The instant she was within reach of him, her hand was on his cheek. And when she could press her body close to his, she did. These were the yearned-for moments when she could let it all show. They were in public. Affection was good for the kingdom. Vera bowed to her adoration and kissed him, quivering with the bliss that he sank into it and slid his arm around her waist to hold her tightly.
It could have lasted for hours, and Vera would have been perfectly happy. But it should appear like any other kiss a married couple might share and decidedly not one of a desperately pining woman who thought of this man’s touch more than she’d ever care to admit. Her lips lingered on his for as long as she dared before pulling away.
He smiled at her, caressing her cheek with his thumb and laying another kiss on her forehead. “Is everything—”
“Oy!” Lancelot called. “Pardon my interruption, but we were in the middle of important business.” His effort at sounding scandalized was thwarted by the colossal grin on his face—like a kid who’d been hoping for ages that his estranged mum and dad would get back together. He gestured across the field. “Poor Merlin and Gawain are painstakingly hanging lights one by one—and you’re snogging.”
“By important business,” Arthur said conspiratorially to Vera, “he means planning the jousting tournament’s after-celebrations.”
“And,” Percival added, holding up a square of linen, “we’ve made a deal with Margaret. She’ll set aside some of her immaculate sweet cake for us if we fold napkins for her.”
“As I said,” Lancelot waved his own napkin and gestured to the pile of waiting linens on the table, “important business.”
Percival and Arthur laughed, but Vera’s smile was merely polite as she shifted to watch Gawain and Merlin raising orbs and positioning them. Both, remarkably, acted like nothing was the matter, that the one wasn’t angry and the other hadn’t plumbed the depths of her memory half an hour ago. They were good pretenders. They focused only on their task, each orb taking a few minutes to hang just right in the air.
“Why are they doing it like that?” Vera asked.
The three of them stared at her.
“What do you mean?” Lancelot asked.
“Can’t they just toss an orb, and it’ll hang where they want it to?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “No, they don’t do that.”
She turned to him. “Yours does that.”
Lancelot’s lips pressed into a line. “Mine’s a little different.”
Arthur tilted his head to the side.
“The council knights have arrived,” Lancelot said casually.
“All of them?” Arthur asked, his brow furrowed as Percival simultaneously said, “Is Elaine here?”
Lancelot laughed. “Yes. To both questions. I forgot that you carry a torch for—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish that thought as a commotion arose opposite them from the men setting the sculpture on the buffet table. The whole marble thing was wobbling dangerously, and then the enormous piece began to fall backward. There was nothing any of the workers could do about it except shout and scramble clear from where it would crash to the ground.
But the crash never came. The sculpture stopped mid-fall, dangling at a forty-five-degree angle like a dancer held low in a dip. Then, it was as if someone tossed a rope around it and began to pull it upright. It steadily rose to standing, where it wobbled back and forth on its base three times and came to a stop. Gawain stood, hand still aloft, toward the saved statue. Many spectators clapped.
But Percival’s face snapped to recognition. “That’s how it looked when magic saved me.” His voice was quiet, reverent. “That’s exactly how it looked.” He exhaled a laugh. “If Gawain had ever served with the soldiers, I’d think I’d solved the mystery of my miracle.”
Lancelot stopped folding his napkin. “He did serve with the soldiers.”
Percival snorted. “No he didn’t.”
“All the mages did,” Arthur said.
“But not with our brigade. I’d have seen him.”
Arthur and Lancelot shared a look.
“Perce,” Lancelot said, “we were four thousand in number with nearly a hundred mages. D’you honestly think you could have met all of them?”
Percival had stopped folding the napkin in his fingers. He stared at Gawain with an expression of disbelief until he suddenly rose from his seat.
“Mage Gawain!” he shouted as he strode toward him, drawing the attention of everyone who’d just finished celebrating the statue’s salvation. “Were you at the Battle of Kent?”
Gawain didn’t answer. He dropped his arm, and he shifted uncomfortably under the attention.
“Were you?” Percival pressed, his voice cracking beneath the force of his eagerness. The workers didn’t even pretend to carry on. They outright stopped to follow this exchange.
Gawain swallowed. “Yes.”
“Holy shit,” Lancelot breathed.
Percival staggered a step backward like he’d been struck. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
Gawain didn’t have to say anything. He held Percival’s stare and did not feign ignorance, which was confirmation enough.
“You saved my life. And all this time, I thought you were an ass. I treated you like you’re an ass.” Percival shook his head, exasperated by Gawain even in this moment of reverence.
Gawain shrugged. “A good man was about to die, and you decided to give your life to save him. And from where I stood on the battlefield, you, another good man, were about to die for your king—and it cost me nothing to intervene.”
Percival let out a brief, amused breath and shook his head as he muttered, “Dammit, Gawain.” He glanced over at Arthur, asking an unspoken question with a raised eyebrow.
Vera and Lancelot looked at him, too. One side of his lips turned upward. His hand shifted to his sword’s pommel, and he nodded.
“How many witnesses do we need?” Percival asked.
“Two.” Arthur tipped his head toward Vera and Lancelot.
“Are you ready to be a part of something amazing?” Lancelot murmured as he rose. Vera scrambled to follow them.
Arthur stepped forward, drawing his sword. “Gawain, take a knee.”
Gawain’s eyes darted from Arthur to further across the field, where Merlin ran toward them. “What are you doing?” Merlin called, rather frantically.
“Making Gawain a knight.” Lancelot’s voice was thick with emotion. He cleared his throat and mastered himself with a proud smile.
Merlin cast a sharp frown of warning at Arthur. “Mages can’t be knights.”
“They haven’t been knights,” Arthur corrected. He turned back to Gawain as he continued. “There is no law stating they can’t. Gawain,” Arthur repeated.
Gawain hesitantly stepped forward and dropped to one knee.
Arthur held his sword at his waist. “Ready?” he asked them all.
Gawain looked like he was about to speak before clamping his mouth shut.
“What is it?” Arthur said.
“Does the sword need to be held by the king, or can it be done by any knight?”
Arthur smiled knowingly. “Any knight would suffice with my approval.”
“If it’s acceptable to you, I would be honored if Sir Percival performed the ceremony.” Gawain’s eyes flicked back to the ground.
Arthur beamed as he extended his sword to Percival, whose cheeks went a deep shade of crimson. He stepped forward, his expression that of a man who’d won an award he didn’t feel he deserved.
“Gawain,” Arthur said, “for your acts of selfless heroism on the battlefield, for your dedication to the betterment of magic in the kingdom, and for your valiant service with no expectation of reward or recognition, I, Arthur, King of the Britons, name you a knight of our great kingdom.”