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“Not accustomed to smoking these or drinking that,” Davy gasped when he caught his breath.
“Nothing in Russia ever goes down quite as smooth as one expects,” Vlad said. He had a thin
face, with a pointed chin. A look of hunger played about his features, and Davy suspected that his
brother’s death had not turned him into the malcontent creature he now was, but had rather merely
accentuated his inborn nature. Vlad Ulyanov had most likely been unhappy even back in the sand
pile, a sniveling disgruntled toddler who always wanted whatever toy lay in the hands of another.
Nonetheless, Davy’s story seemed to have earned him some ground, for Vlad was now looking
at him with sharpened interest. “These men who trivialize you, they also work for the Queen?”
Davy nodded, glancing at an earthenware pot to his left which held a clump of geraniums. The
next time the man was distracted, he would have to toss his vodka into it, for if he consumed too much
he suspected he would find it impossible to keep his senses. “They found me doing a nothing job in
the streets,” he said. “A less than nothing job. Trained me, gave me my first promotion. Are good to
me, by all measures.”
“And they never quite let you forget it.”
The tone of voice was sardonic, but Davy recognized the genuine emotion behind it. This
shaming sense of having been the last one invited to the party, allowed in as an afterthought, and
expected to be perennially grateful for the chance. Yes, he too understood well enough how it felt to
be the least among men but loyalty would not allow him to demonize Rayley or Trevor, not even to
further gain Vlad’s confidence.
“They do not always seem to welcome my ideas,” he conceded. “But they have given me some
chances. At times I feel they have even placed me in situations that are somewhat out of my depth.”
“Out of your depth? As a messenger boy?”
Well, that was a bit of a error, was it not? Davy had never totally believed Mrs. Kirby and
Elliott Cooper when they had blithely claimed that the Volya would accept the notion that a lad who
was wealthy enough to have attended boarding school would then accept the paltry job of being a
messenger boy. Not to mention the other incongruity, that he was expected to pass as a political
revolutionary in service to the Queen. He would have to divert the conversation at once or risk
making an even greater error. Someone – was it Rayley? – had once told Davy that the secret of a
successful lie was to keep it as close as possible to the truth.
With a short, shallow puff of the cigarette, Davy leaned back in his chair, consciously