

Something about a Sword and a Stone?

Arthur Dies at the End, volume 1

by Jeffrey Wikstrom

Table of Contents

 Introduction: Who Is This Malory Person Anyway? 4

BOOK I: The Obligatory Origin Story 7

In which Arthur is conceived 8

 In which Arthur is born and his father dies 12

 In which Arthur pulls a sword out of something 15

 In which Arthur has some trouble making friends 20

 In which Arthur fights an incredibly bloody war 30

 In which Merlin is a jerk, and Arthur retrenches 37

In which Arthur has a terrible day 41

 In which Arthur reenacts the Massacre of the Innocents 53

BOOK II: Sir Balin, Lady Killer 56

In which we meet the Idiot Knight 57

 In which Sir Balin gets back in Arthur's good books 66

 In which Sir Balin strikes the DOLOROUS STROKE 78

In which Sir Balin gets discouraged 86

In which Sir Balin dies 89

BOOK III: The Best Table Ever 95

 In which we meet the Round Table (also Guenever) 96

 In which Arthur solves the Mystery of the Good-looking Peasant 101

 In which Gawaine completes his first quest with only a little whining 109

In which Tor makes new friends 116

In which Pellinore is a dick 121

Women in Malory: Necessary Evil? 129

Peter the Dwarf and Other Inventions 133

Abridged Index of Knight Names 136

Arthur Dies at the End:

1. Something About a Sword and a Stone?

2. Morgan le Fay, Queen of Gore

3. Sir Tristan is Just Awful

4. Sir Galahad is Better Than You

5. Guinevere, Best Nun Ever

Visit my blog, www.jeffwik.com, for first-draft versions of this and other texts, as well as all your usual blog stuff. Email me at jeffwik@gmail.com. Shout "Jeffwik!" as loud as you can and there's a slim but technically nonzero chance I'll hear it and respond.

##  Introduction: Who Is This Malory Person Anyway?

"It is like reading jousting fanfic by the world's worst jousting fanfic writer." -- Brant Casavant

"Have fun. I'd sooner listen to an audiobook of the worst parts of the Silmarillion read by Ben Stein." \-- Chris Vaughn

"Le Morte d'Arthur:original Arthurian romances::Zach Snyder's Watchmen:Alan Moore's Watchmen" -- Michael "Matt" Grasso

As English literature goes, it's hard to find a work of fantasy more foundational than Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. The tales of knights fighting dragons and giants, rescuing damsels, and questing after the Holy Grail are so baked into what we talk about when we talk about fantasy, that arguably the last couple hundred years of fantasy fiction have been a reaction to and a walking away from Malory. Like JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings it casts a shadow so wide that even texts that on the surface have no relationship to it bear subtle signs of influence.

It's also incredibly badly written. Like, a child could do better, in many places. And it's not like Malory was inventing anything; nearly everything in Le Morte d'Arthur appeared first in someone else's Arthurian romance, probably in French. Malory doesn't even do a good job as a translator: he tells bits of stories out of order, he conflates different stories, he skips over important explanations or plot points, he flatly contradicts himself. Sometimes he does more than one of those things in the same sentence.

That he was terrible at translating French romances into English (at least in ways what preserved the originals' imagery, narrative coherence, and allegorical allusions) is about the only thing we know for certain about Sir Thomas Malory. We know that Le Morte d'Arthur was written around 1460, in England somewhere. Several different men with that name lived at approximately the right time, from an obscure Welsh farmer to a member of Parliament convicted of sexual assault. The popular consensus is that he was the jailed MP, but that's more because that Sir Thomas Malory left more of a paper trail than his contemporary Sir Thomas Malorys, than because of any particular direct evidence. In the text Malory refers more than once to prison as, perhaps, the locale in which he was writing, but it's hardly a smoking gun. The consensus of historical scholarship has shifted several times on the question between now and the eighteenth century when folks first started seriously asking who this guy had been.

But while I would describe Arthur Dies at the End as a sort of guide to Le Morte D'Arthur, it's definitely not a biography of Malory. Malory interests me only to the extent that his authorial voice intrudes into the novel he wrote. In this book, and in its four companion volumes, I've broken the text down and described it. Chapter by chapter, I deliver the story as though I'd read it and we were having lunch and I was a horrible lunchtime companion and insisted on recapping a terrible book I'd just finished. In parts of it I try to be funny; you've been warned. I also threw in an assortment of entertaining anachronisms, because I'm a playful scamp. Bear that in mind.

Bear two other things in mind as you read. One, anything that's in bold is a verbatim quote from Malory, with the exception of some of the knight names. I've done my best to translate his pidgin French epithets into English. Two, Malory was terrible about providing names for female characters. Whenever a female character has a name, unless she's in Arthur's immediate family, odds are good that I made the name up because I didn't want to type "the damosel" over and over again.

This volume, Arthur Dies at the End vol. 1: Something About a Sword and a Stone, covers Books I through III of Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. Endnotes include a list of named female characters and an abridged list of things I made up, as well as a selection of knights' names which I found funny or memorable.

##  BOOK I: The Obligatory Origin Story

###  In which Arthur is conceived

The story opens with Uther Pendragon, King of England! He ruled all of England (aka Britain aka Logris) we're told, and there was also this guy the Duke of Tintagil. He lived in Cornwall, which I thought was part of England but apparently not, since he and Uther were at war.

They'd been at war for a while; to end the stalemate Uther contacted the Duke of Tintagil, said to come over. "We'll have a nice civilized sit-down like reasonable people. And bring along your wife, the Duchess Igraine; I hear she has a good head on her shoulders."

So Igraine and her husband showed up at Uther's war camp, ready to diplomatize, and Uther started putting the moves on her, toot sweet. Igraine wouldn't have any of that; she went to her husband (Malory never provides her husband's name, but other sources call him Gorlas). "Listen," she said, "this peace talk has been a ruse! Uther just wants to get into my pants!"

"Well, screw that," said Gorlas.

"I agree," said Igraine. So boom, they rode back home to Cornwall.

When Uther found out about this, he was pissed beyond reason. I'm envisioning Uther as a Zap Brannigan type. Maybe Igraine smiled nervously and nodded and sent him off, with a rose between his teeth, to a love-nest bedchamber featuring scented oils and also a life-sized portrait of Uther in nude recline. Malory doesn't give us that level of detail, though. Malory doesn't give much detail, or any, actually. I'm interpreting pretty freely here.

Anyhow, Uther was pissed, and he called in his cabinet, and told him about it, and they agreeably looked grim and asserted that there was nothing to be done but to issue an ultimatum. They sent a message to Igraine and Gorlas: either Uther would sleep with Igraine, or he would invade Cornwall.

Real classy move, Uther.

Naturally Igraine and Gorlas were not down with this, and said so. Uther's response was an instruction to decorate themselves with stuffing and garnish, because he intended to eat them. The Duke of Tintagil gathered up all the stuffing and garnish that he could and put half of it in Castle Tintagil with Igraine, and took the other half to Castle Terrabil. Castle Terrabil, Malory assures us, wasn't a bad castle at all. Not only was it not terrible, it had some very nice doorways and gates in it.

So Uther invaded Cornwall and laid siege to the two castles. When they didn't crumple immediately, Uther responded by throwing a childlike tantrum; he was mad about the whole thing and especially how he hadn't gotten to sleep with Igraine even though he wanted to. The guy was a jackass, man, trying to lure in Igraine under false flag of peace talks, then throwing a big ol' fit when she rebuffed him. We don't get any info as to why he was so all fired up to sleep with this particular duchess, either.

He told one of his knights, Sir Ulfius, about this frustration, and Sir Ulfius volunteered to go fetch Merlin, who would know how to make Uther feel better.

Interestingly Merlin is not given any kind of explanation, unlike all the other characters so far. Malory tells us that Uther was the king, that Igraine was the duchess of Cornwall whom everyone agrees has a good head on her shoulders, that Sir Ulfius was a noble knight, and so on. But Merlin, we're just supposed to already know who Merlin is. The word "wizard" does not come up. He's just Merlin, you know?

Anyway, Ulfius went off to find Merlin, and given that Merlin was a wizard, naturally bumps into him basically immediately. Merlin had disguised himself as a beggar for some reason, and was hanging around right by Uther's camp. Merlin stopped Ulfius. "Whoa, where are you off to in such a hurry? Are you looking for someone? Hmm? Someone who's name starts with an M?"

"Beat it," said Ulfius, "I'm on official Patriarchy business."

Merlin was thus robbed of his dramatic reveal but ploughed on regardless: he outed himself as Merlin, said that he knew Ulfius was looking for him. "I'll be happy to give Uther what he wants, provided Uther gives me what I want, which will be good for Uther too, because then Uther will get what Uther wants and what I want is also good for Uther."

"Yeah, okay," said Ulfius. "I didn't completely follow that, but I'm sure Uther will give you whatever, assuming it's not something crazy."

"Good enough!" And off they went to find Uther.

(This bit where Ulfius searched for Merlin, Merlin-as-beggar strode up, Merlin tried to do a cool thing where he'd be like "but I'M Merlin!" completely misfires in a way that, since there's so little detail, I'm free to imagine as adorable. Poor Merlin! Will nothing go right for him?)

Ulfius ran back to Uther in his camp outside the besieged Castle Terrabil. "Merlin's here!"

"What? You liar, I don't see Merlin. Liar."

In fact Merlin was waiting outside; apparently he was like a vampire in that he couldn't come in unless invited. Uther sent Ulfius out; Ulfius escorted Merlin in; Uther greeted Merlin; Merlin cut him off.

"I know what you want," said Merlin, "and I can make it happen. I just have one thing I need in return."

"Name it."

Merlin made Uther swear on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John before he continued (this is the first mention of Christianity so far). Once Uther committed himself, Merlin explained that he wanted the child that Uther would father upon Igraine, to raise as Merlin saw fit. Merlin was completely confident that after one night with Uther, Igraine would be pregnant. Merlin also claimed that this course of action would be best for everyone. Perhaps he didn't think much of Uther's child-raising abilities.

After Uther agreed, Merlin said to stand back because he was going to do some magic.

Merlin disguised himself and Ulfius as a couple of the Duke's men, Sir Jordanus and Sir Brastias, and disguised Uther as the Duke himself. Then they made for Castle Tintagil, where they were admitted despite the siege.

When Duke Gorlas's men asked why he'd suddenly appeared, Uther-as-Gorlas claimed he was very sick. He was also very tired. In the morning, he would explain what he was doing at Castle Tintagil instead of Castle Terrabil where he was supposed to be repelling Uther's siege. Right then, though, he just wanted to go to bed with his wife. And by "go to bed," Igraine learned, Uther-as-Gorlas meant sex. Despite claiming to be very sick and very tired.

Meanwhile, the actual Duke cottoned to Uther leaving the siege, somehow. He decided that while the king was away was a great time to sally forth and break the siege. Which he tried to do, and failed at miserably, and got himself killed before Uther, Ulfius, and Merlin had even arrived at Tintagil.

Which I suppose technically clears Uther of the sleeping-with-another-man's-wife charge, since the Duke was dead when he slept with Igraine. Nevertheless her lack of informed consent pushes the interaction pretty far into rape. Whether Ulfius and Merlin spent the night with Jordanus's and Brastias's wives isn't addressed, but in the morning Merlin woke Uther up early. Uther-as-Gorlas kissed Igraine goodbye, and he and Merlin and Ulfius rode off.

They had only been gone a few minutes before word came that the Duke had died the night before, in a midnight raid trying to lift the siege on Terrabil. This really confused the hell out of Igraine, but she kept her mouth shut about it.

Anyway, with the Duke dead, all of Uther's barons pointed out that there wasn't a reason to keep on fighting. Uther agreed, so he got Ulfius to pull some shuttle diplomacy, Henry Kissinger style, going back and forth between his camp and Igraine in Castle Tintagil. Ulfius eventually arranged for Igraine and Uther to meet, which is something of a feat given how as far as Igraine knew the last time they met for peace talks it had been just a ruse for Uther to try to seduce her.

But that was then, this was now. Igraine was a widow and Uther was a) unwed and b) hot for her, so Igraine and Uther agreed to marry! That sealed the deal, boom, peace between England and Cornwall.

Meanwhile, Uther arranged for three sisters to marry three other kings: Margawse married King Lot of Orkney, Elaine (ELAINE 1!) married Nentres of Garlot, and Morgan, the youngest sister, went to necromancy school and upon graduation married Uriens of Gore. A little googling tells me that Margawse, Elaine, and Morgan were Igraine's three daughters with the late Duke, but Malory forgets to mention this. He does explain that Margawse was the mother of Sir Gawaine, and that Morgan (who graduated summa cum laude from necromancy school by the way) was the mother of Sir Uwaine, but the relationship between Uther marrying off these sisters and everything else that happened in this chapter is wholly unclear.

The whole incident served to establish Merlin as Uther's bag man. It featured magic as a plot point (though Malory's vague enough that I could believe Merlin just wrapped Uther in bandages and put fake mustaches on himself and Ulfius), which is fun. Unfortunately it also featured Uther sleeping with Igraine under a ruse, which is to say Igraine did not exactly give informed and enthusiastic consent; this more off-putting than I was expecting to find.

Now, I'm no starry-eyed schoolboy. I knew going in that medieval texts weren't going to be feminist, but there's something creepy in the bit where Malory goes out of his way to excoriate Uther from adultery (since Gorlas was dead before he slept with Igraine) while just ignoring the rape aspect. We can take comfort in the knowledge that 'Uther getting Merlin to disguise him as some dude so that Uther can sleep with that dude's wife' will not be a repeating motif. Book I, chapter 4, is subtitled "Of the death of King Uther Pendragon," so it's immediately obvious that the total amount of Uther being a jackass is likely to be a small percentage of the book. On the other hand, he only has a handful of chapters in which to become less unlikeable.

(Vocabulary word: mickle, meaning a large amount or greatly. "As mickle as the child is worth" means "as the child is worth a great deal.")

###  In which Arthur is born and his father dies

A few months passed. Just as Merlin predicted, Igraine -- now Uther's wife and the queen of England -- was pregnant. By the time she entered her third trimester, her new husband started to suspect something.

"So, I can't help but notice you're pregnant," he said one morning, apropos of nothing. "Tell me, whose child is it?"

This was a question that Igraine really wasn't eager to answer.

"C'mon," said Uther. "I promise I won't be mad."

"Well, okay." Igraine explained that the night her previous husband died, he had visited her with two of his men and spent the night. It was a bizarre supernatural occurrence, what with him being dead at the time. Jordanus and Brastias didn't sleep with her; they just came in with Gorlas and left when he did. Igraine had given it a lot of thought and she was pretty sure the father of her most recent child was one of the following: time traveling Gorlas from the recent past, Gorlas's ghost, a demon who assumed Gorlas's form, or Gorlas's evil twin, biological-type or parallel-earth-type.

"Not at all," laughed Uther. "It was me all along! I was Gorlas the whole time! Merlin did it with magic."

"Oh, great," said Igraine. I know that sounded like sarcasm, but Malory assures us she was completely thrilled by the knowledge that her new husband used magic to disguise himself as her late husband and sleep with her. This is way better, she thought, than any of the alternatives. So, that's nice.

Conveniently, Merlin showed up at this point. He reminded the king about how Merlin knew Igraine would be pregnant and how Uther promised Merlin the child.

"Oh, right," said Uther. "Well, she's not due for another few months, do you want it immediately or should we wait until it's born? And do you want to eat it raw or should we cook it first?"

"No, no, no." Merlin had zero intention of eating this particular baby. "There's this guy \-- Sir Ector \-- who you should invite to visit. Have a sit-down chat with him, you'll see he's a reasonable guy, and get him to promise to raise your son as if it were his own. He'll do a great job, I promise. Solid Merlin guarantee."

Uther wasn't about to start disagreeing with Merlin at this point. He met with Ector as requested and extracted the aforementioned promise. When the infant boy was born, boom, Uther sent two knights and two ladies to carry him off.

Uther had no idea how to keep a secret; this was Castle Tintagil all over again. At Tintagil, Uther couldn't just have Merlin disguise him. No, Merlin had to also disguise himself and Sir Ulfius, which meant that those two had to hang out and make small talk with the folks at Tintagil all night, dodging questions like "why aren't you at Terrabil?" and "hey, remember that conversation we were having last time we met, Jordanus? We were discussing the personal details of mutual friends. Let's pick it up right where we left off."

Anyway, Uther sent this detachment of lords, plural, and ladies, also plural, to the rear gate of the castle, where Merlin stood tapping his foot (further evidence that Merlin was a some kind of vampire and could not enter homes uninvited). Merlin had made a big deal about how he wanted the baby unbaptized, but first thing he did, he got a "holy man" to baptize Arthur. Merlin then turned infant Arthur over to Ector. Sir Ector kicked his own son (Kay) off to a wet-nurse, freeing up his wife, whose milk was aristocrat milk and therefore better I guess, to nurse Arthur.

Malory declines to address how Igraine reacted to Uther stealing her newborn son and giving him to Merlin. A reasonable guess is that everyone assumed Arthur was stillborn, what with it being the Dark Ages and all. I like to imagine Uther's solution to this issue was to laugh and tell Igraine that she was never pregnant, because at this point I actively dislike Uther. He's just a jackass. Fortunately, he's about to die.

(Vocabulary word of the chapter: fianuce, which Google thinks is a misspelled fiance, but is in fact a synonym for promise or oath, as in, "Ector made fianuce to Uther for to raise Arthur as his own." See also fiancé.)

Uther's death comes next! As promised! It's actually pretty sad.

Time goes by, a year or two, and before things had really gotten properly settled Uther contracted an unnamed lingering disease, which could be anything from tuberculosis to stomach cancer to cerebral calcification (cerebral calcification killed Lenin). While he lay around London slowly dying, all kinds of jerks (mostly Scots) started ravaging the land, because Uther was too weak to defend it.

Merlin came to Uther. "Listen, you need to kill these damn Scots; they're tearing up the landscape."

Uther responded, pretty reasonably, that he was dying.

"Tough shit," said Merlin. "New prophecy. If you meet them in battle you'll defeat them. Otherwise they'll rampage and roar and level Tokyo. Get Ulfius and your boys to build you a litter so they can carry you into battle."

Whether Uther thought this is a good idea or not, no idea, on account of it was at about this point that he pretty well lost the ability to speak.

