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.
And since most buildings consisted of wood, he fig- ured a "wooden lodge" was a pretty good bet as well.
Kai's eyes widened "Was that you?"
Alaire shrugged. "Might have been," he replied, distantly.
Kai gestured excitedly in his chair. "Oh, it was! It must have been! It was you, Alaire, I remember now, I remember it all, that summer the royal family decided to have a 'peasant's holiday'! And you were there. My best friend! We swore that oath of eternal friendship, but my father didn't approve -- I thought he'd forced your parents to take you away to some awful place Althea and I'd never see you again!"
Kai leaned over and hugged Alaire for what seemed an eternity. The barmaid gave them an odd look.
Alaire rolled his eyes.