Reaching out, she rested her fingertips against the smooth wood of the door. Then she turned away, walking across to snatch up her cup and return to her room, leaving only the soft scent of tea behind her.

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You are familiar with a montage, surely. Yes? Yes.

The mood will be best conveyed with some backing music—go on, take a moment, and put on something with a strong beat. The latest hit from your favorite bard, or perhaps an old classic often repeated by traveling minstrels. Bonus points if it involves themes of rising up to the top, not stopping believing, or even a final countdown to victory.

Go on. One of the best things about a book is that it’s always willing to wait until you return.

As the opening notes of your anthem roll out, picture a town utterly devastated by the worst kind of plague imaginable: absolute, unstoppable Sir Gawain fandom. The women want to give him their favors, and the men want to be in his shoes—well, let’s be honest, quite a few of the men want to give him favors, too.

It’s mad enough that he bumped one of the local regulars completely out of the tournament in his qualifier, but then he sent the tournament favorite to the physicians, and then knocked “Mountain Man Makarios” on his ass a few days later. With that kind of track record, the rumors that follow—ridiculous under any other circumstance—take on a life of their own.

Did you know, for example, that Sir Gawain fought a troll in Luxembourg? That he singlehandedly routed an invading army from the north? That that army was actually made of trolls? That those trolls were actually twice the size of the trolls you’re thinking of, and that he did it with his bare hands, while hungover, without breaking a sweat?

Oh, and I heard he was once the model for a bodice ad in Paris, but the images were so inflammatory to the ladies and their delicate passions that the modistes had to take the posters down for fear of causing mass hysteria, and a mass burning of said bodices.

Whatever else may be true, by the time Sir Gawain rides into the arena for his third joust—fourth, if you include the qualifier—the entire county knows his name. The stands are so packed that it’s standing room only, on the benches and on the floor. More than a few people are toting blankets and pillows, having slept in the stands to reserve their places. The noise is so deafening that, were there any people left in the nearby villages instead of attending the joust, they’d be able to hear it in their cottages.

When Sir Gawain lifts his sword to salute the crowd, one of the stands collapses under the double weight of spectators, spilling a hundred shrieking, bruised, indignant fans onto the ground.