Percival snorted in disbelief. “It wasn’t nothing. We all heard you make her swear no guard would be punished for that stray arrow.” Percival cut him a serious look. “Why’d you do it?”

“What do you mean?” Lance asked.

“You don’t seem to like us all that much. You’re always keepin’ company elsewhere. And when we go to the tavern, you never come.”

Lance stared at Percival incredulously. “I’m never invited.”

“Who needs to be invited? If you have the night off, you go.”

Lance blinked in surprise. It hadn’t occurred to him that the other guards saw him as standoffish. “I didn’t think anyone wanted me around,” he admitted.

Perce gave him a meaningful look. “It’s no secret Lord Jereth’s a nasty piece of work. Treats the staff terrible and the horses worse.”

For once, Lance was grateful to be a guard. To hear the simple truth, unadorned by courtier’s flattery. He watched as Percival adjusted his grip on his halberd.

“I knew a boy like him back home,” Perce went on. “He’d kiss me drunk and punch me sober.” Perce shook his head. “Tell you the truth, I don’t know which hurt more.”

“The hangover, I’d imagine,” Lance joked.

Perce’s dark eyes flashed in the torchlight. “I am a lightweight.” He shot Lance a grin. “Which you’d know, if you ever came to the tavern.”

Lance was about to say something cutting when he spotted two figures staggering across the square. “We’ve got company.”

“Trouble?”

One of the approaching figures laughed, high and clear as a bell. Lance knew that laugh. “Nope. It’s just the apprentice wizard.”

As Merlin got closer, Lance saw that he was unsteady on his feet, as though he’d been drinking. His arm was slung around someone’s shoulder. Lance couldn’t quite make out who it was, and then—

“Lord Gawain,” Percival said with a hasty bow.

“Helmets on, gentlemen,” Gawain ordered, stumbling through the gateway. His doublet was unbuttoned, and his voice slurred.

Lancelot frowned. Surely Merlin had no business with Arthur’s cousin. Yet it looked as though they’d been out drinking together.

“I’m desperate for the privy,” Lance lied when they’d passed, and then, as quietly as he could, he followed after them.

“You going to make it back to your room, wizard?” Gawain asked. “Or should I carry you?”

“Don’t you dare,” Merlin protested. “Besides. You can’t say things like that here.”

“Then we’ll just have to go out again,” said Gawain, a teasing smile on his face.

And then Merlin giggled.

There was something odd about the young wizard, Lance thought. And he was beginning to formulate a theory on what that something was.

CHAPTER 28

Nearly finished, Your Highness,” the royal tailor promised.