The wine arrived, and before the barmaid had set the tray down, Alaire managed to jostle her clumsily, just a little, in an awkward and inexpert attempt to steal a kiss. It was enough to topple one of the glasses, and invoke laughter from the table.
Alaire grinned his most stupid grin, and tried to look as silly as possible. Sir Jehan no longer paid atten- tion to him, apparently having decided he was no longer worth paying attention to.
"Oh, don't worry about that," Kai said, righting the glass. "See? You didn't even break it."
"You aren't going to drink from the carafe again, are you, my dear child?" Sir Jehan said, over the breast of a young woman who had managed to drape herself across his lap. "You looked like someone had run you through, with all that red wine covering you."
A titter of laughter rippled among those assembled, but Kai didn't seem to mind. "Of course not. I'm not a total barbarian, after all." He poured two glasses expertly, and gave one to Alaire. "Drink up. The evenings still young."
"Was that a rumor I heard about you picking a fight over at The Dead Dragon?" Jehan said, obviously bait- ing him. He held a large wineglass in one hand, and helped his lap decoration drink hers. "Or did you really get into trouble so soon?"
A wicked grin passed across Kai's face, before an audible gulp from the glass smothered it. "Would I do such a thing?"
"Yes," Jehan replied.
"Well, then. There's your answer."
While Alaire sipped his wine, and Kai guzzled his, he observed Sir Jehan discreetly. The litter of empty wineglasses and carafes suggested some heavy imbib- ing, but he soon realized that they were not al Jehan's. Those around him were in various stages of drunkenness, and indeed, Jehan was encouraging this, pouring wine the moment someone's glass was empty or only half empty, toasting, laughing, ordering more.
But Jehan wasn't really drinking -- perhaps as much as Alaire was, a sip occasionally. While the others were going through entire carafes, Sir Jehan nursed a single glass.
Odd, Alaire thought. He's not really as drunk as the others. But he's sure acting like he is. Why? Wh Jehan doing here? Spying on Kai, perhaps?
That could be it, but he doubted the man's effi- ciency, given the circumstances. Jehan seemed more interested in the dubious charms of the women around him, and at any rate, he could only spy on Kai when Kai was with him.
But he already knew about the disturbance a Dead Dragon. Were other spies watching them?
Jehan have a network of watchers, who brought him word while he sat at his ease here, like a spider in the center of a web?
That was an unpleasant, perhaps unjustified, anal- ogy. Sir Jehan could be keeping an eye on Kai for his own good.
That had to be it. He's watching the Prince to see that nothing happens to him while he's out carousing.
Since I doubt anyone could stop him, at least this keeps him from getting himself into real danger. Kai definitely needed someone to watch over him, keep him out of trouble and bail him out if he fou Alaire felt a great deal of relief at that So Jehan was not someone he needed to be terribly concerned about, he decided, since he wasn't betraying his mis- sion to Kai or anyone else. He only hoped his performance thus far into the evening was convincing.
Absentmindedly, without meaning to, Alaire fin- ished his glass, and Kai refilled it instantly. Can't afford to get drunk tonight. He touched his lips to the rim and since no one was looking, lowered it without sipping.
"I bid you all good evening," Sir Jehan said grandly, rising to his feet. "My little flock and I have other plans, don't we, pretty ones?" Amid a chorus of gig- gles, all of the females seated also stood, and for a moment Alaire thought he was going to invit Prince to share his companions.
The other men left the table wordlessly, seeking the exit, some visibly disappointed at Sir Jehan's high- handed appropriation of every woman at the table.
Jehan and his "flock" vanished up a flight of stairs, say- ing no more.
If the Crown Prince felt left out, he didn't show it. Alaire's opinion of him raised considerably. While not a prude, Alaire had been more than a little uncomfortable with Jehan's blatant pawing of the tavern girls. He might be a drunkard, but Kai would seem to set higher standards on women than on wine. A small miracle, given his youth and his lust for adventure. No, not adventure, Alaire corrected himself. Misadventure.
Together they sat, alone at the big table, while bar- maids scurried to refill the carafes, and Kai proceeded to tell him his life's story. It would have been easier to understand him if he hadn't lapsed into his native tongue a time or two, but Alaire caught the gist of what he was trying to say, anyway.
"You know, Sir Jehan is one of the best men in the whole country of Suinomen," Kai slurred. "He's been my friend since I was thirteen, and was the only one who showed any interest in my future. Why, Sir Jehan, he gave me my first drink! In this very bar. Four, five years ago."
And you've been drinking ever since. You really are a decent person, I'll bet, when you're sober. Di Jehan turn you into a drunk, or did you do that all by yourself?
Alaire, trying his best to play his role though he was, found himself becoming quite annoyed with his princely friend. That Kai could get them both killed, particularly if he picked another fight in his worsened condition, didn't bother him nearly as much as Kai's deteriorated personality. He had been drunk at the start of this carouse, true, but now he was becoming disgusting.
But Kai was rambling on, in that disjointed fashion of drunks everywhere. "And you, my friend, you must have been here before. I know you from somewhere, and we used to be best friends, are best friends. You saved my life back there, with those sailors, did you know that..."
Alaire finished off his glass of wine, and Kai, of course, refilled it. As he sipped this one, he recalled what Kai just said about Sir Jehan, and this bar. Jehan got him started drinking. And he encouraged Kai to drink himself drunk, just now. And the man wasn't a drunk himself. Very odd, that. Back in Fenrich, he remembered the drunks were usually the ones who encouraged heavy drinking, particularly in those who drank little.
Now Sir Jehan seemed sinister again. For Jehan didn't fit that pattern; he had hardly drunk enough for the wine to affect him, but acted as if he was as inebri- ated as Kai. He might have another motive for he Kai become, and remain, a drunk.
There was more to the picture that he wasn't see- ing. Whatever Jehan's motives were, they couldn't be good. What is it about that man that rubs me the wrong way? Meeting him had shed some light, however dim, on Kai's relationships within Suinomen.
Meanwhile, let's encourage this notion that I'm an old friend. Likely as not, he won't remember a thing tomorrow, if he's like the other drunks I knew back at the village.
"I might have been here, some time back," Alaire began. "My parents, they liked to travel. In fact, I met someone who looked an awful lot like you."
"You did? How long ago was this?"
"Oh, I must have been about fifteen. Four years ago? Anyway, we stayed at this wooden lodge, on a large lake." Although he was making a wild guess, he knew there had to be a large lake somewhere, based on the amount of water he'd seen in the land so far.