So the dying guy got loaded into a horse litter, and carried out to the battle, where he lay quietly while his men rallied around him and drove back the Northern barbarians. Sir Ulfius and Sir Brastias both kicked a lot of Northern ass.

Afterwards they carried Uther back to London, where he lay motionless, too ill to talk. Now, I don't like Uther. I've made no secret of that. Thus far in the story, and we're at the very beginning, he's the best-defined character and he's defined as a petulant brat whose only positive feature is his willingness to do as Merlin advises. By modern standards, if not the standards of the time, he raped Igraine.

That said, his slow and lingering death is a real bummer. Uther's court could tell he was on his way out, so they asked Merlin what to do. Merlin confirmed Uther's fast-approaching death, but volunteered to whip up some magic which would render him able to speak, if only for a few minutes.

The next morning, Merlin stood by Uther's bedside, in front of the assembled lords, and did his magic. It may or may not have been ventriloquism, which is just a first-level spell according to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook. It may have been actual ventriloquism. Either way, 'Uther' gave a short speech about how he had a secret son who would be King Arthur, and then he died.

Also we're told Igraine wailed and mourned him, so, that's sad too.

###  In which Arthur pulls a sword out of something

Once Uther has died, the story picks up a little, as we come to a good bit. It's a bit that every Arthur story I can think of off the top of my head has. You know what's coming. Here's a hint: there's a stone involved, but not just any stone. This stone has a prize inside.

An indeterminate period of time passed, more than a decade, probably less than two. Without a king, England-Logris- Britain was just falling apart. You'd have loads of warlords and their thugs and blood and fire and it was a bad situation that got steadily worse as time went on.

One day Merlin and the Archbishop of Canterbury were hanging out, not unlike Gandalf and Saruman in the film version of Fellowship of the Ring, although instead of Saruman trying to get Gandalf to serve Sauron it's the Archbishop trying to get Merlin to agree to appoint someone king and end the strife. Why Merlin's go-ahead was needed on this project I don't know. Merlin's whole deal is weird. He was Uther's advisor just prior to Uther's death, he seems to have known everyone, and he did magic.

Merlin had a plan. Step one, get as many warlords and knights together as possible for a Christmas party at a cathedral in London. Here Malory reminds us he isn't really a primary source, since he breaks kayfabe and admits that "the French book" (Chrétien de Troyes I guess? It's been a long, long time since my freshman literature survey course) doesn't specify which cathedral it was. Regardless, going to church for a party sounds like loads of fun.

Party invitations were sent out, and a bunch of knights, the ones who were interested in going to a church party, met up at the cathedral. In the churchyard there someone (Merlin) had set up a big rock with an anvil on it. Skewering the anvil was, of course, a sword, with Whoso pulleth out this sword of this stone and anvil, is rightwise king born of all England engraved on it. What a shocking twist!

This reminds me of something I've wondered about. As we soon see, Arthur keeps this sword and carries it around with him for a good long while, right? It isn't the one he gets from the Lady of the Lake later in Book I, but it's a functional/useful/magical/+1 to hit and damage sword, right? While he had it, it still had this engraving on it, I assume. Did he use it as a conversation piece? Like, he held it up in such a way as to show off the engraving, and when someone inevitably asked about it, he would say "oh, that's a funny story," and then he recount this story, the one that I was in the middle of telling you before I digressed?

But I digress. The knights got all excited about the Sword in the Stone, but the Archbishop rebuked them. "Leave it alone until after Mass!" Mass happened, because that is what a church party is. Then the knights went in peace to serve the Lord, which is to say, they all tried to pull the sword out from the stone. Of course, no one could.

"No big deal," said the Archbishop. "The rightful king can and will pull the stone out; none of y'all are worthy to be him. So, okay, what we'll do is, we'll get all the knights together, not just you guys. Y'all are kind of lame it turns out. We get everyone together at, say, New Year's, and we have a big tournament, and surely the rightful king, who is able to pull out the sword, shall make himself known at that point."

The knights grumbled a bit.

"Now I'm not saying that the whole sword thing is just an elaborate pretext me and Merlin came up with, and that the winner of the tournament will become king," said the Archbishop, "but I am winking a lot."

He winked, and the knights settled down.

New Year's! All the knights came out to the tournament. There was jousting! (JOUSTING TOURNAMENT 1!) It was a grand old time. Sir Ector showed up, along with his son Sir Kay, and also his other son Arthur, who wasn't a knight yet. Sir Kay was just barely a knight at this point; this was his first time to the jousting tournament. Of course he pulled a boner and left his sword at the hotel. Oh, Sir Kay!

Arthur ran back to the hotel to fetch it, and of course the place was all dark and locked up with a sign that said GONE JOUSTIN'. No luck there! What's a young Arthur to do?

As we all knew was going to happen, Arthur remembered seeing a sword in a stone at church that morning. He hurried over to the church to see if it was still there. It is! He grabbed it, slid it out of the stone, and carried it back to Kay.

Kay took it and recognized it. He immediately ran off to Ector. "Check it out, Dad, I'm the king of England!"

Kay's ruse lasted all of about thirty seconds. Kay was not terribly committed to the bit. Once Ector and Arthur and Kay had gone back to the church and Ector saw that yeah, the sword in the stone was no longer in the stone, he asked Kay where he got it.

Kay said, "look, it's the sword that used to be in the stone, see?"

And Ector was all, "yeah. Did you pull it from the stone?"

"It used to be in the stone, and now I have have it!"

"Son. Do you pinky-swear you pulled it out of the stone?"

Kay sighed and admitted that no, he couldn't pinky-swear such testimony. Arthur fetched it for him.

Arthur didn't know what the hell is going on, because no one bothered to tell him about the whole sword in the stone deal, since he wasn't a knight. Also either he was illiterate, or else he had been in too much of a rush to read the engraving. He was getting more than a little perturbed at this bizarre conversation between his father and his brother.

Ector turned to Arthur. "Did anyone see you pull out the sword?" asked Ector.

"No," said Arthur. "What the hell is this about, Dad?"

"Well, see, son, you're the king," said Ector.

"The hell?" Malory phrases it "Wherefore I and for what cause?" but clearly Arthur found the notion ludicrous.

"It's a magic sword," Ector explained, with I think admirable patience. He had Arthur stick the sword back in the stone so Ector could demonstrate how neither he nor Kay could pull it out, though Arthur could easily.

Ector kneeled before him, and got Kay too also, and this freaked Arthur out. Ector, since he was just piling on the revelations, decided this was as good a time as any to tell Arthur he was adopted.

Ector wasn't his father! His father was in fact Uther the dead rapist-king! Arthur got pretty severely bummed. He did not know how to process this, and asked Ector for advice, but the only oar Ector would stick in was a request for a job for Kay.

"Sure thing," said Arthur, and thus Sir Kay became Arthur's PA, or sensechal, a position he would hold for the rest of Le Morte D'Arthur.

Ector found the Archbishop and filled him in on all this. After the tournament, when the knights showed up to try their hands at pulling out the sword, Arthur was there waiting for them. He readily demonstrated his sword-pulling prowess. The barons and lords and knights assembled didn't buy it, though. Arthur was basically a kid, so they decided to come back and try again later.

They came back later, but none of them could pull out the sword. Meanwhile, Arthur, who'd been waiting there, pulled it out yet again. This process repeated twice more, all spring, and still all the barons and the warlords refused to accept it.

In the course of his literally months of sword-pulling demonstrations, Arthur acquired a cadre of knights who bought into his being the king: Ector and Kay, but also Ulfius and Brastias, a Sir Baudwin, and a bunch of others Malory doesn't name.

Months and months of this went by. Arthur pulled the sword from the stone and the barons and the landed gentry and the knights all refused to accept him, lather, rinse, repeat. He kept trying, though, straight through from New Year's to Pentecost. Pentecost, for those of you who didn't pay attention in Sunday School, is part of the Movable Cycle; depending on the phases of the moon it lands anywhere from mid-May to late June. So literally five or six months of sword-drawing. At Pentecost he did it again! The largest collection of English aristocrats yet showed up. They brought along a bunch of knights and a huge mass of commoners, and once again, Arthur demonstrated that he could pull the sword from the stone and therefore was the rightful king. And once again, the barons and so on were all, nope, we don't buy it, you're way too poor-looking and scruffy and insufficiently powerful a warlord to be king.

But they had miscalculated in bringing along an enormous pile of commoners, because the commoners were sick and tired of this back and forth, and accepted Arthur as king (it was no skin of their noses). They threatened to riot unless the barons come round. They would kill one thousand barons a day, the peasants claimed, unless the barons swore fealty to Arthur. So the barons submitted and apologized. Arthur was very gracious about it. He accepted their apologies and allowed himself to be knighted/crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. And there was a big party, which should have been nice.

The big party was sullied, sadly, by everybody and their dog coming to Arthur and complaining about how they'd been wronged by somebody else, and their nation had just gone to hell since Uther died, and what were their taxes paying for if not, et cetera, et cetera. Arthur listened to all of these complaints and clucked his tongue and said he'd see what he could do. A lot of barons whose estates had gotten very large since Uther's death discovered the hard way that Arthur didn't respect their property rights. He seized parts of their lands and turned around and gave it to the various impoverished gentry whose land it had been up until somebody seized it. However, the rich barons were cool with this, because they didn't want to get lynched.

Arthur set up rebuilding some kind of government. He put Kay, and the other knights who stuck by him all spring during Sword-in-the-Stonegate, in charge of various projects, departments, and castles. He set about reconquering all of the island of Great Britain that he didn't already rule -- everything north of the river Trent, including Scotland, and most of Wales. This took a while, but after a year, maybe two, it was all done with. That's what Malory says here, anyway; he's about to super contradict himself about it. It makes more sense to assume Arthur was spending this time consolidating his power in the greater London metropolitan area, with the fat-cat land barons and the angry peasants and so on. It sounds like something that would take a while to work out.

King Arthur hasn't done much at this point, really, but already I like him about ten thousand times as much as Uther. Arthur is humble, he forgives his enemies, and he seizes the ill-gotten gains of the wealthy and returns them to the poor (albeit the poor nobility rather than the poor in general). Here's hoping he doesn't get Merlin to help him rape anyone. Also, I can't help but notice that according to Malory, Arthur and Merlin haven't met yet. When I was a kid I watched Disney's Sword in the Stone a bunch, and as a teen I read the first half of Once and Future King multiple times in unsuccessful attempts to make it through the whole thing, and one thing I do remember is that Merlin and Arthur had a Doc Brown & Marty McFly relationship, in that version of the story. Plus, lots of shapeshifting, which hasn't come up yet either. So that's kind of an interesting change. Merlin himself comes across as much more Gandalf the Gray than I was expecting, too; he's all the time setting events into motion and telling kings what to do.

###  In which Arthur has some trouble making friends

At the end of the previous story Malory explained to us that Arthur soon ruled all of Great Britain, including Wales, Cornwall, and Scotland, but at the start of this story either he claims that was just a spoiler for future events, or else he straight-up contradicts himself. This story is the tale of Arthur making war upon the kings of the parts of Great Britain that he's not king of. We open at Pentecost, with a new status quo: Arthur crowned, and the folks who live south of the river Trent pretty much all accepting him as king.

Arthur visited Wales, just after his coronation, and threw a big feast at Caerlaeon there, Caerlaeon being the best place available. I can't tell whether Malory means for this trip to have happened immediately following Arthur's coronation in London, or if he spent a full year (or more) establishing himself as King of Much of England, then at the next convenient Pentecost traveled to Caerlaeon for an anniversary coronation party. It doesn't really matter for purposes of the story -- if it was a year, it was a year at the end of which there was still a lot of Great Britain that he didn't rule. Plus there was the earlier assertion that he spent two years conquering everything; is this a celebration of that? Best not to worry about it. What we can be sure of is that it was very early in Arthur's reign and not everyone accepted his legitimacy. That's the context, here.

At Caerlaeon Arthur threw a big feast and invited all the other kings in the area, which included his three brothers-in-law from Chapter II: Lot of Orkney who married Margawse, Nentres of Garlot who married Elaine, and Uriens of Gore who married Morgan le Fay once she graduated from necromancy school. Other kings in attendance were the King of Scotland, whom Malory doesn't name, the King of Carados, and a king known to us only by the epithet "the King with the Hundred Knights." Or, as I like to call him, Mister 100. Lot, Nentres, Uriens, Scotland, Carados, and Mister 100 each brought along hundreds of knights with them, so this was a gigantic party. Arthur was thrilled by this; it was his first major kingly act, this party, and look at the turnout!

However Arthur's glee soon turned to disappointment and despondency, because this conversation kept happening:

ARTHUR'S MESSENGER: Hey, King Lot/King Nentres/King Uriens/King Scotland/King Carados/King Mister 100!  
KING: Yo.  
MESSENGER: Arthur wanted you to have this gift basket and thank you for coming to his celebratory Arthur-is-King-of-Everything-Outranking-All-Other-Kings party.  
KING: Get bent!  
(KING throws gift basket in MESSENGER's face.)

It turns out that if you're the king of, say, Carados, and you get word that some punk teenager has declared himself Super-Mega-Ultra King, a kid who isn't even the son of anyone important (you've never heard of his dad Ector and besides they say he was adopted), then you're disinclined to cheerfully swear fealty to him. When you show up at his party with a few hundred heavily armed men, it's not really a social call.

Malory turns a nice phrase here: the other kings "sent him word they would none of his gifts, but that they were come to give him gifts with hard swords between the neck and the shoulders." Well, it's a nice phrase compared to Malory's usual output.

Reluctantly Arthur made ready for the coming rumble. He'd rather not fight, so instead he holed up in a tower with a few hundred men of his own and waited for the other kings to leave. A couple weeks of siege went by, nothing getting resolved, neither side giving up; Arthur had all his party food in the tower and the kings were motivated to give the little twerp what-for.

Fortunately Merlin showed up to fix the situation. All the kings outside the tower knew Merlin, of course, everyone knew Merlin, and they were all, "how's it going, Merle, you've come to cheer us on?"

And Merlin was like, "no, no, Arthur is the rightful king, you guys are on the wrong side of this issue."

The kings were all, "wha?" And Merlin went, "listen, he's actually Igraine's and Uther's son, remember Uther? Kind of a dick but still the king of everything."

One of the kings did some quick math, Malory asserts, and deduced that if Uther fathered Arthur on Igraine, it must have been while she was married to Gorlas, otherwise the timing doesn't work. Therefore Arthur was a bastard, therefore not the rightful king. I would be unconvinced by that, given the tight timing of Arthur's conception, Gorlas's death, and Uther's marriage to Igraine, but it went over well with the assembled kings.

"I anticipated your objection," said Merlin, and produced a long-form Hawaiian certificate and a chart and timetable and deck of Powerpoint slides showing that Gorlas had been dead for three hours when Uther and Igraine slept together and that less than two weeks later Uther and Igraine wed. So Arthur was definitely not illegitimate and his claim to the throne was unassailable.

"Well, shoot," said the assembled kings.

"He's definitely king, you guys," said Merlin. "And he'll be king for a long time, King of All England, including Wales and Scotland and Ireland. The whole schmear. Unless someone murders him, I mean. If he dies young, say putting down a civil war, then he won't be king long. But for right now he's totally the rightful king."

King Lot, at this point, had gotten sick and tired of Merlin and his damnable Powerpoint slides. Lot called him a "witch" as well as a "tiresome jack-ass," and refused to accept what Merlin was saying. But he was in the minority; the other kings by and large were at least willing to hear Arthur out.

Early the next morning, in his tower, Arthur woke up to find a soothsayer in his bedroom.

"Who are you and how did you get in here?" Arthur demanded, not unreasonably.

Merlin said not to worry, he was Merlin. And yes, this was technically the first time they met (at least it's the first record Malory makes of their meeting) but it was all cool, come out of the tower and have a nice civil sit-down with the kings.

"The kings who are trying to kill me?" asked Arthur.

"The very same!" said Merlin. "And some of them still want to kill you, so, you know, when you talk to them, sound tough."

Arthur for whatever reason completely accepted Merlin's advice, and went out to chat with the other kings, though under his party clothes he wore a suit of armor. That couldn't have been comfortable.

They were all, so you're Arthur son of Uther who thinks he's better than us, and Arthur was all, so you're Lot and Uriens and Mister 100 and the other guys whose names I can't remember, who dispute my divinely-granted right to rule you like, and I mean this literally, a king.

"Grr!" said the kings. "We'll never bow to you!"

"Grr!" said Arthur. "I'll make you bow to me!"

"Grr!" said the kings. "No way! We're leaving!"

"Grr!" said Arthur. "Well thanks for coming out! Have a nice trip back!"

"Grr!" said the kings. "Oh, we will! We're doing some antiquing on the way home!"

"Grr!" said Arthur. "Be sure to get a gift basket on your way out! It's mostly fruit! Stay healthy!"

"Grr!" said the kings... anyway, this went on for a while because neither side wanted to let the other have the last word, but eventually the kings left. Merlin caught up to them and was like, what now?

"Listen, Merle, get out of my face. I'm really not in the mood right now," said Lot.

"Pshaw!" Merlin returned to Arthur. "Hey Arthur," he said, "go attack Lot. He was mean to me just now."

"Sure," said Arthur.

Arthur was in the middle of a big crowd of his knights who were all saying things like "you did great back there boss" and "you sure told them, huh boss."

"Great," said Merlin. "But listen, don't pull out your new magic sword-from-the-stone sword. Use a regular sword until you're right in the shit, and then draw Excalibur. It'll be great."

90% sure that the sword-in-the-stone sword isn't Excalibur, but Malory has Merlin call it Excalibur here, so, that happens.

"Sure sure," said Arthur. He and his knights hopped onto horses and rode off to attack the various other kings and their knights, as they packed up to go.

Big fight scene! Sir Baudwin killed a guy! Sir Kay killed a guy! Sir Brastias was getting up in years but he killed a guy also! King Arthur killed a pile of guys!

Counterattack! The other kings and their knights mounted horses and circled around and got our boys from behind! Mister 100 was just laying into them! Oh no! Someone killed Arthur's horse! Arthur is down! King Lot is kicking him in the stomach and laughing! Why aren't the refs stopping this?!

Arthur's men rescue him! It's a classic play, folks, real textbook medieval combat you can tell your kids about! He's back on another horse! He's pulling out \-- is that a magic sword?

