A drunk can get away with anything, I decided. No one expects them to be coherent or sensible. All they saw was a wasted Alendi about some business he was not fit to complete. They smiled in sympathy or snorted in derision, either way not seeing me as a threat.
I'd grabbed a door frame, leaned drunkenly into a room full of men taking their ease, lifted a jug of ale and taken a swig while the owner protested, then asked where the vaults were.
“If you're going to the vaults, you can get your own beer,” one of them told me.
“Under your feet, where do you think?” Another had called, contemptuously.
“Get off my beer,” The nearest had growled.
I nodded sagely, let him have the jug, wiped my mouth with one hand, feeling the beard growing there, and straightened up. “I will,” I said with exaggerated care. Beard, I thought. When had that happened? I couldn't remember the last time I had shaved. How drunk had I been? I'd grown a beard and not noticed. I was looking up and down the corridor, still leaning on the door frame.
“That way,” one of them said, spacing the words as though talking to a drunken fool, which I suppose he was.
I nodded sagely and went.