Had he arrived back at the inn after the racing, as he had intended, had he spoken with Kasia and learned of her encounter with a visitor—the details of which would have meant rather more to him than they did to her—Crispin would almost certainly have conducted himself differently in certain matters that followed. This, in turn, might have occasioned a significant change in various affairs, both personal and of much wider import. It could, in fact, have changed his life and a number of other lives, and—arguably—the course of events in the Empire. This happens, more often than is sometimes
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