Yes, I think it must be his magic sword which may or may not be named Excalibur! You can tell because all of his enemies were blinded! Arthur's just cutting into them now! Really making the most of that +1 to attack and damage!

The crowd loves it! We've got a capacity crowd here at Caerlaeon Stadium, and every one of them is on their feet shouting ARTHUR! ARTHUR! Now they're spilling over onto the field and rioting and attacking Arthur's enemies! This is one for the history books!

Then Lot and the other kings fled, because it was either that or start trying to kill all the peasants in the region. Was Arthur going to chase them down and kill them? No, no, Arthur's head coach Merlin pulled him out of there instead.

Final score Arthur sixty-three, Lot and Mister 100 et cetera seven.

After the battle, Arthur headed back to London, where Merlin told him to call all his barons together for a planning session. Team Lot & Mister 100 were dangerous business, not folks whom Arthur could just ignore. Arthur assembled everyone together for a planning session, they sat down at the royal whiteboard and then, silence.

"Okay, pitches!" Arthur snapped his fingers. "Pitches, I want to hear pitches."

And the barons exchanged glances and they shrugged. They'd tried nothing and they were out of ideas. Their best plan was "have a big fight with Team Lot & Mister 100," which was also Arthur's best idea, and he was worried it wasn't a very good idea.

So Arthur called in Merlin. "Okay," he said. "I know you said to get everyone together and hammer out a plan, but we're flailing here. What are we missing?"

Merlin nodded. "Well, first off Team Lot & Mister 100 has recruited four more kings while you guys have been sitting here, which brings them up to a total of ten kings. You, Arthur, are one king. 10 to 1. Those aren't great odds."

"Well, I could win or I could lose, so that's fifty-fifty, right?" asked Arthur. The only math Arthur knew was how to keep track of the score in jousting.

"That is not how that works," said Merlin. "Listen, though, I got a plan. You know France, right?"

"Right."

"And you know Benwick, right?"

"Of course," said Arthur. "Who hasn't heard of the powerful and mighty Western European nation of Benwick, and its mighty capital Castle Benwick, with all of those Roman ruins, rich history, center of art and commerce?"

"So I happen to know Bors, the King of France, and Ban, the King of Benwick. They're a couple of good dudes with a pile of knights each. They'll make great allies."

"Cool," said Arthur. "But how do I bring them on board?"

"Not a problem," said Merlin. "There's this other guy, King Claudas, I don't even need to tell you where he's king of, he's at war with France and Benwick both at once. There's this one castle that all three of them claim, and Claudas is kicking their asses, really, it's shameful."

"Mmm-hmm." Arthur considered. "So you want me to ally with losers. Lot won't be expecting that."

"What you do is," said Merlin, "what you do is you contact Ban and Bors and promise to help them defeat Claudas if they help you defeat Team Lot & Mister 100."

"Sounds sharp to me," said Arthur. "I'm sold on this plan. This was a great planning session. Thanks for the idea of holding a planning session, Merlin!"

King Arthur got his two best knights -- Brastias and Ulfius, the two guys he used for everything, the old firm, I dunno whatever happened to Sir Jordanus but it couldn't have been pretty. He wrote out a couple of nice letters to Bors and Ban and gave one letter to each of Brastias and Ulfius. Brastias and Ulfius sailed out to the city of Antwerp Benwick, which was where Bors and Ban ware. No, I don't know why Bors the King of France was in Benwick. Their trip was super uneventful except at the end as they were going into the city they bumped into this gang of eight knights.

"You're under arrest on suspicion of not being from around here," said the eight knights.

"It's cool," said Brastias and Ulfius. "We're King Arthur's men, here to deliver letters to Bors and Ban about teaming up to take out Claudas."

"Oh, then you're double under arrest," said the eight knights. "We're Claudas's men. We were just hanging out in Benwick behind enemy lines causing trouble. We'll take you back home and ransom you. It'll be great for us, expensive for Arthur, and humiliating for you two. Also Bors and Ban will be humiliated. That's a win-win-win!"

"That doesn't sound like a good deal for us," said Brastias and Ulfius, so there's a fight.

No one wanted to kill anyone else during this fight, so they wrapped up their spears in pillows before they get started. At first there were two on Arthur's side and eight on Claudas's, then was two and six, then two and four, then two and two, and I guess the last two of Claudas's men declined to retreat because pretty soon all eight of them were lying on the ground, bruised and pillow-to-the-faced. Brastias and Ulfius rode on into Benwick.

Ah, Benwick! City of Cod! Have you ever been to Benwick? How's the Benwick cuisine? I've always wanted to see the big museum there.

They were stopped by a couple more knights, Sir Phariance and Sir Lionses (whose names sound remarkably made-up and fake). They assumed it was going to be more of the same, but no, Phariance and Lionses had been sent by Bors and Ban to investigate this story that was going around the city about Arthur having sent a couple of messengers in. The messengers were supposedly hella badass, able to take on four-to-one odds.

Ulfius and Brastias met Bors and Ban, and turned the letters over to them, and everyone had a good laugh about Claudas's eight men and how terrible they were, and Bors and Ban agreed to come help Arthur out.

So Ulfius and Brastias returned to London. Arthur asked how it went, and they said it went well. Bors and Ban were coming! Arthur asked when, and Ulfius and Brastias said November.

I don't get the chronology here at all and I'm not ashamed to admit it. Arthur was crowned at Pentecost, which was around the first of June give or take a few weeks. Then at either the same Pentecost or the next one (or possibly the one after that) he met up with Team Lot & Mister 100, which took an unknown amount of time. Then he sent his knights to get help, and then the help was coming at the start of November (All Hallowmass is what Malory says specifically, and I assume that's either All Saint's Day or All Souls Day, so the first or second of November). But Arthur called this good news, so, I guess November is a reasonable time for Ban and Bors to show up and not many months too late.

Either way, November came, and Ban and Bors came with it. They brought a few hundred knights, and Arthur threw another big party with Sir Kay running the catering. It was such a big deal that Kay needed two knights to assist, Sir Lucan and Sir Griflet. Everyone was dressed up very nice, with Arthur, Ban, Bors, the Archbishop of Canterbury (still hanging around) and Sir Ector (who was after all Arthur's foster father) hanging out in a special gold VIP area.

This big party to celebrate Ban and Bors showing up with their hundreds of knights, it was besides an eating-and-drinking party a tournament party! Everyone did a bunch of jousts and mock combat. (JOUSTING TOURNAMENT 2!) Arthur divided everyone up into two teams, with the French and Benwick knights on one team and his own knights on the other.

First bout: Sir Kay's assistant caterer Sir Griflet versus one of the French, or possibly Benwick, knights, Sir Ladinas. It did not go well for Griflet; he went down stayed down after the first fall, which led everyone to worry he had died and that things had thus gone quite poorly for the beginning of the tournament. Sir Kay's other assistant caterer, Sir Lucan, went in and helped Griflet off the field, and gave him some orange slices and a new horse, and then the two of them started doing some two-on-two fighting with pairs of Continentals, boom boom boom, scoring many points and kicking tremendous amounts of ass. Also Sir Kay put together a six-man team that wallops all the other six-man teams! The lesson here is, don't mess with the caterers! Everyone cheered for the caterers; they were the heroes of the hour.

Sir Placidas, another knight, took Kay on one-on-one and beat him down, which caused Griflet to jump into the ring and by this point it was basically a pro wrestling match. Tensions got high, the refs stepped in and separated everyone, they all had a good meal and some drink and Arthur and Ban and Bors gave the caterers a trophy.

After the tournament adjourned, Arthur had a long sit-down with Ban and Bors and their brother Gwenbaus... did I not mention that Ban and Bors were brothers? And that they had a third brother who wasn't king of anywhere? Neither did Malory. Anyway, sit-down. Ban and Bors and Gwenbaus were there, and of course Arthur's two best knights at the time Ulfius and Brastias, and Merlin because you can't have a sit-down without Merlin.

The seven of them argued long into the night about how to deal with Team Lot & Mister 100. They went to bed and got up and argued more and then they went to church and then they argued more and then they had lunch and they argued more and finally they were all argued out and decided to go with Merlin's plan.

I assume it's Merlin's plan. All plans are Merlin's plans.

Plan follows: Merlin would take King Ban's signet ring back to Benwick with Sir Gracian and Sir Placidas. There, they would make a big deal of fortifying defenses against King Claudas. While Gracian and Placidas would settle in to repel any siege of Benwick that Claudas mounts, Merlin would return over the sea with the bulk of Bors's and Ban's men, the assembled combined army of France and Benwick. That was ten thousand men, a substantially larger number of men than has been tossed around in this story up to this point. A big pile of dudes.

Merlin was to take this sizable army over the Channel to Dover, secretly. He would then march them, secretly, across England and put them up, secretly, in Bedegraine, which is a forested valley where they would hide. Secretly.

And so the next time Arthur saw Merlin, he asked the wizard if he wasn't going to go ahead and make that trip to Benwick as they'd discussed.

"Hah!" said Merlin. "It's all set up. Already done!"

Arthur and the brothers marveled at how fast it happened.

"Hey, I'm magic," answered Merlin. "I can do that."

Arthur gathered all his men together, an incredible twenty thousand guys! He set them up running border patrols along the river Trent. At this point Arthur and his buddies were all come at me bro with regards to Team Lot & Mister 100; all the preparations they could make were made.

Team Lot & Mister 100, meanwhile, were putting all their ducks in a row as well. They recruited one more king, which brought their total ranks up to eleven kings. They were all ready to get revenge for losing the battle at Caerlaeon. 11 to 3 was pretty good odds, though not as good as 10 to 1, which was what they had before the last round of draft picks. Would they be able to pull out a win while Merlin pulled for the other side? I'm guessing not.

But they didn't know that they were doomed, they were busy high-diving one another and bragging about who was bringing the most men to the field. The finalized roster of kings looks like this:

King Brandegoris of Stranggore, who drinks too much and promises too freely. Five thousand cavalry.  
King Clariance of Northumberland, who has nothing to prove to anyone. Three thousand infantry.  
Mister 100, who is young and everyone likes him, he's the Great Welsh Hope. Four thousand cavalry, plus one hundred knights I expect.  
King Lot, Arthur's brother-in-law, who organized the whole thing. Five thousand cavalry.  
The Duke of Cambenet, not technically a king but we don't mind. Five thousand cavalry.  
King Uriens of Gore, Arthur's other brother-in-law, who has plenty to prove apparently, won't be outdone: six thousand cavalry.  
King Idres of Cornwall, nothing interesting about him, five thousand cavalry.  
King Cradelmas of nowhere in particular, nothing interesting about him either, five thousand cavalry.

King Agwisance of Ireland, I don't know why he's even getting involved, five thousand cavalry.  
King Nentres, Arthur's third brother-in-law whom you probably forgot about, five thousand cavalry.  
King Carados of nowhere important, five thousand cavalry.

(Because it wouldn't be an account of battles from a premodern era if there wasn't a stultifying list of which general brought how many triremes, that's why.)

I added those all up and I got fifty thousand cavalry, three thousand infantry, which goes to show you I'm not Malory because he tells us the correct total is fifty thousand cavalry and ten thousand infantry.

Anyway, they assembled and declared themselves ready to invade Arthur's land. Where to hit him first? Someone suggested the forest of Bedegraine as a likely spot. So they rode into the forest and whoops, there was a castle full of Benwick knights! Malory is very unclear as to whether this castle was built by Merlin using magic, or by the Benwick knights using Roman-era stockade engineering, or maybe there was always a castle there and Malory just forgot about it when he called Bedegraine a forested valley last chapter.

I was, at this point, sort of expecting for Merlin to have cast the original D&D version of mass polymorph. This was a high-level magic spell that temporarily transformed an army of guys into a forest, so as to hide them and confuse your enemies. It sounds reasonably plausible: Team Lot & Mister 100 would get there, they just see a forest, they'd be confused, they'd let their guard down, and then boom, the trees would turn back into the assembled French and Benwick knights and it's an ambush! But no, instead they merely held a protracted siege.

So their invasion halted as it began. The knights of Benwick and France (those two great powers of the Continent) held off Team Lot & Mister 100, until King Lot was like, screw this, and left behind a skeletal force of men to engage the knights at Bedegraine while the rest of their army rode south with Mister 100 into Arthur's territory.

###  In which Arthur fights an incredibly bloody war

Mister 100 rampaged southward, along with all his allies who weren't laying siege at Bedegraine. Arthur and his brain trust had scouts keeping tabs on them; these scouts sent Arthur regular reports as to Mister 100's movements. It's hard to move fifty thousand guys at any kind of speed I guess, because Arthur always had plenty of time and warning and he burned up the land that Team Lot & Mister 100 moved into. As a result, they couldn't pillage and plunder and eat, food being most of what they'd be plundering. So things continued to head off the rails for Team Lot & Mister 100.

One night after around a week of this, Mister 100 had a dream. The dream ran like this: there's a nation full of shining happy people and towns and flowers. Then a tornado comes and chews everything up and everyone is sad. Then things get worse because a tidal wave washes over the nation and everything is washed away. So, in conclusion, everyone in the whole nation is sad and unhappy and wailing phrases such as if only we hadn't gone to war against King Arthur and his good buddy Merlin this wouldn't have happened what fools we were to discount the advice of Merlin who knows everything and can use magic to affect people's dreams save us Merlin save us from ourselves.

Mister 100 woke up in, as they say, a cold sweat (super uncomfortable) and roused Lot and the other kings.

"I had a dream," said Mister 100. "It was not an awesome dream." He related the story to Lot and the others.

"Dang," said Lot. "That sounds bad. We'd better formulate some kind of master plan, get some high-level strategy going. The worst thing would be if we go into this without a plan."

Then, because Merlin was so awesome, Mister 100 and all his guys ware ambushed by Arthur's host. And at this stage the story becomes a little complicated.

You've got Arthur and Ban and Bors riding into Mister 100′s camp, pulling a sneak attack at night which catches many of Mister 100′s troops in their tents. The tents were pulled down, and Arthur's little strike force inflicted massive casualties before pulling back out. Malory continues to play fast and loose with the numbers, claiming that there were sixty thousand men in Mister 100′s camp (forgetting the force besieging the knights at Bedegraine, plus including a phantom seven thousand guys from nowhere) and ten thousand of them were killed in the raid but fifty thousand were still hale and ready for violence.

After the raid ended, Merlin suggested (this is another bit where the Merlin/Gandalf parallels are much stronger than I had been expecting, what with him telling the generals how to fight) that Ban and Bors and everyone should head back up the road to Bedegraine and combine their ten thousand men with Arthur's twenty thousand, and to be sure that Bors and Ban would be at the head of the column all conspicuous, so that when they broke the siege on the Bedegraine forces the Benwick and French knights would see them and be inspired.

As Malory puts it, it was done anon as Merlin advised.

Then Ulfius and Brastias, the old firm, decided to commit some deeds. They grabbed everyone handy, which was three thousand knights, and launched a follow-up raid on Mister 100′s troops just as Mister 100′s troops had recovered from the previous lightning raid! Ulfius and Brastias killed knights left and right, over and under, to and fro, hither and yon.

Mister 100′s co-kings saw that they were just a couple of knights (plus 3000 more unnamed knights who don't really count, in a Spartans-and-helots sort of way) and got angry and defensive and rode up to beat them back. Ulfius's horse went down! Ulfius, on foot, had to deal with the Duke of Cambenet and King Clariance double-teaming him! Ulfius was left reeling! He's tagged in Brastias! Brastias and Clariance pounded on one another! Both their horses went down! In fact both their horses were been hit so hard that all eight of their horsey legs were driven into the earth up to the knee! It is crazy, the way Malory describes it.

Sir Kay, meanwhile, came in as part of another round of attacks. He did passing well with the six-man team that he assembled for the tournament. Some of the kings were pounded on the caterers Sir Griflet and Sir Lucan, so Kay rescued them. Then King Lot came up to rescue his co-kings and Sir Kay pounded on him, and then Mister 100 joined the fray.

Mister 100 was his side's best fighter, you recall. Kay could compete with Mister 100; he was driven off. Mister 100 helped King Lot get back up and offered him a new horse. Mister 100 was classy like that. This sparked a big round of guys offering unhorsed guys new horses, which horses were often freshly taken from newly-unhorsed enemy knights: Griflet nabbed a horse and gave it to Kay, Lot gave one to King Nentres, Mister 100 knocked a guy down and took his horse and gave it to King Idres, blah blah bah.

Eventually Mister 100 and his fellows pulled back and caught their breath and called a thirty-second time-out, vowing vengeance for all this horse thievery. Sir Ector rode in just too late and found that Ulfius and Brastias got dehorsed way back three paragraphs ago and no one ever got them new horses and so they had been trampled nearly to death.

Seriously. Ector takes care of them, though.

After the thirty-second time-out ended, Arthur took the field himself. There were a bunch more dehorsing and giving of horses and guys rescuing other guys from being trampled or ganged up on. At one point someone took Sir Ector's horse, which, listen. Here's a nickel's worth of free advice: don't take King Arthur's adoptive father's horse and then ride it somewhere King Arthur can see you, it turns out that is a terrible idea. King Arthur will mess you up if you try that.

None of the named knights died, although (as mentioned before) Sir Brastias and Sir Griflet both came pretty close. Sir Lucan and Sir Griflet were a major team-up, two caterers against the world.

Knights fighting kings and other knights continued on for a good long while. Ban and Bors, for whatever reason, hadn't ridden forth since pulling their men out of Bedegraine. But now they took the field and started smashing guys up and unhorsing them anew. Arthur rode around like a crazy guy with the only magic sword in the campaign, killing dozens. He even came up against King Lot, briefly, and stuck him one good in the shoulder, so Lot called another thirty-second timeout.

"Everybody huddle up," said King Lot. "We are not winning like we oughta. This battle has stopped being fun."

"This battle stopped being fun about four hours ago," said Mister 100.

"The problem," said King Lot, "is that we're getting in one another's way." Everyone agreed. "At the start of this battle we outnumbered them 3 to 1, and then for a while we outnumbered them 2 to 1, and right now we outnumber them 3 to 2. That is a bad trend. We're getting humiliated here. So what we'll do is, me and Mister 100 and three other kings will ride out with fifteen thousand men, and the rest of you and all the rest of the men will stay here and hold them, and we'll circle all the way around, freshen up, and then when you're at your most exhausted we'll get them from the back, where there's room. Otherwise we're doomed, fellas."

