards for being demonic, some long standing discrimination issue, oh and he’s meeting with his builders afterwards. Seems he wants a new source of heat installing.
Well ok this is not really satisfactory, however, Ivan maybe you can get us started then. Can we cover the early events in your reign,
Ah yes, ummh …. why?
Look just explain to us what happened during your reign, we need to determine where your soul is going for the rest of eternity.
Well when I inherited, I found that lots of the vassals were plotting a rebellion
Rebellion in Beloozero
And some seemed more committed than the others:
And this is typical of my luck, look what then happened
Ivan, I don’t think this has anything to do with ‘bad-luck’, it seems that, quite simply, he did not like you
Raphael passes a note to one of the clerks – “score this as a ‘b’ and a ‘c’
Well once the war started, I did much better than my father ever expected:
Ivan, there is a problem with your family claiming heroism when they were actually doing something else?
Oh no, I was being heroic, I felt so inspired, almost as if someone was leading me forward, anyway the good luck didn’t last long, when first my bishop was injured:
And then I was captured.
Ah Ivan, can we concentrate on what happened at this stage.
Well I was visiting the baggage train and …
No, no, not how you were captured, what happened next
Well they took me off to this big castle and locked me up
And you asked not to be ransomed?
No that was a mistake, I wanted to be ransomed, but just not immediately
Why?
Oh nothing
Why?
Well, there was this servant, dark haired, wonderful glowing eyes, I mean she was so tempting
So?
Well it was rather confusing, but I think they tried to kill me and then I managed to escape. Of course we then finished the war, deposed Vsevolod, and things, briefly, settled down
Raphael passes a note to the clerks – “score this b and d”, Harry is clearly up to something
Gabi indicates he wants to say something
Yes Gabi?
Its just can I stress here that Harry is not happy at any attempt to raise Mstislav’s old ‘confusion’ defence
Ok, noted, anyway Ivan please continue
Well after I got back, I rather wanted to spend time with the family:
Raphael passes a note – “C” underlined several times
The Suzdal War
It was all peaceful for a couple of years, and then I decided to force Suzdal back into the realm. It was large, fairly prosperous and had been independent for about 40 years (of course Ivan does not make the opposite connection that Suzdal is large and prosperous precisely because it has been outside Rurikovich control):
Now I was unlucky in that battle. First
Got that really nasty wound
And then I was thinking about the castle (we were quite nearby actually) and wasn’t really watching and …
Of course being wounded meant I was a bit unlucky in the next battle as well
But by December, he’d agreed to be my vassal and I was laid up in bed recovering from my wounds
Raphael passes a note – ‘a’, ‘c’, reserve judgement on ‘d’
The Croatian events
Anyway I was lucky that I had such a good Croatian spy master, well he was ill and excommunicated but otherwise
He spotted that my chancellor might be a problem
And that it would be a good idea to replace her with his wife, who was so much more religious as well. It was a pity, Sviatoslava just brought back memories of my episode in the tower.
Anyway, Tito, as I called him, arranged for his eldest daughter to go back
Apparently, he had some plan to use her to assassinate his old rival
Though, my initial rejection of his plan seemed to not really put him off.
And then much to my surprise, someone agreed to marry his second daughter, you’d have thought they’d have learned?
He did have such a nice shield though
Raphael passes a note to the slumbering clerks – “B”, “C”
And, oh yes, given the overall peace in the realm, I started to build a really exciting new castle:
Ivan is led out and chained next to Ukko
Raphael turns to the clerks
So what was the score? A-1, B-3, C-4, D-1
Ok so he is indeed boring, no obvious evidence that Harry has been up to too much, though I am suspicious about that tower story, the ex-communicated spy master and the utterly disloyal chancellor.
[1] for the key read the
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so does it get more or less exciting when the Mongols turn up? Since most of the demonic plots are her idea, why is Astarte looking for equal pay? Is this just the start of Russian spies being sent back to Croatia?