“I’m the next one over. Lancelot is directly across the hall,” Matilda said. “Shall I help you get settled in?”
Vera assured Matilda she was fine and sent her on her way. Strangely, she noted with her head cocked to the side, the room was entirely lit by fire—from the robust one in the fireplace to the flames of candles all along the walls. There was a chandelier of orbs hanging from the ceiling, completely dark, and the marble panel that would have been used to light it was in its customary place by the door, but it was covered with a cloth.
“We only use firelight for the solstice.” She jumped at Arthur’s voice behind her. “Sorry to startle you.” He smiled. “No magic lighting for Yule. It’s all of the earth to celebrate the light of the sun beginning to return.” Concern crept into his features as his eyes swept the room. “Is this going to be all right?”
Vera glanced at all the furnishings. “It’s beautiful.”
But Arthur remained tense. “There’s … just the one room for us.”
Ah. She hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t worried about it. They’d not shared a bed before. “I don’t have to—” Arthur started. “I can stay in Lancelot’s room.”
Vera laughed. “That would be horribly unfair to him.” She imagined at least one of the girls he’d snuck away to his sacred grove might be in attendance. “It’s all right,” she said earnestly, hoping her reassurance might unfurrow his brow. “I trust you.” And a knot in her unknitted, too, because she meant it.
The Yule’s Eve celebration would be tonight, an evening of food, drink, and fine performers. When they walked under an enormous stone archway into the festival grounds, Vera’s entire field of vision was taken by high-standing torches, their open flames casting a bouncing light in all directions. There were also candelabras throughout the courtyard, campfires with clusters of revelers gathered around them at the back of the space, and in the middle, near the front, a stage cleverly lit by shallow basins of flames. Tables and chairs skirted the courtyard’s edges, and every corner had a makeshift bar serving wine and ale.
A prickle rose on Vera’s arms, and it took her eyes adjusting to the surrounding light to see past the courtyard area. At first, she could only make out a looming structure. Something was familiar about where she stood. The prickle turned to goosebumps as Vera spun toward the High Street, orienting herself. She stood on the grounds of what would someday be the abbey. Now, in 633 CE, if there should have been a structure here, it would be a humble wooden church. But she walked toward it, squinting into the darkness.
Arthur followed her. “What are you looking at?”
“This … it’s …” She was going to say “impossible” as she gaped at an ornate stone cathedral towering above. Two towers were facing Vera with the bulk of the building in between—not in the gothic style she recognized from the abbey’s ruins of her other time, all spiking points and buttresses. It was rounder and gentler, more in the style of Camelot’s castle, though certainly as grand as any more modern structure Vera had seen. And since there was no record of it, no archaeology to mark this reality that Vera could have walked forward and touched with her own fingers, she knew it must have been made with magic. The stone structure they did have archaeological evidence of would be built more than a hundred years from now. What could possibly happen between now and then that would erase the gargantuan beauty before her?
“There are only ruins here in my time,” she said. “Impressive ruins, but not of this. This is … no one from my time has seen the likes of this.”
Arthur tilted his head to the side. “Except for you.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
Vera followed Arthur back to the festivities. They wove their way to a table near the front where Matilda, Percival, Gawain, and Lancelot were already seated, watching the performers who had begun their show. Vera sat next to Percival, who looked especially miserable, his elbow on the table and his cheek squashed against his hand to prop his head upright, making the scar across his face even more pronounced than usual. He glanced to the stage fleetingly and otherwise stared down at his drink.
“They’re doing Percival’s story,” Lancelot whispered to Arthur and Vera.
“This one’s excellent,” Arthur said, his lips so near Vera’s ear that the barely subsided goosebumps rose on her neck again. He took two goblets from a passing server and gave one to Vera as they sat.
Percival groaned, and Lancelot rolled his eyes. “Oh, you poor suffering warrior. It must be so hard to be admired and beloved because you were such a heroic boy,” he said as he took a goblet. He noticed that Gawain was the only one remaining without a drink in hand, picked up another, and passed it to him.
Gawain looked nearly as unhappy as Percival, though she suspected that was simply the nature of his face. He glowered at the stage, mumbling, “Thank you,” to Lancelot almost inaudibly.
Vera turned her attention to the stage. An orator narrated as actors gracefully interpreted the story in dance to the musicians’ accompaniment.
“There wasn’t any dancing at all,” Percival grumbled. She grinned and otherwise ignored him, eager to hear his story. They set the scene: it was the war’s most crucial battle.
“That’s not even close to true,” Percival said.
Percival was only fifteen years old.
“Actually, I was fifteen when I joined the forces. I was sixteen at this battle,” he told Vera. Matilda hushed him, and he sighed but remained silent after that.
His bravery and loyalty landed him directly in the king’s service. They’d lost the previous battle, and things were grim. Arthur was in the thick of the fighting, and Percival courageously brawled to get to him to provide aid. Each was locked in swordfight, fighting for their lives.
Vera looked at the three warriors at her table. Percival bit his lip as he reluctantly watched the performance. Arthur and Lancelot bore proud smiles. They weren’t trying to antagonize him. They were celebrating him like a most beloved brother. Arthur surveyed the gathered crowd, checking to ensure people were paying attention.
The story’s climax came with Arthur and Percival battling a short distance from one another. Arthur was occupied, and his arms got caught up. There was another aggressor, though, and his sword was about to swipe across Arthur’s throat from the side. Percival was also under attack. He could have easily parried the blow coming down toward his own face. Instead, he thrust his sword out to stop Arthur’s attacker and knowingly took the blow directly to his head by his assailant’s broadsword.
It should have killed him, but it didn’t. According to the storyteller, Percival’s mighty and selfless spirit served as a shield sent from God that kept him alive. All of Arthur’s forces, witnessing this miracle, found untapped strength, and the battle was shortly after won. Arthur knighted Percival right there on the battlefield; the youngest person to ever be knighted.
“But that’s not what happened,” Percival told Vera. “Magic stopped that sword from hitting me with its full force, or my whole head would have been chopped in half, face first, rather than leaving me with a measly scar.” It was hardly a measly scar, running nearly the full length of his face. Percival unconsciously scratched at the part of it beneath his eye. “It was like,” he shook his head in frustration and stared into space as he remembered, “an invisible arm or … or like a rope or something pulled back on the soldier’s sword arm right when his blow would have fallen.”
“Who did it?” Vera asked. “Who saved you?”