As they made ready to carry out this plan, which they didn't manage to pull off, one of the kings (technically the Duke of Cambenet but hey) started a major advance aimed right at, it turns out, Sir Lionses and Sir Phariance. Those two got their butts kicked, until King Bors spotted this happening and rode in to their rescue as all-fired-up as anyone has ever been about anything ever.

"Crap," said King Lot. "I know that guy. That's King Bors of France. Hell of a dude."

"Shit," said Mister 100.

"Shit is right," said King Lot. "Well that explains how Arthur had fifty percent more knights than we were expecting. How'd he even get here? You'd think the king of Gaul would be in, you know, Gaul, not up in our grill."

"I can tell you how he got here," said Mister 100. "I can tell you in one word, two syllables. Mer-lin."

"Well, hell," said King Carados. "I'll go kill Bors, give that a shot. If it looks like he's kicking my ass, come rescue me, okay?"

And Carados rode up with a special high-speed high-impact slam-and-smash English-style cavalry charge, which Bors, being from France, was not expecting. However Bors was way more awesome than Carados, and sure enough Bors kicked his ass and Mister 100 had to ride in to the rescue. Mister 100 was basically the best knight on his side of the battle, Malory reminds us again. He may be my favorite character so far.

Once Mister 100 had rescued Carados, he and Lot and all the rest of their team spotted Ban.

"Aw, man," said King Lot. "King Ban of Benwick. He's got Benwick."

"Merlin, what did I tell you?" said Mister 100. "Merlin."

"Ban and Bors are the two best men on the Continent," said King Lot. "We can run away from them, or we can try to take them out, or, I don't know, some third thing. We can't just ignore them, though, because they're cutting our guys to shreds. You know we had them outnumbered like 3 to 1 and now it's basically even?"

"I'm on it," said Mister 100.

Mister 100 mounted up and charged King Ban, who was indeed cutting the opposition to shreds. Now Mister 100 was pretty awesome, and King Ban (Sir Launcelot du Lake's father) was also pretty awesome, so they had a great fight with lots of reversals and horses getting killed and armor getting ripped off and it continued on for a while and then King Ban got lucky and clocked Mister 100 on the side of the head and Mister 100 went down.

King Brandegoris came in, tried to rescue Mister 100, but the only guy on their side who could rescue Mister 100 was Mister 100 himself, so, that didn't work out so well for Brandegoris and he went down, too.

Arthur came up and gave Ban a new horse and apologized for letting Ban get as badly smacked around as Mister 100 smacked him around, and Ban was all, you should see the other guy.

And then things got bad. Malory phrases it like so. But when King Ban is mounted on horseback, then there began new battle, the which was sore and hard, and passing great slaughter. Tens of thousands of guys were dead, wounded, or thoroughly demoralized. In the thick of it, Lot and Mister 100 and the other nine kings (really eight kings plus the Duke of Cambenet) rolled up together.

They hauled out, retreating for the night -- yeah it's night again which means it's been twenty-four hours of constant violence -- and the tattered force circled up and slept like dead men.

Meanwhile, Arthur and his guys hadn't suffered losses nearly so bad, but they were definitely battered. Arthur was pissed at Mister 100 and the others for not surrendering and preventing all this needless bloodshed, but Ban and Bors took him aside and reminded him that it's just what kings do, them and their knights, they fight valiantly. Mister 100 and the other kings were all pretty valiant knights. Ban would go so far as to say that Mister 100 and the others were better knights than any to be found on the Continent, and if only Arthur and Lot and Mister 100 and the others could mend fences then England would be an unstoppable powerhouse of knightly strength and skill at arms.

"Yeah, well, they all hate me," said Arthur.

"Try to look at it from their side," said Ban and Bors. "Y'all are enemies. If we were enemies, I'd hate you too. It's only natural."

Meanwhile over the river and through the woods, Lot and Mister 100 and the others held one more strategy session. "So that plan I had a while back for splitting our forces in half and flanking them, that didn't work," said Lot, "on account of we couldn't get it together to try it. Here's my new idea: we ride around, hit and run, shock troops with the cavalry. It worked for Arthur's men when they started this battle, going on thirty blood-soaked hours ago. Now our big trouble has been our dehorsed guys and footmen; we keep trying to rescue them and getting them new horses and it's just throwing good money after bad, manpower-wise. So I propose, a guy gets dehorsed, he's on his own. I know that sounds callous, but listen. There's plenty of brambles and thickets and woods, a dehorsed guy can run into them, circle around, ambush; let's not run in rescuing one another. It's causing more trouble than it's fixing."

"Also," said Lot, "morale among the men is pretty low, so if you see anyone fleeing, cut him down, otherwise he'll start a panic and all the men will run."

"Aw man," said Mister 100. "Has it really come to that?"

But, yeah, it had really come to that. Lot and Mister 100 and the other kings all agreed to adopt these new rules of engagement, for the incipient battle. Which was really just Day 2 of the continuing battle.

That morning Arthur, Ban and Bors mounted up with forty of their best and least-dying knights, which number included the old firm of Ulfius & Brastias, Kay and the caterers, Ector, Lionses & Phariance, and a whole pile of other dudes. They gave a big cheer and morale was high and they hefted their spears and rode off at speed to hunt down Team Lot & Mister 100.

Team Lot & Mister 100 were ready and desperate, so they were mounted up by dawn, too. They charged Arthur's knights with their own host (what remained of it) and everyone whose name has been mentioned so far got all crazy-go-nuts and killed a mob of dudes.

Ban and Bors, at one point, exchanged glances and looked sidelong at Arthur and muttered to one another. They knew, coming in, they knew that Englishmen were bloody-minded violent thugs who speak the language of slaughter, but they hadn't realized just how loony and death-crazed Arthur and his men would turn out to be.

So slow-motion pan of Arthur and his best guys finally coming right at Lot and Mister 100 and their guys, and roaring of the soldiers and the spears coming up, truly, this would be the final and climactic exchange...

And boom Merlin out of nowhere, on Shadowfax a big black horse-shaped object! Merlin shouted "everyone! The fight is over! I declare it a draw!"

"What the hell?" asked Arthur.

Merlin shook his head. "Listen, you. The best estimate for the number who died on D-Day, 6 June 1944, is between fifteen and twenty thousand total on both sides. You know how many lives you and Lot and Mister 100 have ended in the last thirty-six hours? Two to three times that. Enough is, I mean seriously, enough. If this doesn't end right now, Kung Fu Jesus will come down from heaven and blast you all with force lightning because this is literally atrocious. It is an atrocity. These are war crimes."

"Well, they started it."

"Here what you do now. You go home," said Merlin. "Congratulate your men and give them out medals and everyone can feel good about being the violent-est thugs in all of Christendom."

"No contest," interjected Ban. "You guys are totes the violent-est."

"Go home," repeated Merlin. "And don't worry about Lot or Mister 100, I'm using my crazy Merlin powers to say that if you just leave them alone for three years, they'll leave you alone for three years, and by the end of that period the situation will have changed in ways you'll find amusing and surprising. Anyway, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland have been invaded by Moors, so Lot and the others will have to take their five thousand or so surviving cavalry and deal with the forty thousand angry Moors. It'll keep them busy for a while."

"Wait, what?" asked Arthur.

"I need to get going," said Merlin. "But one last thing. Take all the plunder your men have gotten from the bodies of the fallen, and turn it over to Ban and Bors. It'll go a long way towards securing their friendship in the wake of this let's-take-all-of-our-knights-out-of-France-and-Benwick-and-bring-them-to-England-and-then-they-suffer-seventy-percent-casualties debacle."

"Yeah, okay," said Arthur. "I can just pay my surviving men out of petty cash."

"That's the spirit," said Merlin. He rode off to meet up with Saruman the White Bleise, his master. Merlin related to Bleise the story of the battle, and Bleise wrote it all down, and that's how Malory knows all this, and let's just say that everything else that happens in the book. Merlin told Bleise about and Bleise wrote it down, and that's how Malory knows all this stuff, and now that it's been said let's never bring it up or think about that ever again.

###  In which Merlin is a jerk, and Arthur retrenches

The next time Merlin visited Arthur wasn't until months later. Arthur was chilling in Sherwood Forest, of all places, when Merlin decided to have a little fun, and dressed up like a beggar/poacher/woodsman. He tried to get in to see Arthur, but Arthur was not inclined to meet a random beggar. "Go away, we don't want any."

Merlin, still disguised, got all playful. "Give me a present! I want a present."

"What? No," said Arthur, like you would. I mean, come on. This is not a very good prank, Merlin.

"Okay," said Merlin, "if you give me a present I'll tell you about some buried treasure that's right near here."

"What?"

Merlin-as-beggar clapped his hands. "Merlin told me about how there was buried treasure. Man, Merlin is so awesome Arthur you should just always do as he advises." Then he skipped out like the malicious little imp he was.

And this point the old firm, Ulfius & Brastias, decided that fun is fun but enough is enough; they'd recognized Merlin right away and filled Arthur in.

"Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Should I be angry, or apologize, or what?" asked Arthur. No one had any good ideas.

So in the meanwhile (that phrase is a direct quote from Malory), let me tell you about this gal Lionors, who was hot and lived nearby. She showed up at Arthur's place in the forest to congratulate everyone on having survived the bloodiest day in English history, and Arthur liked the look of her and next thing you know she had an infant son who resembles Arthur. Said son eventually grew up to become Sir Borre of the Round Table, so, good for him I guess? I also guess that this is the buried treasure Merlin was talking about, this hot forest girl who became the mother of Arthur's child.

At some point shortly after after Arthur had explained that he was married to Being King, but before Lionors gave birth, Arthur conveniently had to run off, because word came in that the King of North Wales (name of Rience, explicitly not a member of Team Lot & Mister 100) had decided to go to war with the King of Cameliard (name of Leodegrance; Cameliard is a purposefully ill-defined location somewhere near North Wales; Leo wasn't a member of Team Lot & Mister 100 either). Arthur decided to go to Leodegrance's aid, because King Rience was a total jerk.

Ban and Bors checked their watches and made noises about how they really should get back to Benwick and King Claudas and all that, but Arthur talked them into coming along for one more violent nutty English adventure. I'm not sure how, but despite being down to about ten thousand men after the slaughter of the last few chapters, and after sending back all the surviving French and Benwick knights back to the continent to defend Benwick from King Claudas, Arthur and Ban and Bors managed to ride out with twenty thousand men to Cameliard. There they smashed up thousands of Rience's guys and drove Rience himself off back to North Wales.

This was also when Arthur met King Leodegrance's daughter, Guenever, whom (spoiler alert!) he later married. So bad for Lionors, who exits the story never to be seen again. Arthur didn't marry Guenever immediately, though. At this point he was merely struck with infatuation for her. Which is kind of funny, because (again, spoiler alert!) this is pretty close to the last time we get any hint that Arthur's marriage to Guenever was ever anything but political and entirely aromantic.

Afterwards Ban and Bors announced they were done. "That was the last adventure for this trip, now we're really going back to deal with Claudas."

Arthur said he'd come too, since they helped him.

Ban and Bors exchanged glances and gave a polite no thank you. Arthur'd already done plenty, and besides, he had all this stuff to deal with in England. So, no, it was back to France and Benwick for them. When they said their goodbyes at the beach in Dover or Sandwich or wherever, Arthur again offered to come with, but Ban and Bors turned him down a second time. "Nah, Arthur, buddy. It's cool, but we'll have to come back sometime. This was, well, not fun exactly, but it was a thing."

Merlin, ever the cheermonger and supplier of joy, announced that Ban and Bors would not be coming back any time soon, but next year after Claudas kicked their butts Arthur would ride in and save them.

(Thanks for the vote of confidence, Merlin! Also this is either a prophecy of Merlin's that doesn't come true, or else it's just a story that Malory doesn't bother to tell.)

Merlin went on to say that it wasn't a big deal anyway because Team Lot & Mister 100 would all eventually be killed by Sir Balin and his brother Sir Balan, not Ban & Bors & Arthur. Merlin was the kind of guy who ruins surprise parties. Also this prediction never bears fruit; Balin killed a bunch of guys but neither Lot nor Mister 100 were among them.

Speaking of! We turn to at last King Lot and Mister 100 and their dudes. After the gigantic battle with Arthur, they holed up in the city of Sorhaute, in Gore. This was King Uriens's territory, and he was able to get them all fresh food and beer and leeches for their gangrenous limbs. Just as Mister 100 and Lot figured things had quieted down at last, in came a messenger to tell them about how forty thousand Moors were looting the North. Murdering peasants, sieging castles, and so on.

"Man," said Lot.

"Yeah," said Mister 100. "Here we go again."

"I'm really starting to question the wisdom of deciding to be Arthur's enemies," said one of the kings.

"Yeah, if we weren't enemies we could all team up and fight the non-Christians together," said another.

"Did you hear how Arthur helped out King Leodegrance?"

"Oh, yeah, man, that King Rience is a jerk."

"I hate that guy Rience."

"Me too, I'm glad Arthur stomped him. I oughta buy Arthur a drink."

"Except that we're his bitter enemies."

"Yeah."

"Oh, well."

King Lot, Mister 100 and the others agreed to work together to kick out these Moors, which they did (it was a lot of work). Afterwards they set up a loose confederation that governs Wales, Scotland, the North of England, and Ireland. Their main goal remained Arthur's containment. They also overthrew and slew King Rience, because everybody hated him.

In general, things didn't go well for Lot or Mister 100 or any of their allies, which is basically the plot of much of the rest of the book, Malory claims. Malory is only slightly better than Merlin at foreshadowing. Also it's a stretch to say that Lot and Mister 100 are villains who have any real impact after this section.

Margawse came back into the picture at this point. You may have forgotten her: she was Arthur's older half-sister, child of Igraine and Igraine's first husband Gorlas. Uther married her off to Lot before he died. Now Margawse was the Queen of the Orkneys, with an absentee husband busy making war. She sent word to Arthur that she'd like to come visit, as Queen of the Orkneys, since Lot was off fighting Moors and there was no reason Margawse and Arthur couldn't get along.

Neither of them were aware that they had the same mother, Malory tells us, and that kind of disclaimer only makes sense if... yes.

Yes.

You'd think that Merlin might have bothered to speak up at some point, but no. Merlin's a jerk. Mordred was raised out in the Orkneys along with Margawse's other four children, his half-siblings since their father was Lot and his father was Arthur. That's great. We're a pretty small fraction of the way through the story and already Arthur has sired two illegitimate children, one with his half-sister. Mordred growing up in the Orkneys is another little factoid Malory contradicts himself on later, too.

###  In which Arthur has a terrible day

This story opens with Arthur dreaming. In his dream, an army of monsters invaded England! Arthur raised an army to fight them, and after a long, bloody campaign drove them from his shores.

This bugged Arthur; I guess he thought that if he battled monsters he should win easily. To cheer himself up he decided to go hunting. Arthur moodily hunted for a while, almost bagged a deer, doesn't, moodily changed horses, moodily hunted some more, then decided to call it a day. As the sun sank low, he watered his horse at a handy wilderness-fountain and mulled over the existential angst of being King Arthur. While he was doing this, he heard what he thought was a pack of thirty or so hounds approaching! But no, it was the Questing Beast. The Questing Beast sounded like that, apparently. It showed up and, ignoring Arthur, drank from the fountain, then leaves.

"Peculiar," thought Arthur. Then he lay out for a quick nap.

He hadn't yet fallen asleep before a knight walked up and poked him with his foot. "Excuse me, stranger. Dude, wake up. Dude. Wake up. I'm looking for a beast which cannot be described except to say that it sounds like thirty hounds, have you seen him?"

Arthur opened his eyes and glared at the stranger. Finally he pointed the direction the beast went. "Yeah, it went that way."

"Terrific!" said the knight. "Now if only I had a horse."

At this point one of Arthur's servants showed up with another horse. "You wanted a spare horse, your majesty?"

Arthur said no, because he had already received his second horse like two hours ago; there'd been some kind of mixup in the stables.

"Since you aren't using this horse," said the strange knight, whose name was Pellinore. "Hint, hint."

"What? This is starting to seem weirdly contrived. Am I getting punk'd?" asked Arthur. "Am I dreaming? Are monsters about to appear? Has a mystery play sprung up around me? What is happening?"

Pellinore explained that he was on a quest to catch the Questing Beast, as if this answered all Arthur's questions.

"Okay, I'll play along," said Arthur. If I was Arthur I'd be better-looking. I'd also suspect I was in some kind of dream or allegory or crazy Merlin prank situation. "Yo, Pellinore," he continued. "How about you stop questing after this 'Questing Beast,' and I'll go quest after it for, I dunno, a year? Or until I catch it."

"Stranger, you're as ignorant as you are ugly!" retorted Pellinore. "Only I can catch it. Or one of my sons. Or a nephew, or my father, or an uncle, if he's a paternal uncle. You get what I'm saying. I'm saying a male relative. And yes, I'm a sexist jackass, but who isn't these days?"

While Arthur mulled this over, Pellinore stole both horses.

"My horses now!" cried Pellinore. "I need them to catch the Questing Beast. The score is two horses Pellinore, zero horses everyone else!"

Arthur mumbled something about Pellinore better being ready to fight him for them, to which Pellinore laughed. He'd be there, right there, at this fountain, any time Arthur wanted to fight. Any time at all! Pellinore wasn't going anywhere! Then Pellinore rode off.

Arthur needed to lie down after all that. He sent someone to get him another horse, and lay down and tried to process the whole bizarre experience, when along came Merlin.

Merlin, for funsies, was disguised as a fourteen-year-old gossipy junior-high girl.

"Helloooo Arthur," said Disguised Merlin.

"Uh huh," said Arthur. "Hello, little girl."

"Hellooo? Arthur?" said Disguised Merlin.

Arthur grunted.

"What's up?" asked Disguised Merlin.

Arthur waved at the air. "I just saw... there was this thing that wasn't a deer and sounded like thirty dogs... guy stole my horses..."

"Yeah, I know, I know," said Disguised Merlin. "Don't waste time thinking about it."

"What do you know, anyway? You're a mere schoolgirl," said Arthur.

"I know you're the king of England, and your father was Uther Pendragon, and your mother Igraine! And I know a hilarious story about your conception," said Disguised Merlin. "Knew your father, I did!"

"No, no, no," said Arthur. "The thing before was weird and confusing, this is just dumb. You're way too young to have known my dad. Get lost!"

