Alaire restrained a smile. "As the more obvious positions became filled, as it were, it became a little less obvious what to do with my brothers. I rem Father once asking Mother why she couldn't have had some girls for a change! But we coped, you know; and when Drake, who's number six, turned out to have a temper as fiery as his name, Father decided that he'd better serve under Grant and have that temper tamed with military discipline. The seventh, Craig, still doesn't know what he wants to do. Last I h Father was just going to leave it up to him." He left out the fact that Craig was proving something of a black sheep, idling his way among the ladies of the court, and thinking of little besides clothing, wine and women. Best not give him any ideas.
"And you're number eight -- " Kai left the sentence unfinished.
Alaire nodded. "Even as a child I felt like an embar- rassment, with nowhere to go. The 'extra extra prince.
I thought Father hated me after I heard him Mother that bit about daughters."
Kai's expression was sour. "I think my father would prefer a daughter."
But Alaire shook his head. "Don't be so certain.
When I thought Father had given up on me, he sur- prised me. I remember the day clearly. I was only six, but I remember when he came into the palace nursery and shooed all the nurses away so we could talk, just the two of us, 'man to man,' he said. He asked me what I wanted to do, that I could be anything I wanted to be. At first I didn't know what to say."
"And then?" Kai said. He was hanging on every word, fascinated by Alaire's story.
"I told him I wanted to be a B-Minstrel." Alaire stuttered. Sure hope he didn't pick up on that near slip!
Kai laughed. "A B-Minstrel? Is that like a bar min- strel, paid less, seen and heard only in bars?"
Alaire chuckled nervously. "Ah, no, just a garden variety minstrel. He asked why, and I told him that -- "
Think quickly, Alaire! " -- that minstrels go every- where and see everything and no one notices them.
They become part of the furnishings, and they learn a lot. I wanted to do that, you see, to become Derek's eyes and ears, and learn the things no one would tell him to his face. And I had already chosen an instru- ment. A harp."
He realized that he had wasted his frantic thought when Kai ignored the long speech and focused on the last words. "A harp! Did you bring it with you?"
He shrugged. "Well, it's back in my room."
"Please, you must play for me!" Kai urged, as excited as a child with a promised treat.
Alaire assented, glad to be able to play at long last.
It's been a long few days since I've played anything, with Bardic Magic or not. I have to admit it would be a pleasure, and if anything it would give me a chance to practice.
"Later," he promised. "After we've eaten. I'd be happy to."
Kai seemed pleased all out of proportion to the promise. "I didn't know you could play an instrument.
I tried to learn the lute, but I just didn't have what it took, I guess." Then his expression fell. "Like every- thing else in my life."
"That isn't true," Alaire responded automatically, but couldn't think of any reason why this was so. I I knew him better. I might be able to get a handle on this, know which words to use to lift his spirits. But here he is, getting all maudlin again.
"Father never talked to me that way," Kai contin- ued, miserably. "I've never been more than a nuisance to him. At least since I was ten. Before then we got along just fine, but after that, well, something hap- pened."
"It's not unusual for fathers and sons to have prob- lems. Though they usually get worked out," Alaire soothed, trying to guess what could have happened when Kai was ten. A peculiar age for problems like that to start. Early puberty, perhaps?
"But not our problems. He'd rather see me dead."