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you even after that was over, and this was as bad as a lie too, isn’t it Sir?”
“Yes, you should have given chase or called for help or at the very least you should have told
me the truth when you returned to the courtyard,” Trevor said. His voice was neither scolding nor
sympathetic, merely matter of fact. “But you didn’t, and it’s done. Orlov is dead and Krupin is
arrested and they are the two who matter. As long as the sharks are caught, I can live with the fact
that a minnow slips through the net now and then.”
“We did a similar thing, you know,” Rayley said, although it was unclear whether the comment
was directed toward Trevor or Davy. “We might have announced that Filip Orlov was with the
Volya, but we didn’t, and neither did Prakov. We let everyone believe he died a martyr to the tsar.”
“Things will likely go better for his widow that way,” Trevor said. “Based on what Tom told
us, that poor woman’s position is precarious enough without us adding to her troubles.”
“So at times the truth is overrated?” Rayley asked, with a sly smile. One rarely got such an
admission out of Welles.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Trevor answered. “I’d rather say that sometimes the truth is complex.”
But Davy was not totally convinced, so he continued to seek absolution. “Vlad swore the
revolution was behind him, Sirs. Said that his mother had already lost one son to violence and he
was going to go home and eat chicken and potatoes before she lost another.”
“Which may indeed have been the case” Trevor said. “A brush with death has a way of making
a man crave chicken and potatoes.”
“And even if it wasn’t,” Rayley added, “perhaps it was simply not this boy’s fate to be
captured.”
“Fate?” Trevor said, stroking his mustache. They had at last sailed beyond the looming shadow
of the Winter Palace and the sun struck them suddenly full in the face, causing them all to flinch and
shield their eyes. “I say, Abrams, you’re talking just like a Russian. There’s no such thing as fate.
It’s just the word men give to decisions which have worked out badly.”
“Fatalism is the national disease of Russia,” Rayley said with a laugh, cupping both hands to
his brow in an effort to stop the assault of the light. “Tom says the Grand Duchess Ella told him that
and it seems most contagious indeed. And yet, Welles, you’re the only one of us who never caught
even the slightest sniffle. I wonder why.”