"Whatevs," said Disguised Merlin, and stepped behind a tree. When he stepped back he was disguised as an eighty-year-old man.

"That's better," said Arthur. "Now you look elderly and wise."

"What's wrong?" asked Merlin.

"So first there was this beast that wasn't thirty dogs, and then there was this guy, and he stole my horse, and finally a certain schoolgirl came up and was all I know a hilarious story about your conception which was just disturbing."

"Mmm-hmm," said Merlin. "That sounds like one cunning and awesome schoolgirl you should have been nicer to. I'm sure she would have told you that God is angry with you."

"With me personally, or with all mankind?"

"Both," said Merlin. "But specifically you slept with Margawse your half-sister and she had your incestuous offspring Mordred, who will eventually ruin everything for everyone."

"What is it with this fountain? You are the third person to come up and say bizarre nonsense at me since I got here!" said Arthur. "Margawse is my half-sister?!"

"I'm only the second person to tell you bizarre nonsense at this fountain!" said Merlin, "because I'm Merlin! And I was the schoolgirl! It was me, all along!"

Arthur sighed. "So you can see the future and it all ends with this 'Mordred' killing me, huh?"

"Yes. Try to act surprised. But it's best not to think about that right now," said Merlin, "because anyway when you die you get a great funeral and when I die they just toss me in a ditch."

At this point someone came back with another horse for Arthur, and Merlin procured a horse somehow. They rode back to Caerlaeon, which was where Ector and Ulfius were, possibly because Malory has forgotten that he established Arthur's court as being in London rather than at Caerlaeon. Probably other people were there, too, but Ector and Ulfius were the ones Arthur wanted to question.

"Just the knights I sought. Guys, do you know who my parents are?" he asked them.

Ector and Ulfius were nonplussed. "Your biological father was King Uther," said Ector.

"And your mother was Queen Igraine," said Ulfius. "There's actually a hilarious story about your conception..."

"Not now!" snapped Arthur. "Queen Margawse is Igraine's daughter, right?"

"Right," said Ector.

"I'm Igraine's son, you say, right?" Arthur asked. "Biological son. Nothing against my adoptive mother, your wife, Dad."

Ector nodded. "Right," said Ulfius.

"So when Margawse and I slept together, you didn't think it might be a good idea to say something?!"

"Well, we thought you knew, and were just, you know, being weird," said Ector.

"Your dad –" started Ulfius.

"– His biological dad –" broke in Ector.

"Yeah," said Ulfius. "Uther, well, Uther did some crazy stuff like that. A lot. One time, this is a funny story, one time he got Merlin to magically disguise us..."

"Okay, great," said Arthur. "That's great. That's just fine and dandy. This kind of thing just makes a guy want to stab his own eyes out. Is Queen Igraine still around? Can I speak with her?"

"Do you really want to?" asked Ulfius.

"I imagine so," said Ector. "You are the king, after all."

"Yeah, okay, so, get Igraine here, because I want to meet her."

Malory doesn't say where Queen Igraine spent the twenty years or so since we last saw her (prior to Uther's death) but she showed up pretty quickly and she brought along her second-youngest daughter, Morgan le Fay, the one who got such good grades in necromancy school. But then! As soon as Morgan le Fay and Igraine arrived at Arthur's court, and before anyone said two words of greeting, Sir Ulfius stood up and started hurling invective.

He'd been waiting for a chance to bawl out Igraine for a long time. He got all red-faced and would have been violent maybe if no one were there to stop him, but as it was he just shouted a lot. The upshot of it is that Ulfius blamed Igraine for the massacre/battle against Team Lot & Mister 100.

If Igraine had shown up and endorsed Arthur at or after his coronation, then Lot and the others would surely have accepted him as king. After all, the bulk of their protest had been that Arthur was Sir Ector's adopted son whose parentage was entirely unknown and whose claim to the throne was solely through Merlin's sword-and-stone nonsense.

Ulfius bottled up this rage, but it all came boiling out now. He called her traitress and a causer of war and false to God and threatened to murder anyone who defended her.

Igraine rebutted his verbal assault, saying that she'd defend herself without it coming to violence she hoped, what with it being a patriarchal society wherein she was forbidden to fight. She'd like to think that some man (her son, maybe?) might have been moved to defend her. The tale of Arthur's conception, she said, was a hilarious anecdote, which Ulfius knew as well as she did, since he was there for most of it, and besides it was Merlin who made it possible.

Arthur, at this point, considered asking about the details of this hilarious anecdote everyone kept mentioning, but decided against it.

But, to Arthur's chagrin, Igraine retold it for everyone present, Arthur's whole court: Uther's lechery, Merlin's false mustaches, Gorlas conveniently dying three hours before Arthur's conception, and Uther marrying Igraine afterwards.

By the end of it everyone was pretty grossed out, even Ulfius, and the wind had gone out of his sails some. He grumbled that Merlin was the real grade-A monster here; Merlin was the one to blame for it.

"I know!" Igraine was all weepy. "I bore Uther a child, and then thanks to Merlin, I never got to see him again or raise him or find out what became of him."

Then Merlin stepped forward, and took Igraine by one hand, and Arthur by the other, and put their hands together, which was a touching little scene. Merlin got away with not explicitly apologizing, and Arthur cried and Igraine cried and Ector introduced himself to Igraine as Arthur's adoptive father and then they cried together, and then Arthur called for another big party.

Eight days of partying later (Kay and the caterers Griflet and Lucan were busy) a boy rode up, with a dead knight. The boy explained that the knight was Sir Miles, the boy was Miles's squire, and a guy out in the woods set up a tent out in the woods by the fountain...

"...nothing good ever happens at that fountain," Arthur muttered.

"And at that tent," the boy continued, "the villainous guy killed Sir Miles, and I'm hoping someone can avenge him? Or better yet I can get knighted myself and I'll go avenge him? My name's Griflet, by the way."

"We already have a Sir Griflet," said Arthur. "He's one of the caterers. He just got mentioned a couple of lines up."

"That's me!" said the boy. "It's a continuity error!"

"Hmm, if it's a continuity error then I'd better knight you," said Arthur. He looks Griflet up and down. "You're awfully young, though. The Sir Griflet who fought so bravely at the massacre/battle against Team Lot & Mister 100 wasn't so young."

"I'll age, I promise," said Griflet.

"It is indeed a continuity error, sire," said Merlin. "Best to knight him and be done with it. He'll be a fine knight right up until he dies trying to stop your best friend from preventing the death of your wife."

"Why do I let you say anything ever?" Arthur asked Merlin. "Griflet, fine, you can be a knight. Get over here and kneel down. Sword!"

Someone handed Arthur a sword, and he did the usual shoulder-tap bit on the boy. Thus knighted, Sir Griflet was all fired up to ride off and try to kill the knight who slew Sir Miles, but Arthur stopped him.

"Promise to come right back after the fight, win or lose!" Arthur commanded Griflet. Which strikes me as a little odd, I mean, if he lost he'd likely die.

But Griflet swore that promise, took a sword and armor and a horse, and rode back to the fountain. As he'd told Arthur, someone had pitched a tent there, and all the knight's stuff was just sitting out on the grass.

Griflet grabbed a spear and banged it against the knight's shield where it lay on the ground. When the knight came out from the tent and tried to get him to knock off the racket, Griflet challenged him to a joust.

"What? Why?" asked the knight.

"You don't remember me?"

"No."

"You killed my master, Sir Miles?"

"Doesn't ring a bell."

"It was like twenty minutes ago!"

"Oh. Oh, right, Sir Miles. You're that kid. Listen, kid, you're way too young for me to want to kill you, and you're also way to young for me to lose to you in a fight."

"I don't care," said Griflet, "I want to joust you."

"Fine, fine, your funeral," said the knight. "Which one is the joust? I can never remember."

"It's the one where we're on horses and strike one another with spears!" Griflet was a little annoyed by the knight's attitude.

"Oh, man, I hate that one. Of all the knightly methods of contention it's my least favorite. You'll probably defeat me easily," said the mystery knight, and he dressed for a joust and mounted up and they hefted spears.

The two knights ran at one another. Griflet's spear was shaky while the other knight's aim was true, and boom, Griflet was dehorsed and left semiconscious with a big gaping spear wound, and his horse got knocked down too.

"Yeah, I lied before. I'm actually a great jouster. I told you it was a bad idea," said the mystery knight. "Ha! Dumb kid." But he felt a little bad about beating on Sir Griflet, who might have grown up to be a great knight eventually, so he got down off his horse and helped Griflet up. The kid was bleeding pretty badly, but the mystery knight loaded him up on his horse, and sent him back to Arthur's court.

In Arthur's court they quickly administered first aid and bandages and leeches! Everyone worried that young Sir Griflet wouldn't make it, but then he made it!

But this was a very eventful day! We aren't done yet. Tax collectors showed up: twelve elderly men from Rome, asking for Arthur's taxes for Caesar. And by "asking" I mean "demanding, with an undertone of threatening."

"Well," Arthur said, "you guys are messengers, and I don't believe in killing the messenger, so I'm not going to hurt you, I'm just going to say that my answer is a categorical get bent to all Roman Emperors. All taxes paid by me shall be paid using the medium of sword-blows, and you guys picked a real bad time, because I'm upset about this whole Griflet thing anyways."

The tax collectors stormed off, warning that this wasn't the end of it, just wait until Book V, and Arthur stewed and sulked. He told one of his men to get all his best combat gear together, and a horse, and the next morning he strapped on his armor and took his spear and went riding around looking for trouble.

Trouble was not long in the coming, for before Arthur'd wandered too far he came across Merlin, chased by three churls.

"Churls! Scat!" shouted Arthur, and rode into them waving his spear around. The churls scattered, and Arthur felt much better.

"Ha, Merlin," said Arthur. "You're all Captain Magic and Weird Trickery Man, and here you would have been murdered by churls if I hadn't happened along."

"Yeah, that wouldn't have happened," said Merlin. "You're going to die before I am, also God hates you."

"Stop talking!" snapped Arthur. "You are the worst buzzkill ever, Merlin."

Merlin and Arthur walked along like this for a while, with Merlin making dire predictions and Arthur trying to laugh it off, and then they came to the fountain.

"Crap," said Arthur. "This fountain." He shook his head. "This fucking fountain."

The mystery knight who busted up Griflet was still there, as was all his stuff.

"Yo," said the knight that busted up Griflet.

"Yo yourself," said Arthur. "Are you the dick that's been jousting and killing people?"

"Maybe," said the knight. "A lot of guys were jousting."

"I'm going to hit you until you promise to stop," announced Arthur. He pulled out his sword.

"Hey, swords are fine and all," said the knight. "But I'm actually way better with spears. Sometimes I tell people I'm not just to mess with them, but seeing as how you're challenging me and all, could we do it with spears?"

"Sure," said Arthur. "Except I have zero spears."

"Borrow one of mine," said the knight. "I have like a million extra."

So Arthur grabbed a spear, and they jousted. The knight slammed Arthur pretty well and Arthur the knight likewise, and both spears shattered under the force of it.

"Okay, now with swords," said Arthur.

"I have more spears," said the knight. "C'mon, be a sport."

"Okay, fine," said Arthur, testily. They took new spears and rode at one another again, and this time the knight hammered Arthur quite well and knocked him off his horse.

"I'm okay! I'm okay," said Arthur. "Just got the wind knocked out of me. Now I'm dehorsed, so that's a point for you and now we fight on foot with swords. That's how it goes."

"Yeah, no," said the mystery knight. "I'm going to stay up here."

"Cheater! Why am I surprised?" Arthur lay into him with his sword. Arthur didn't kill the knight's horse because that would have been cheating and made Arthur just as bad as this knight, but he did get the knight unhorsed pretty quick.

"Yeah, well, I let you," said the mystery knight. "Can't really get a guy on foot with a spear from horseback, anyway."

Then Arthur and the mystery knight went fight fight fight with swords. It was awesome, right up until the knight's sword chopped Arthur's sword in half.

"Darn it," said Arthur. "This is the sword someone handed me to knight Sir Griflet with. I should have brought my magic one."

"Yeah, well, you didn't," said the other knight. "Now do you surrender or do I kill you?"

Merlin, who'd been watching this whole battle from the sidelines, called out to Arthur. "Don't choose death! God hates you so when you die you'll go to hell! It'll be terrible! If you surrender you will lose all self-respect! I'm an old wizard and yet I'll outlive you! You slept with your sister!" and many other cheers meant to lift Arthur's spirits.

"I choose neither!" cried Arthur. And he jumped onto the mystery knight, knocked him down, and ripped his helmet off, and it's Pellinore that jackass who stole Arthur's horse. Shocking twist!

Then Arthur and Pellinore rolled around fighting in the dirt, wrestling like boys. Pellinore was definitely getting the upper hand, and things didn't look good for our hero.

So Arthur's lay there, senseless, and he was about to get his skull caved in by Pellinore and Pellinore's enormous heavy sword. Finally Merlin decided to get up and do something useful for once, besides spout spoilers. "Hey, you," he said to Pellinore. "Yeah, you! Quit murdering that guy! He's better than you!"

"Better than me? Who is this guy, anyway?" asked Pellinore.

"It's King Arthur, you idiot!"

"Arthur!" Pellinore was impressed. "The guy whose horse I stole before? I owe him! Obviously I'd better double-kill him!" And Pellinore hefted his sword, about to decapitate Arthur, but then Merlin cast sleep and instead Pellinore needed to lie down for a while.

A few minutes later, Arthur came to, with no permanent brain damage from having been knocked unconscious, so that's how far back that particular genre convention goes, the bashing someone on the head and they collapse but wake up fresh as a daisy after the next commercial break. Arthur came to on the back of Pellinore's horse, behind Merlin.

"Aw, Merlin, did you have to kill him?" asked Arthur, who was king of leaping to conclusions as well as Logris-Britain-England. "He was a really, really good jouster. If he weren't trying to kill me, I'd have tried to hire him. Hmm. Maybe we can make some kind of bargain, you can bring him back to life? I don't have much to offer, just, you know, all of England. I could loan that to you, if you resurrect Pellinore. You want to borrow all of England?"

"Relax," said Merlin. "He's in better shape than you are. He'll be awake in eighteen turns, that's about three hours. I warned you about Pellinore. I remember clearly telling you that he's nine feet tall and breathes fire, metaphorically speaking, and in the future he'll do you a big favor. Also he'll have two sons who will be the second-best and third-best knights, Sir Percivale and Sir Lamorak."

"Can we not have one normal conversation, without you prophesying all over the place?"

"Oh, and also he'll be the one who tells you about how Mordred is going to destroy everything. Try to act surprised when that happens."

"Listen, let's... let's just be quiet for a while."

Merlin didn't take Arthur back to his court. Instead they chilled at a local forest hermit's place for several days while Arthur recuperated and got leeched. A long weekend later he was ready to go, so they hopped on the horse Merlin stole and another horse which, I don't know, the hermit gave them, that sounds plausible. Anyway, they started riding, and straightaway, Arthur started complaining that he didn't have a sword. Pellinore had broken his, you may recall.

"No problem," said Merlin. "Over in that lake there's a sword you can have."

"I thought I was no longer surprised by anything you say," said Arthur. "But that's a little weird."

"Check it out," said Merlin, and pointed. They'd been riding past a lake, nice lake, features included an arm wearing a shining white sleeve sticking straight up out of the middle of the lake, said arm was holding a sword (scabbard included). Also, there was a woman who might have been swimming and might have just been walking on the water, it's hard to say.

"Yeah, a little weird," Arthur said again. "Who is that woman?"

"That's the woman who lives in the lake," Merlin said. "Duh."

"Great, thanks," said Arthur.

"Actually she lives in a magic rock at the bottom of the lake. Very nicely furnished, super comfy. She's coming over here, and she'll give you the sword if you ask for it."

Sure enough, the woman headed over to Arthur and Merlin and said hi. After exchanging pleasantries, Arthur was like, "hey, you know that sword? Can I have it?"

"You're King Arthur, right?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Hmm. On the one hand it's a nice sword. On the other hand, I don't need it for anything, and I would love to be owed a favor by King Arthur, that sounds super handy," the woman said.

"How about an autograph?"

"No, no, no. One favor to be named later, take it or leave it," said the woman.

"Yeah, okay," said Arthur. "I can't see any way that could backfire on me."

So he and Merlin tied up their horses and they got in a little rowboat and rowed out to the arm, where Arthur took the sword. The arm then retracted down into the water.

"Don't worry about that," said Merlin. "Pay it no mind."

"Way ahead of you," said Arthur. "I'm trying real hard to block out pretty much this whole misadventure, especially all your dire predictions."

A few hours later, Arthur and Merlin rode up the road and came to a familiar-looking tent.

"I recognize this tent," said Arthur. "It's belongs to that villain Pelli–"

"It's the tent of King Pellinore, the knight who beat you up so badly a few days ago," interrupted Merlin. He spoke very quickly so as to prevent Arthur from getting a word in edgewise. "He packed it up and moved it here away from the fountain. Earlier today he met one of the knights in your service, Sir Egglame, that is the man's name, don't make fun, and they jousted which joust I could describe for you now but I'm eliding the jousting in favor of the bare facts. Egglame ran away, on account of otherwise Pellinore would have killed him, so, no fault to Egglame there, and Pellinore ran after him and now they're both halfway to Caerlaeon, and we'll bump into Pellinore up the road in just a few minutes."

"Okay," said Arthur. He was more patient with Merlin than I would have been. "Hey, I can try out this nice new sword on him!" Arthur brightened at the prospect.

"No no no," said Merlin. "He's tired after beating on Egglame and chasing him, and you'd just kill him, which, that's not going to happen because of all the things he's going to do in the future. Best to let him live."

"But –"

"Best, I said, to let him live."

"But –"

"He'll do you a good turn, and his sons also, and also he'll be your brother-in-law soon."

"Fine," said Arthur petulantly. He fiddled with his new sword and scabbard.

"Hrmph," said Merlin. "Which do you like more, the sword or the scabbard?"

"Is this a trick question?" asked Arthur.

"No. I'm just making conversation."

"Obviously the sword is best, because you can kill your enemies with it. The scabbard is just a sword delivery system, like how waffles are just a carrier for butter and syrup."

"Wrong!" cried Merlin. "It was a trick question! The scabbard is a magic scabbard that causes your blood to remain in your body at all times."

"That doesn't sound so useful... no, wait, what if I get cut and start to bleed... or someone puts a leech on me unexpectedly... yeah, okay, I can see how that would be useful."

"Good," said Merlin. "Hold on to that scabbard. Also, hold still for a moment, I'm going to do some magic."

Then Merlin cast invisibility on Arthur, such that when the two of them rode past King Pellinore a few minutes later, Pellinore didn't see Arthur at all and therefore didn't insult him.

Afterwards Arthur mused that perhaps Pellinore was turning over a new leaf. "He didn't insult me!"

"He would have if he'd seen you," said Merlin. "I did magic at it."

Then Arthur and Merlin rode back into Caerlaeon, and everyone was glad to see Arthur, since he'd been gone for days. Arthur told them all about the crazy mystic adventures of the last few chapters, really everything since he met his biological mother, and everyone marveled about how great Arthur was for having endured such a crazy mystic adventure with no friends along, just Merlin.

###  In which Arthur reenacts the Massacre of the Innocents

As our story opens, Arthur received a message from King Rience of North Wales. Remember that guy? Nobody liked him? It seems that he had been making trouble in Ireland and Wales. He may or may not have defeated Team Lot & Mister 100 in battle. Malory is cagey about that even though he asserted earlier that Team Lot & Mister 100 slew Rience. Now Malory is Mister Flippety-Floppity saying that no, Rience defeated eleven kings. Maybe not the same eleven kings as Team Lot & Mister 100, but maybe it was! Only time and further textual inconsistencies continuity errors shocking twists will tell!

Rience's methodology here was entertainingly dickish. He tried to meet the king in battle and force his surrender, and if the king wouldn't ride out to battle him, he'd just wander through the king's territory setting serfs on fire and rustling cattle. Either way, he lay out an ultimatum: the king could either shave his beard and turn it over to Rience as a symbol of his emasculation, or else Rience would also accept the king's severed head.

"This guy sounds like a real piece of work," said Arthur. "No wonder everyone hates him. I should have killed him back when I rescued Leodegrance from him."

The messenger coughed politely, as he was still waiting for Arthur's response.

"You tell that guy that he's an ass, and that I said so," said Arthur. "And I've barely gotten old enough to grow a beard, no way I'm shaving it off for him or anyone. I've met Rience in battle but never had a sit-down with him, and it sounds like I dodged a bullet there. You tell him that I want him to surrender to me, although I'm not interested in any of this thinly-veiled homoerotic ritual shaving nonsense. Now get out."

The messenger left, and everyone started tut-tutting about this turn of events. Arthur wrote RIENCE on his royal whiteboard in red marker, and underlined it.

"Anyone here know anything about Rience that I don't? Raise a hand. Merlin, I am not calling on you, I don't want to hear it." Arthur said. "You, there, Sir... uh..."

"Sir Naram, sire," whispered Sir Ulfius.

"Naram, right, a good man. Sorry, Naram. Didn't recognize you there with that helmet on."

"I'm not wearing a helmet," said Sir Naram.

"That's the spirit," said Arthur. "So, you had your hand up. You know Rience?"

"Yep," said Sir Naram.

"And? What can you tell us about him?"

"Rience, well..." Naram stared off into space, thought about it. "He's tough," he finally said.

"Great, thanks," said Arthur. He wrote TOUGH on the whiteboard, under RIENCE.

"Okay, I think we've learned a lot today," Arthur said. "I don't doubt this crucial intelligence will prove key in defeating Rience, great job everyone." He dusted his hands off, looked around. "Merlin, you still have your hand up. I told you I don't want to hear it."

"You can't stop me," said Merlin. "I've got news for you that has nothing to do with Rience."

"Am I going to like this?" asked Arthur.

"Depends. The one who will destroy you, he's been born. It was not very long ago that he was born. His birthday is the first of May," said Merlin. "Hint, hint."

"I feel like we've already talked about this," said Arthur. "But I blocked out the details. Someone destroying me rings a bell, though."

"First of May," said Merlin.

"Okay, here's what we do. We get everyone whose birthday is the first of May," said Arthur. "All the little kids."

"Then we load them onto a boat, and we send them away to die at sea!" cried Merlin.

"What? No," said Arthur. "We should... um... darn it, I can't think of a good way to end this sentence. Fine, we'll do it your way." Inexplicable choice there, Arthur!

So that happened. Arthur called for all the boys whose birthday is the first of May to be sent to his court. Boys from all over Arthur's nation poured into Caerlaeon. Also Queen Morgawse, Lot's wife, Arthur's half-sister whom he slept with, you remember? Mordred's mother? She sent along infant Mordred, too.

All these babies showed up at court, it was so babies, totally babies. Some of them were almost a year old, some of them were a month old, some of them were less than a month old, Malory tells us, because apparently he's forgotten how birthdays work. Arthur loaded them all up on a ship and they sailed off into the ocean, where they hit a rock and the boat sprang a leak and it sank and everyone aboard drowned.

Sole survivor was Mordred, little baby doom-of-Arthur Mordred, who washed ashore and was found by a kindly fisherman and we'll hear from him again, but this story won't ever come up again, which makes you wonder what the point was.

When everyone heard about how Arthur took their sons and sent them off to die at sea, they got good and mad, although mostly people blamed Merlin for giving Arthur such lousy advice rather than the young King himself. Since they liked Arthur and they feared Merlin, they didn't rise up in revolt or complain too loudly, except for King Rience, that ass, who decided it's a good pretext to invade Logris-England-Britain.

##  BOOK II: Sir Balin, Lady Killer
###  In which we meet the Idiot Knight

As this chapter of our tale opens, Arthur was hanging out in London, no place more specific than just 'London,' when along came a knight.

"Ho, knight," said Arthur.

"Sire, I have come to recap. King Rience is making trouble," said the knight. "He's burning peasants and their thatch-roofed cottages left and right, it's a bad scene."

"Hmm, if what you say is true –"

"Are you calling me a liar?" said the knight, all indignant. "I saw it myself!"

"If what you say is true," said Arthur, ignoring him, "then I'd better do what I do best."

"What's that?"

"Call all my barons and knights together," said Arthur.

"Ooh," said the knight. "Will there be jousting?"

"You know it!"

So Arthur gathered all of his barons and knights together at Camelot, which he'd just finished furnishing and decorating, so this war-council-for-dealing-with-Rience party was also a come-check-out-Camelot party as well as a jousting tournament (JOUSTING TOURNAMENT 3!). Everybody, simply everybody showed up, including a girl who claimed to have been sent by Lile of Avelion.

"You mean Queen Lily of Avalon?"

"Enh, whatever."

She came to Arthur, this girl did, wearing an enormous fur coat, and cleared her throat to get everyone's attention. Once everyone's eyes were on her, boom, the fur coat dropped! Along with everyone's jaws!

Under the coat this girl was not completely naked. No, she wore a sword in a scabbard, with a... let's call it a harness. She explained that she labored under a curse; until some strong knight could pull her sword from its scabbard she couldn't remove the harness.

"Nothing weirdly Freudian about this," exclaimed Arthur. "I happen to be great at pulling swords from things. That's how I became king! It's a funny story really."

"The knight who saves me from this incredibly thin metaphor," said the girl, whom Malory doesn't bother to name but I'm going name Wilma because 'the maiden' is just too lame to keep repeating over and over again. "The knight who saves me must be a great knight, valorous, honorable, skilled at arms, reasonably dashing."

"You're describing me to a tee," said Arthur. "Also there are about a hundred and eighty knights within earshot who fit that description, am I right fellas? Camelot for life!"

The knights cheered.

"Yeah, we're awesome," said Arthur. "Camelot for life! Woo!"

"Anyway, I went to King Rience's court already," said Wilma. "He claimed to have a bunch of great and heroic knights also, but none of them could free me from this device."

"Okay, well, I'll give it a shot," said Arthur, rising from his seat. "Now, just so everyone is clear on this," he added, loudly to his assembled court, "I'm not claiming right here and now to be the best knight here. I'm just saying I'm good at pulling swords from things. And there's a bunch of fine fine knights who tried to pull a certain other sword from a certain other thing -- Kay, you know what I'm talking about -- and they weren't able. So I'm not going to be shocked if I'm not the specific knight who has been magically preselected to pull out this sword. If and when I don't successfully pull it out, I want you all to give it a shot. Don't think I'm going to be mad if you pull it out when I can't. I won't be. I am going to try first, though."

All the knights murmured agreement. Wilma tapped her foot.

"But," Arthur continued. "And this is a substantial but! I am confident that here at Camelot I've assembled the greatest knights in all of Christendom, so we'll get this sword out, one of us –"

"Will you just pull it out already?" interrupted Wilma. "Sire. Please. Your majesty."

So Arthur grasped the sword with both hands and gave it a tug, and it didn't come out. "Hold on," he said, and tried again, harder.

"Sire, it's not –"

"One more try!" said Arthur, and got one foot up on Wilma's hip and really threw his back into it and she cried out in pain.

"NOT SO HARD JESUS WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU THIS THING IS ATTACHED TO ME!"

"Oh, sorry," said Arthur. "Ouch, that looks painful, ouch, sorry. Can we get her some leeches? Leeches over here?"

Wilma recovered and Arthur admitted that he was not the guy to pull this particular sword from this particular "stone." He asked his assembled barons and knights of the Round Table to do it, because Malory forgets that the Round Table won't get introduced until Book III.

"But fellas, look into your hearts before you try this. Do this sword-pulling with a clear conscience, no shame, no treasonous plots, no evil thoughts. Take it from me, swords in things hate evil thoughts."

"Oh, also!" Wilma had more to say. "The knight who frees me must be a clean knight, a good knight, not a villain, not already married, no children, his parents either dead or distant because I don't want to deal with in-laws, no one in his family should have a criminal record," said Wilma. She listed off a bunch of other requirements for her ideal man/magically-preselected savior, and they were about what you'd expect.

A substantial fraction of Arthur's court was, nevertheless, willing and ready to line up and try to pull the sword out. As they tried and failed, each in their turn, to pull the sword from Wilma's "scabbard," the hero (more or less) of this particular story entered the picture: Sir Balin, the Idiot Knight. Malory makes a case for Balin being fundamentally okay; he was this guy from Northumberland who killed another knight in a freak jousting accident a few Arthur-sponsored jousts ago, and it wouldn't have been such a problem except the knight he killed was Arthur's cousin (unclear whether via Uther's family, Igraine's family, or Ector's family). Also he was kind of a dimwit, hence the nickname. Malory calls him "Balin le Savage," so I'm interpreting freely here.

Sir Balin was a prisoner in Camelot, but it wasn't exactly a maximum-security sort of setup; he was more a trustee. He was permitted into the party, for instance. When he saw all the knights lined up to try to please Wilma, he wanted to participate. He was unsure whether he ought to, though, since as a prisoner he was dressed in basically rags; he lacked all the usual baron accouterments: armor, horse, weapons, serfs, mistresses, et cetera.

Wilma was disgusted on account of none of Arthur's knights can satisfy her, and nearly left in a huff; a dark pall fell over Camelot at their failure. Wilma was on her way out when Balin stopped her and asked to give it a go.

"You? Really?" she asked. "I mean really. Really. Look at you, you're clearly not rich. And I'm pretty sore from all the other men trying and failing to satisfy me."

"C'mon," said Balin. "I'm a hell of a guy once you get to know me."

"Well, you do have good upper-body muscular definition," conceded Wilma.

"Manhood is concealed within man's person," said Balin, according to Malory. "Wink, wink. I don't actually know what that means but it sounds good, you know?"

"All right, all right," said Wilma. "I'll give you a tumble. Try to draw the sword out. Take it!" And she presented herself to him.

Balin grasped the sword, and Wilma gasped. He drew it slowly and smoothly from its scabbard. She sighed in contentment as her restraints fell off of her.

"Hmm," he said, looking at it. "This is a nice sword."

"You've won me!" cried Wilma, a little put out that Balin seemed more interested in the sword than in her newly-freed self.

"Mmm-hmm," said Balin. "Still checking out this sword. Is this a mother-of-pearl inlay?"

"Okay, you've managed to completely break the mood," said Wilma, as she put on some clothes. "So never mind. Just give me the sword back and I'll be on my way. Maybe hit up the knights at Benwick, see if they're more fun."

"What? No!" said Balin. "I won this sword fair and square! I'm keeping it."

"Yeah, well, smooth move on your part," said Wilma. "Because the sword is, I don't know, cursed or something. Yeah, that's right. Cursed! You'll kill your best friend or brother or something with it! It'll ruin your life! All because you treated me badly and refused to give me the sword! It's going to happen! Don't think it won't!"

"Pshaw," said Balin.

"You'll be sorry," said Wilma. "I didn't even want the sword. I was just trying to do you a favor by taking it off your hands. You'll see. You'll be sorry."

And she stormed out.

"Well that was odd," said Sir Balin, the Idiot Knight. "It's as if she wanted something else from me but wouldn't come right out and say it."

Arthur, who witnessed this whole exchange, sputtered a bit.

"So," Balin continued, "now that I have this nice new sword I guess I'll be taking a horse and some armor and going off and having a strange adventure now."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," said Arthur. "I don't know where you got that idea. You were a prisoner, and then just now you demonstrated with magic yourself to be a worthy knight, full of virtue and so on. Those are two completely different and conflicting reasons for me to want to keep you around, and they don't cancel each other out. Are you mad?"

"No, I'm not mad at you, sire," said Balin.

"You misunderstood my question," said Arthur.

"I'm not angry with you, sire," Balin corrected himself.

"Mmm." King Arthur spent a moment just staring at Sir Balin. "You know what? You can go, I've decided. I don't want to keep a brave and virtuous knight like you against your will," said Arthur.

"Oh, God bless your majesty!" said Balin.

"Go on, get out of here!" Arthur shooed him away. "Come back soon. Go. Don't forget to write. Leave. You'll always be welcome here. Get lost."

So Balin loaded up a horse and prepared to ride off. Malory says that as he did, the rest of Arthur's court erupts into argument over whether Balin was a witch or just really stupid. It's true! Their debate was interrupted, however, by the appearance of another rider. This one needed no introduction: it was the Lady of the Lake. You remember her. Sure you do. She greeted Arthur, and Arthur greeted her.

"How are tricks?"

"Same old, same old. You?"

"About like you'd expect," said Arthur. "We're working on coming up with a plan for this whole Rience situation. That's why all this jousting is going on in the background, which we're skipping over."

"Oh, we haven't even gotten to the jousting-heavy parts yet," the Lady of the Lake assured him. "Anyway, you remember how last time we met you promised me a favor?"

"Nope," said Arthur.

"Sure you do," said the Lady of the Lake. "It was when I gave you Excalibur."

"Excalibur?" asked Arthur. "I have no memory of that. Is there such a thing as an Excalibur?" (I do not know why Malory has Arthur do this.)

"It's the magic sword you've got at your belt right now," said the Lady of the Lake, and pointed.

"Oh, that. Right. Right. It's all coming back to me now. So you came to get that autograph after all?"

"I want a severed head," said the Lady of the Lake. "Not just any head!" she added, forestalling Arthur's next gambit. "There was a guy who just now pulled a sword from a girl's... clothing."

"Yes."

"I want his head. Or her head. Either one. I wouldn't say no to both," the Lady of the Lake said. "He killed my brother. Also she was responsible for my father's death. So, both of them are in my bad books." Malory never gets around to supplying us with the backstory on this, except for a bit a couple of paragraphs down.

"Hmm, well," said Arthur. "I'm not really prepared to decapitate either of them right this second. The one already left and the other is all fired up for some kind of adventure. Sure I can't tempt you with an autograph? Or, oh, how about an illegitimate child?"

"No dice," said the Lady.

Balin came back into the hall, ready to make his last goodbyes to Arthur and the court. He saw the Lady of the Lake, and then everything turned all slo-mo and red tint, because the Lady of the Lake killed Balin's mother, and Balin spent three years hunting for her. (See? It raises more questions than it answers.)

"Who's that and what's she talking to Arthur about?" Balin asked a nearby lady-in-waiting.

"That's the Lady of the Lake and she wants you dead," explained the lady-in-waiting.

"Not if I kill her first!" Balin screamed, and charges forward and lopped the Lady of the Lake's head off with his new magic sword.

Everyone shrieked! Court in general uproar! A dozen knights with swords pointed at Balin leaped to Arthur's defense! Arthur started shouting at Balin. "Alas for shame what the hell dude! You murdered a guest in my court! That is not cool!"

"She was bad," Balin said, as if that explained everything.

"I don't care what your excuse is," said Arthur. "Get out. Go. You're banished from my court. Now I'm going to have to take down the sign that says how my court has never had any guest get murdered. That I do not forgive." Arthur was all bereft over the Lady's death.

"Do you want us to execute him, sire?" asked a knight.

"No, I'm too bereft," said Arthur. "Just make sure he goes."

"I'm going, I'm going, jeez, you'd think I killed someone who wasn't evil or something," said Balin. He grabbed the Lady of the Lake's severed head and dashed off to his squire, and the two of them mounted up and ride off.

"Okay, now, squire," said Balin.

"I was actually thinking of getting out of the squiring business," said the squire. "Being your squire doesn't seem like a great career path."

"Squire, take this severed head and ride back with it to my hometown and tell everyone how I killed the Lady of the Lake. Also let them know I'm out of prison."

"Should I tell them how Arthur banished you?"

"Use your judgement. Now, I'm going to go find King Rience and kill him. That'll get me back in Arthur's good graces or nothing will."

"I kind of suspect nothing will," said the squire.

"We'll meet again, squire, when they're throwing a sorry-we-banished-you, welcome-back-Sir-Balin party at Camelot!" said Balin, ever the optimist. Also ever dumber than a sack of hammers.

Meanwhile, Arthur put together a great funeral for the Lady of the Lake. It was a really nice funeral. One thing Arthur was good at was funerals.

At the funeral Malory introduces one of King Arthur's best knights whom he hasn't mentioned before, but don't take that to mean that the guy wasn't awesome: Sir Lanceor. Lanceor was the son of Anguish, the king of Ireland, whom you might remember was part of Team Lot & Mister 100 in Book I. However, good Sir Lanceor swore fealty to Arthur and joined the Round Table (which, again, hasn't been set up yet; it doesn't get set up until Book III). He was a solid knight, good at what he did, and the word Malory used to describe him is orgulous, a vocabulary word meaning some blend of haughty and proud and distinguished and arrogant and accomplished.

Lanceor had taken it personally that Balin was the one who got the sword from Wilma and her chastity-scabbard. He'd liked Wilma's spunk, and he spent the whole of the Lady of the Lake's funeral grumbling about it. As soon as the ceremonies are over he approached Arthur.

"Sire," he said. "I beg your permission to hunt down that wretch Balin and execute him for his dreadful crimes."

"You know what? You do that. You kill him right proper," said Arthur. "I cannot express how mad I am at that guy. He should be dead, and you're just the knight to do it."

Lanceor thanked Arthur and made ready to ride after Balin. He left just as Merlin came in.

"Where the hell have you been?" demanded Arthur. "For once I'm in a situation where I need a crazy soothsayer advising me, another damn strange adventure, you know how I hate those things, and you were nowhere to be found!"

"Did I miss anything?" asked Merlin. "It sounds like I missed something."

"Only a strange adventure! All this magic witchery crap has been happening! There was this girl with this sort of sword-in-an-I-don't-know-what-to-call-it, and Balin, the trustee, pulled it out, and Wilma left angry because Balin didn't want to sleep with her, and then the Lady of the Lake showed up and wanted them both dead, and then Balin murdered her! Balin killed the Lady of the Lake right in front of me!"

"Listen," said Merlin. "The girl who was cursed to wear the sword-in-the-chastity-belt..."

"Wilma."

"Wilma, I can assure you fellows, she was a wicked maiden. Worst ever."

"What?"

"See, the thing about Wilma is this. She has, or had, a brother," explained Merlin.

"I'm not connecting the dots here," said Arthur.

"It gets better!" Merlin assured him. "She had a brother who was a good knight, and she also had a boyfriend who was pretty skeevy, and the brother went after the boyfriend to leave her alone, and what with one thing and another the brother was standing over the boyfriend's mangled corpse." You might think this ties into the complex web of backstory between Wilma, Balin, and the Lady of the Lake, but you'd think wrong. Just when you expect Malory to zig, he zags!

"Oh," said Arthur. "That explains everything! Wait, no, it explains nothing."

"I'm telling a story here," said Merlin. "Give it a little time to unspool."

Arthur shuddered. "Fine."

"Anyway, this black-hearted maiden did the worst thing, which is side with her lover over her brother, big no-no, and she went to the most powerful woman available for help: Queen Lile of Avalon, and begged the magic queen to assist her in defeating her brother."

"Whoa," said Arthur. "A ruling queen helping a woman work against the patriarchal system? Sounds dangerously protofeminist!"

"Damn right!" agreed Merlin. "We've got some literally medieval views on gender roles, and even the most proto- of protofeminists are dangerous and subversive witches."

"Yes, of course."

"So Queen Lile gave her a magical sword and told her that only a knight destined to murder a brother with it could pull it from its sheathe. Wilma was under the mistaken impression that the brother in question would be her own; Lile's tricky that way. Armed with the sword, so to speak, Wilma has visited all the various courts in hopes to recruiting someone to do it. She can't tell the knights the truth of the story, so frames it as a curse. Hence the chastity belt angle. She was up to no good the whole time, I swear."

"Man," said Arthur. "That's, wow. Man. When I say I hate strange adventures this is exactly what I'm talking about."

"I wish she hadn't come to your court, but she did, so, water under the bridge." Merlin shrugged in a what can you do? sort of way. "Now Sir Balin is out there with a sword destined to kill someone's brother, which is a shame, because while Balin is as stupid as toast he's also a powerful knight, and with a magic sword he'll be pretty well unstoppable."

"Hmm." Arthur and debated whether or not to mention sending Lanceor after Balin.

"It's also a shame," said Merlin, "inasmuch as Balin's motivation is to honor you and get back in your good graces. Too bad he's doomed, he's not really a bad guy. Plus, again, he's unstoppable in combat. Doubly so with the magic sword."

"On a completely unrelated note, do you know if Sir Lanceor has any brothers or sisters?"

###  In which Sir Balin gets back in Arthur's good books

Sir Lanceor loaded up with his best armor and weaponry, and rode off after Sir Balin. Balin didn't have all that much of a lead, and wasn't hurrying, so after a good bit of hard riding Lanceor caught up.

"You!" cried Sir Lanceor. "I challenge you in Arthur's name!"

"Hello! My name is Balin! Nice to meet you!" Sir Balin turned and waved. "Is that an Irish accent I detect?"

"Yes," said Lanceor. "I am Irish, but I'm here to kill you on a mission from Arthur!"

"Aw!" Balin was crestfallen. "Is Arthur still mad at me?" he asked. "It's been hours! I was hoping he'd have gotten over it by now. She was an evil lady. The guest of the court whose head I lopped off while she was in mid-conversation with the king, I mean. She was so bad."

"Shut up and joust!" cried Lanceor. Which would be a good title for a reality show wherein contestants compete for the title of America's Next Top Jouster.

So, they jousted. And to make a long story slightly shorter, Balin killed the hell out of Sir Lanceor.

Mere moments later, as Balin stood over Lanceor's dead body, another figure arrived on a horse, a maiden! Not Wilma, the maiden from whom Balin took his new sword, but a different one. Specifically, it was Columbe, Lanceor's girlfriend.

"Noooo!" Columbe sobbed, and clutched at Lanceor's corpse. Then she picked up Lanceor's sword, and Balin tried to get it away from her but somehow in the confusion she ended up stabbing herself in the chest. "Oh! I have just now committed suicide!" she cried. "Sir Balin definitely didn't murder me!" And then she died.

That's how Balin would relate the story to people afterwards, anyway.

"I can't help feeling partially responsible," said Balin to himself. "If I hadn't angered Arthur then he wouldn't have sent this Irish knight after me, and then I wouldn't have had to kill him, and then this maiden wouldn't have picked up his sword and then carefully balanced it on its end on the ground and leaped upon it, stabbing herself in the chest and leaving a wound that so closely resembles a conventional stab-wound such as a man like myself might have inflicted by stabbing her."

Moved by this unhappy tableau, he turned away, and looked down (this whole scene had taken place on a mountaintop, did Malory forget to mention that?) at the forest below. He watched another rider coming up, and it was, by strange chance, his brother Sir Balan.

That's right: Sir Balin and Sir Balan. No way that's needlessly confusing.

"Your squire found me," said Balan. "He was pretty drunk but I got that you were out of prison, so I came up to this mountaintop to look for you."

"Worked out," said Balin.

"So what's new?" asked Balan.

"Aw, man, I was in Camelot, all right, minding my own business? And then this girl wearing nothing but a scabbard wanted me to pull out her sword! And then she wanted it back!"

"The nerve!" said Balan.

"I know! So I told her off. Then I'm leaving, and Arthur is like, don't go, but I'm like, I'm going! And then the Lady of the Lake shows up!"

"No way!" said Balan.

"So naturally I kill her, and suddenly I'm the bad guy!"

"Outrageous!" said Balan.

"So of course I ride off and then this knight comes up and tries to joust me, so of course I kill him."

"Of course," said Balan.

"And then his lady-friend rides up and she's sobbing and screaming and she grabs his sword –"

"Whoa!" said Balan. "Ladies aren't allowed to touch swords!"

"That's what I said!" cried Balin. "And then she stabbed herself in the chest. No way did I kill her."

"Wow," said Balan.

"I know!" said Balin. "That's why ladies aren't allowed to touch swords. It's a safety thing."

"Still, it's all in God's hands, right?" said Balan.

"Yeah. The real tragedy here is that Arthur's mad at me," said Balin. "I have a plan to deal with that, though. I'm going to murder King Rience, that'll make everyone love me again. I might have to murder some more people along the way, but once I kill Rience everything will be great again and I'll go back to Camelot and there will be a pizza party. I know, through some means Malory hasn't bothered to specify, that Rience is currently occupying Castle Terrabil, so that's where I'm headed."

"I'll come with!" said Balan. "You and I should be in more scenes together. Our names are awesome."

"Sounds good! We should get a move on," said Balin.

"Let's stand around and chat a bit longer," said Balan.

"Sounds good!" said Balin.

This mountaintop was surprisingly well-trafficked, as before Balin and Balan had moved on, another rider happened along. It's that most beloved of Arthurian characters, Peter the dwarf! That is to say, he was a guy with dwarfism. Just headed out from Camelot. Peter approached, seeing the two corpses and the two knights. "Well well well, what happened here?"

"Who wants to know? asked Balin.

"Me," said Peter. "I want to know."

"Oh, okay then," said Balin. "I slew the knight, but it was self-defense; we were jousting. Then the maiden came up and I slew..." Balin trailed off. "I slew her beloved," he said carefully. "So she killed herself with his sword."

"I see," said Peter.

"I've decided to be nicer to women in the future," Balin added hastily. "For her sake."

Peter harrumphed. "You don't realize how bad you've got it," he said. "This was Sir Lanceor, knight of the Round Table (which hasn't been established yet) and son of the King of Ireland."

"I thought he was Irish," agreed Balin.

"He had a lot of friends and a lot of relatives who altogether have a lot of swords," Peter explained.

"That makes sense," said Balin. "Him being a knight and prince and all."

"They will try to kill you and they will not give up until you're dead," Peter explained. He might have tried drawing Balin a diagram. I'm not saying he didn't.

It didn't sink in, though. "Man," said Balin. "And now Arthur's going to be double-mad at me because I killed this guy Lanceor and his girlfriend..." Balin paused, then resumed. "His girlfriend killed herself. Arthur's going to be so mad. About that."

Peters continued to try to explain to Balin how bad his situation was, but it's a hole with no bottom. So of course we get yet another random bystander arrival! This one was King Mark of Cornwall. Mark was just in the area, noticed a commotion, and came to see.

Mark saw the dead bodies and had to have everything explained to him all over again. Naturally he got sad and angry. Mark called up some fixers and arranges for a nice tomb to be constructed with a sign saying "HERE LIES LANCEOR THE SON OF THE KING OF IRELAND, KILLED BY BALIN ALLEGEDLY IN SELF-DEFENSE DURING A JOUST; AND WITH HIM THE LADY COLOMBE HIS PARAMOUR, WHOM BALIN INSISTS DIED OF A SELF-INFLICTED STAB WOUND IN THE CENTER OF HER CHEST, WHICH IS A STORY ENCYCLOPEDIA BROWN WOULD LOOK ASKANCE AT, I'M JUST SAYING." It only took a few minutes to erect, apparently.

Merlin showed up at this point, because that sort of thing was bound to happen. Just to recap: Balin had been riding along, and then Lanceor caught up to him here. Then Columbe arrived, and then Sir Balan, and then Peter, and then King Mark, and now Merlin. It was an extremely heavily-trafficked random stretch of road.

Merlin ignored everyone else and approached Mark, as he oversaw the finishing touches being put on the tomb.

"The great battle shall be here," Merlin announced.

Mark jumped, because he hadn't heard Merlin coming up. "Gah! Sneak up on a guy. I beg your pardon!"

"The great battle, the greatest between two knights that shall ever happen, will happen here. And neither shall slay the other!" cried Merlin.

"Oh ah."

Merlin pulled out a pen which wrote in gold, and inscribed upon the door of the tomb two names: LAUNCELOT DU LAKE and TRISTRAM. "Those are the knights who shall fight here," he said to Mark.

"Well aren't you an interesting fellow," said Mark. "I don't believe we've met. I'm Mark, the King of Cornwall; charmed I'm sure. And you are?"

"I shall tell you not!" cried Merlin. "But when Sir Tristram runs off with his lady, that is when you will learn my name, and many other terrible things besides."

"I don't know a Tristram," muttered Mark, but Merlin had already moved on.

"You!" he cried to Balin, who had been standing by his horse nonchalantly watching the tomb getting erected. "You have done terrible things! Columbe is dead because of you!"

"You mean because I didn't act fast enough to stop her from suiciding, right?" asked Balin. "Right?"

"You know what I mean," said Merlin.

"I swear I didn't kill her!" shouted Balin, way louder than necessary. "She stabbed herself! I couldn't stop her! Quit accusing me everyone stop it!"

"Because of Columbe's death," intoned Merlin, "you shall strike a stroke most dolorous that ever man struck. It will ruin the most admirable man in Britain (aka Logris, aka England; these are interchangeable terms)."

"You mean Arthur?" asked Balin. "He means Arthur, everyone."

Merlin rolled his eyes. "Through that stroke not one, not two, but three whole nations shall fall into an economic recession that shall last a generation, and the strikee of your dolorous stroke shall not recover for many years."

Merlin then spun on his heel and started to walk away from Balin.

"I'm going to do my best to make you a liar," said Balin to Merlin's back. It was the best comeback he could think of. Lame, Balin. Lame.

Merlin dignified Balin's insult by vanishing in a puff of smoke, because Merlin had better things to do than take crap from the Idiot Knight.

"We should really be going," said Sir Balan.

"I didn't kill her," said Sir Balin.

"I know, I know."

"Before you gentlemen depart, might I know your names? I'm Mark, the king of Cornwall; charmed I'm sure," said Mark. Mark had watched Merlin and Balin's exchange with interest.

Before Peter had wandered off at some point, he had convinced Sir Balin that as a wanted criminal Balin shouldn't be giving out his real name. "I'm... some guy," said Balin.

"Yes?" said Mark.

"Um, okay, look," said Balan. "You see how he's got two swords? Just call him the Knight with Two Swords. Mister Two-Swords."

"One sword I pulled from a chastity belt," said Balin, holding it up.

"I'm sure you did," said Mark.

Balin held up his other sword. "And this is the sword that killed Columbe She killed herself."

"Of course," said Mark. "Listen, I just remembered I don't want to talk to you any longer, so I've got to take my leave of you."

"Bye Mark!"

"Cheerio." Mark rode off.

"What a nice guy! Well, we should go," Balin told Balan. They rode off in the other direction, towards King Rience. They hadn't gone far before Merlin started messing with them again. First he stepped out from behind a tree, disguised as a completely different old man than the old man we're used to.

"Where are you going?" Disguised Merlin asked.

"Who wants to know?" asked Balin.

"I'm not telling you my name," said Disguised Merlin.

"Well, maybe you're a jerk," said Balan. "Honest people tell people their names!"

"Yeah!" said Balin.

"Weren't you just now telling Mark you were Mister Two-Swords?" asked Merlin.

"I fail to see your point."

Merlin sighed. "Well, regardless. I know you're coming this way to find King Rience, but unless you do as I say you won't find him."

Balin's face lit up. "Oh! Oh! I know this! I know you! There's only one guy who orders people around and says weird stuff like that! You must be Merlin! It's Merlin! Hello, Merlin!"

"Who?" asked Balan.

"Merlin is Arthur's advisor," said Balin. "Merlin must be here to help us get in good graces with Arthur again!"

Merlin slapped his forehead. "Okay, listen, you pull this off, it'll work out great, but you've got to be on your toes, c'mon."

"Don't worry... Merlin," said Balin. "I'm your man, Merlin! You're Merlin!" Balin basically never figured things out, so he was pretty pleased with himself about this one.

Merlin led Balin and Balan to a little woodsy copse, and told them to nap for a while, which they eagerly did. All the best strange adventures feature a nap! Roundabout midnight Merlin woke them up, and told them it was their time to shine.

"That road over there connects Castle Terrabil, where Rience is quartered, to the castle where Lady de Vance lives," Merlin explained.

"Say no more," said Balin. "You want me to murder Lady de Vance! I'm really good at killing ladies."

"No," said Merlin. "No. Rience is having an affair with Lady de Vance, and in a little while he and a light escort of about fifty knights are going to ride down that road. It's the best chance you'll have to get him out in the open."

"Okay!" Balin started to run out into the middle of the road to wait for Rience and his men, but Merlin pulled him back.

"Listen, idiot," said Merlin. "You just stand there, you end up fighting his fifty knights while he rides on. I'll show you where you'll ambush him."

"Ambush! Clever!" said Balin.

Merlin led Balin and Balan to a certain gully the road wound down, and the two brothers made ready at the top of the gully. A few minutes after they began to lie in wait, Rience and his entourage came riding through, exactly as Merlin had predicted.

"Banzai!" Balin and Balan leaped down into the middle of them, circumventing all Rience's men, and slammed into Rience, who was dehorsed and wounded during the surprise round. Then the brothers fought Rience's knights back-to-back for while, until they'd each slain a couple dozen, and the handful remaining gave up and ran off.

Once the battle had ended, Balin towered over Rience. "And now you die!" he cried.

"Wait! No! You can ransom me! You can ransom me!" shouted Rience. "You'll get way more money ransoming me than just looting my corpse, brigands!"

"We're not brigands," said Balan.

"He makes a good point, though," said Balin. They loaded Rience up on a litter.

Meanwhile Merlin had teleport without errored over to Arthur, waking him and his mistress up.

"Good evening Arthur, and good evening miss," said Merlin.

"Do you never knock?" asked Arthur.

"I thought you'd want to know about how Rience has been captured," said Merlin.

"Yeah, okay, that's good to know," said Arthur. He rubbed his eyes. "Who did it? Was it Ulfius and Brastias?"

"No, sire, it was two other knights who seek to get into your good graces," said Merlin. "You'll meet them tomorrow."

"Great," said Arthur.

"I'll just show myself out," said Merlin, and leaves.

"Does he do that often?" asked Arthur's mistress.

Anyway the next morning Balin and Balan and Rience arrived at Camelot. At Merlin's urging, Balin wore a face-concealing helmet and told everyone he was Mister Two-Swords, the Knight With Two Swords. Kay or Ulfius or someone took Rience away in chains. Arthur went to see Rience first, to gloat, before meeting the knights who captured him.

"Welcome to Camelot," Arthur said to the captive Rience. "How have you enjoyed your stay so far?"

"It's been a trip," said Rience.

"Who was it that took you in, anyway? Merlin was being cagey last night," said Arthur.

"Mister Two-Swords is what he calls himself," said Rience. "Him and his brother. He's dumb as a post."

"Dumb he may be," said Arthur, "but I owe him one, definitely."

Merlin appeared at Arthur's elbow. "Would you forgive him any single crime, sire?"

"That's an odd question, Merlin, but yes. I suppose I would," said Arthur. "This Rience situation has been troubling me for thousands of words now."

"Then I'll tell you!" Merlin cackled. "It was Sir Balin all along! He and his brother captured Rience! You don't know Balin's brother Sir Balan, but he's a B+ knight, maybe A-. Nowhere near as powerful in combat as Balin, but then, Balin's got a doom-curse working on his side, and won't live much longer."

"Oh, he's dying? That's, I guess that's too bad," said Arthur. "I feel very ambivalent towards Balin right now. Given that he's dying I suppose I'll swallow it and just forgive him, I suppose he deserves that."

"Well, he's not dying yet," said Merlin. "But by all means, be nice to him; before he dies he's going to do you another good turn or several. Also, tomorrow morning Rience's brother Nero is going to show up and bring along an army, so, get ready for that."

Arthur assembled all his knights together, forewarned as he was about Nero's attack, and he sallied forth in hopes of getting the drop on Nero. But Nero was ready and champing at the bit and he had more men than Arthur: outside Castle Terrabil they fought a long series of battles that even Malory isn't interested in describing in any great detail. Sir Kay did really well, as did Balin and Balan and of course Arthur himself maimed like forty guys, and there was a knight name of Sir Hervis who did well also...

But who cares? Meanwhile Merlin teleported without error up to the Orkneys, where he met up with King Lot. Lot was at the head of a column of soldiers, armed and ready.

"Merle!" King Lot waved; he hadn't seen Merlin in ages. "How you doing? I'm just about to ride down and do battle with Arthur again, on the side of Rience's brother Nero. I hate Rience, like all right-thinking people, but his brother's okay. Pull up a horse, ride alongside me. We could use a good crazy dreamspeaking soothsayer."

"Hold that thought," said Merlin. "I need to relate to you a prophecy."

"Everybody, hold up!" Lot shouted, and the soldiers stopped. "Okay, Merle, what's the deal?"

Merlin then began telling Lot a story that went on forever and has no point (make your own joke here). At times Lot nodded sagely, or smiled at an implied witticism, or otherwise signaled that he was paying attention, because he didn't want to look foolish in front of Merlin, and Merlin was all the time saying things like "of course you understand the significance of this," and "hold onto your hat, Lot, because it gets better!"

Around three days later, a messenger from Nero showed up, with a message along the lines of what the hell is keeping you we are getting creamed here.

"Whoa, sorry Merle," said Lot. "I got to get going."

"Hold on," said Merlin. "I haven't gotten to the end of the story!"

"It'll have to wait," said Lot.

Then another messenger appeared. "I bear news from Terrabil!" he cried. "I traveled much faster than the first messenger! Nero and all his host have been slain and dispersed by Arthur! Nero's last words were 'where were you, Lot?'"

"Shoot," said Lot.

"'And then they all lived happily ever after, the end,'" said Merlin. "Go on, do whatever now."

"I feel terrible about this," said Lot. "Nero had a lot of good men fighting alongside him. You know me, Merle, I'm not a lunatic, I don't love war. But still I wish I had been there."

"There was nothing to be done, Lot," said Merlin. To himself Merlin was thinking if Lot had been there then Arthur would have died, can't have that and I would rather neither Lot nor Arthur die in battle but if I have to choose one to die it'll be Lot no question.

"Well, what now? Any advice, Merle?" asked Lot. "It's not too late, we could ride down there and our men will be fresh while Arthur's are exhausted. On the other hand, they'll outnumber us considerably, and I haven't got Mister 100 here with me."

Merlin shrugged.

"Let me at them, boss!" One of Lot's knights was full of vim. "I could take on all the Round Table (which hasn't been established yet) myself!"

"Heh, well, hopefully it won't come to that," said Lot. "But yes! Onward, men! We'll take Arthur down a notch yet!"

Then another fight, blah blah blah, Lot and the remnants of Team Lot & Mister 100 Featuring Nero on one side, Arthur on the other, and since Book II is all about Balin, I can assure you that Balin on Arthur's side kicked enormous amounts of ass. But Lot, let's give him his due and remember that he wasn't not such a bad guy. He could have been Arthur's wise and kindly elder brother-in-law, if they had gotten along better, but no. Maybe part of Lot's antipathy towards Arthur stemmed from Arthur sleeping with Lot's wife and fathering Mordred, plus the incest thing on top of that. Just saying. Arthur isn't 100% the victim here.

Anyway, Lot was in the thick of it, holding his troops together, when at the height of the battle a mystery knight appeared from behind! The mystery knight ran straight for Lot and took him out! It was -- you were not expecting this -- King Pellinore, the Questing Beast Guy! Yeah, that jackass! I know, right?

Pellinore disappeared as soon as he'd taken out Lot, which was pretty well the end of the battle; Lot had been single-handedly holding his side together. Malory reminds us that in a decade or so, Lot's son Sir Gawaine would avenge his father's death, but that didn't matter in the here and now. I don't know why Malory is even bringing it up. It's as if he's a terrible writer with no sense of pacing, even by the lax standards of the fifteenth century.

What matters is that the remnants of Team Lot & Mister 100 were crushed, the various kings on Lot's side were slain (though, again, Mister 100 and some of the other heavy-hitters weren't present), and they were tossed in a big mass grave in Camelot.

The mass grave thing sounds better once you hear about the absolutely fabulous funeral Arthur threw together for Lot and the eleven kings on his side in this last battle, which group of kings overlapped with but was not identical to the kings in Team Lot & Mister 100 from back in Book I. Arthur asked Merlin to put together something special, and Merlin used magic to erect a huge crypt with gold-leaf pressed into everything and statues of everybody looking sad (and one of Arthur in the middle looking triumphant), plus lots of eternal flames. I don't think there's a spell in the 1st edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons list of magic-user spells that does this, but I could be wrong.

Everybody thought it very nice, including Arthur's special funerary guests: Margawse, Lot's widow; Uriens, king of Gore and longtime comrade of Lot; and Uriens's wife Morgan le Fay, sister to both Margawse and Arthur. Afterwards at a private reception Uriens and Margawse started drinking and didn't stop. Let's join the scene, already in progress!

"They are really packing it away," said Morgan le Fay to her half-brother and his weird elfin magical advisor.

"Well, it's been an eventful day," said Arthur. "The eternal flames were nice, I thought."

Merlin explained to Arthur that the eternal flames aren't really eternal. They would go out when Merlin died, which would be just before the whole Quest for the Holy Grail happened.

"Hold on," said Arthur. "Malory doesn't mention me saying this but I think it's worth objecting here. Didn't you tell me before that you were going to outlive me, but I would get a nice tomb while you were tossed in a ditch?"

"Possibly," said Merlin. "I utter a lot of prophecy. I can't be expected to keep track of it all."

Arthur muttered something under his breath.

"Speaking of," said Merlin. "Here's some additional prophecy. I already mentioned this to him, but not you: Sir Balin is going to be the one who strikes the dolorous stroke."

"What?" asked Arthur.

"You'll know it when you see it," said Merlin. He winces. "Right in the jimmies."

"Hey now," said Morgan le Fay. "There are ladies present."

"Uh, Balin," said Arthur, changing the subject. "Where did he get off to, him and his brother? And were late-battle reports of Pellinore (that jackass!) appearing, were those correct?"

"Oh, Pellinore will show up again," said Merlin. "And Balin will be sticking by you until his death."

"Yeah, you mentioned he was doomed," said Arthur. "That's a shame. I mean, yes, he murdered the Lady of the Lake, and he may be dumb as a post, but he's a hellacious fighter. He's better than me and I maimed forty guys this morning! He may as well be a superhero."

"You have a superpower too, don't forget!"

"I am very good at siring illegitimate children, but I don't know if that's a superpower."

"That magic scabbard! You remember. Excalibur's scabbard, prevents blood loss."

Morgan le Fay perked up. "Really? A magic scabbard that prevents blood loss?"

"Yes indeed," said Arthur.

"Can I take a look?" asked Morgan le Fay. "It sounds like a form of necromancy, blood and all, and I majored in necromancy."

"Sure, why not?" Arthur handed it to her.

Morgan le Fay smiled nervously. "Just so we're clear, this doesn't mean I'm going to sleep with you!"

She and Arthur shared some anxious titters, because the whole Arthur/Margawse situation really cast a pall on what might have otherwise been a nice family get-together.

Meanwhile Merlin spouted still more prophecy, as he always did when drunk, about how there would be a great battle at Salisbury and Mordred would be there and also Uriens knew a man named Bagdemagus who was Arthur's long-lost cousin.

Later, in their private tent, while Uriens slept it off, Morgan le Fay did some magic. Scabbard in hand, she cast analyze dweomer and enchant an item and so on. She wasn't much for inventing new magic items, but she was pretty good at duplicating existing ones; Morgan easily constructed a second scabbard identical to the first. Malory is vague as to whether the second scabbard had the same enchantment as the first one, or if it just appeared so because Morgan le Fay cast Nystul's magical aura on it. For right now, I'm going with the latter interpretation.

"Hey Sir Accolon," she called to her lover, a young and lusty knight whose death she would have liked to prevent. "Take this scabbard, it was Arthur's until I borrowed it. I'm returning him this duplicate I made; he'll never know the difference."

"M'okay," said Accolon.

"It would serve him right to bleed to death, anyway," muttered Morgan le Fay. "All the needless death he's caused, making my husband go off to war for years at a time, leaving me to rule Gore in his stead... well, that part wasn't so bad. Still, being a woman in an Arthurian romance is a terrible position to be in; I'm entitled to be bitter."

"M'okay," said Accolon.

###  In which Sir Balin strikes the DOLOROUS STROKE

The morning after the big funeral party Arthur had a bad hangover. He left Camelot, and instead pitched a tent out in a meadow, to have a quiet lie-down and recover. It didn't work, though, because as soon as he'd finished setting up, a knight rode by, wailing.

"Woe!" cried the knight. "Woe!"

"What?" called Arthur.

"Woe!"

"What?"

"Woe!"

"Okay I heard that part," cried Arthur. "Why woe?"

"No!" cried the strange weepy wailing knight, and rode off.

"Darn it," muttered Arthur, and lay back down.

Before five minutes had gone by, though, along came Sir Balin. He wanted nothing in particular. "Hello sire!" shouted Balin as soon as he was in shouting distance.

"Balin! Please don't, I have a headache."

"Yes sire!" shouted Balin, and dismounted from his horse and walked the rest of the way. "Hello sire!" said Balin, very loudly.

"Inside voice, Balin, please," said Arthur. "Or, listen, now you're here you can do me a thing. Some weird knight just came by here a minute ago. All weepy. Go get him and bring him back here because I want to know what his deal is."

"Yes sire!" shouted Balin. Arthur winced.

Balin mounted back up and caught up to the weepy knight straightaway in the woods nearby. He was sobbing in the arms of a damsel. I'm naming this damsel Susie, because yet again Malory neglects to provide a name for a character who isn't a knight.

"Are you the weepy knight?" asked Balin.

"Leave me alone," said the knight in between sobs.

"It's a simple question! Are you crying, yes or no?" asked Balin. "Because if you are crying, you must go and tell King Arthur about it."

"Leave me alone," said the knight, and weeps some more.

Balin's eyes narrowed as he carefully examined the tableau. "I think you are crying," he finally said. "You must come with me, or else I'll take you by force and knowing me I'll probably accidentally slay your lady-friend there. I'm really bad that way."

The knight sniffled. "Will you protect me, if I go with you?"

"Yeah, that sounds like something I'd do."

"Well, okay," said the knight. "Just for a minute."

He and Susie conferred privately, and then the weeping knight and Balin headed back towards Arthur.

Just outside Arthur's tent, where the king had just barely managed to fall asleep, things took a turn for the bizarre! Balin and the weeping knight were ambushed by an invisible assailant! All of a sudden there was a spear sticking out of the weeping knight.

"Oh! I'm slain!" cried the weeping knight.

"What happened?" asked Balin, who didn't understand even a little bit.

"I've been stabbed!"

"How?"

"An invisible guy stabbed me!"

"Really?" Balin looked impressed. "That's quite a trick."

"Listen well, Idiot Knight," said the dying stranger. "Garlon killed me, I'm sure of it, and I was under your protection. Take my horse and ride back to Susie my damsel in the woods, and obey her instructions, because there's an elaborate quest I was in the middle of."

"I shall do this thing!" cried Balin. He turns to Arthur's tent. "Sire!"

"I'm awake!" A scowly Arthur emerged from his tent. "Oh, oh, my head. I heard your discourse, because you were shouting again. Go, get out of here. I'll take care of this dead guy."

The dead guy had an ID bracelet identifying him as Sir Herlews. Arthur erected a nice tomb for the dead knight. I did not realize that funerals were one of Arthur's core competencies, but Malory certainly presents that. Why doesn't that get more play in the popular culture?

Balin returned to Susie and told her about the ambush. He brought along the spear that killed Herlews as a visual aid, and Susie took that from him and carried it around with her from that point forward. They rode through the woods. Susie knew where they were going, but she wouldn't give Balin any more information than she needed to, on the grounds that he was as dumb as a post and it would just get him into trouble.

They rode through the woods, until they bumped into another strange knight. "Ho, strangers!" he called. "Where ride you today and why?"

"I'm not telling!" cried Balin. "It's a secret!"

"It's not actually a secret," said Susie. "You just don't know."

"Keeping secrets, huh?" said the strange knight. "I'd beat it out of you, if I weren't unarmed and you armed with a magic sword!"

"Well," said Balin. Susie prodded him. "Okay, fine, I'll tell what I know," he said, and fills the strange knight in on the events of the day: first he got up, and then he had some toast, and then he met Arthur, and then he met Herlews and Susie, and then Herlews was murdered by an invisible man, and then he and Susie started riding, with Susie navigating.

"Well, heck, that sounds like a quest," said the strange knight. "I'm always up for a quest, mind if I join your party?"

"Sure, why not?"

"My name's Sir Perin, by the way," said Sir Perin.

The three of them rode some more and they stopped for a breather in a disused churchyard near a hermitage. There Perin suddenly sprouted a spear in the center of his chest.

"I'm slain!" he cried. "An invisible knight has slain me! Learn a lesson from my deaaaaath!" And he died.

"Curse that invisible knight!" Balin got the hermit to help him entomb Perin, and they ended up staying overnight.

In the morning there were letters of gold! A message in Merlin's handwriting had been inscribed on the side of the tomb, announcing that Sir Gawaine would kill King Pellinore in vengeance for his father King Lot.

"Not relevant!" cried Balin, and ignored it. I don't know why Malory threw this little detail in. It's the second time he's brought it up, though before it was just authorial intrusion rather than a Merlin prediction.

They rode on and that afternoon came to a castle which looked worth investigating. Balin's investigation, however, led them straight into a trap! As soon as Balin had passed through the gate, boom, down came the portcullis between him and Susie. And all these guys ran up out of nowhere and started chasing Susie around! She shrieked and battered at them with her spear, but nothing doing. These weirdos were for serious.

Balin cursed, and tried to lift the portcullis, and that didn't work, so he climbed up into the gatehouse and found the portcullis controls. Sadly he had no idea how to operate portcullis controls, because he was the Idiot Knight. So he just jumped down from the top of the gatehouse into the guys below, and started laying into them.

But before he'd killed even one of them, they immediately surrendered and apologized. "Okay, I can see why you two would be upset, we should have planned that better. Should not have started chasing your lady like that. That one is on us."

"What's your deal, you weirdos?"

"We just want some of her blood," said the lead weirdo.

"That doesn't make me feel better about you," said Susie.

"In our castle is our queen," explained the lead weirdo. "She's suffering under a curse and the only thing that helps is a bowlful of blood from a maiden, so we've been collecting blood from passing maids as a toll."

"You should put up a sign or something!" cried Susie.

"Sorry!"

"Oh, it's okay. I'd have done the same thing," said Balin. "So this blood you need, is it enough to kill Susie when we drain it out of her?"

Susie bridled. "Hey!"

"Not at bit of it," said the lead weirdo. "Just a pint, she won't notice it's gone."

"Not happening!" said Susie.

"Well, that's fine then," said Balin.

"Oh God!" Susie threw her arms up to the heavens. "No!"

"Please?" asked Balin, acknowledging her reluctance for the first time. "I'm not going to make you, but they say their queen is cursed."

"So cursed," said the lead weirdo.

Susie sighed. "Okay," she said. "But only because you said please. Also, I want a good night's sleep and a big meal with wine and meat afterwards, because I'm going to be woozy from the blood loss."

And this happened, and everyone was okay, except for the queen because her curse was at best arrested by the blood, not cured. Later on, Malory claims, Sir Percivale will fix this curse, but not until the Grail quest.

Balin and Susie rode together for a long weekend without incident. On the fourth night they stayed at a nice hostel, the home of a wealthy man who took in travelers. Down in the hotel bar, they relaxed, enjoying a cool drink after days of hard riding. This pleasant evening was spoiled, however, by this one loud guy muttering angrily to himself in a corner. Susie would have just as soon ignored the guy, but Balin always had to stick his oar in, so he headed over to the man and asked what the trouble was.

"Oh, I'll tell you what the trouble is," said the man. Let's call him Raul, which is more thought towards his name than Malory gave. Raul'd been sitting there all evening waiting for someone to give him an opening. "I was jousting recently..."

"You poor man!" cried Balin. He WAs eager to proffer sympathy.

"It gets worse, shut up," said Raul. "There was this guy I was jousting, King Pellam's brother, and he cheated!"

"Dang, man, that's rough," said Balin.

"Shut up I'm not done!" snapped Raul. "I knocked him down two falls out of three, and instead of conceding the match like a gentleman, he swears he'll attack my favorite person. Sure enough, as we're leaving, he comes up sneaky-invisible and jabs a spear into my son!"

"Dude!" cried Balin.

"Now my son's dying. The local witch says she needs a sample of the blood of the knight who attacked him," said Raul. "How am I supposed to even get that?"

"Dude!" cried Balin again. "I know this guy you're talking about! His name is Garlon and I've never seen him but he's killed two of my best friends ever, Sir Perin and Susie's husband whose name I've already forgotten! Man, what I wouldn't give for a crack at him."

"Well, we're both in luck then," said Raul. "His brother is throwing a big jousting-party in three weeks at his castle. I was going to go, but Pellam says you can't go stag, all men must be accompanied by an escort. His parties prior to this have been notorious sausage parties."

"That's great!" said Balin. "I've got Susie! I got her to give blood in the last scene, so I'm sure I can get her to marry one of us!"

Susie was in fact not up for marrying Sir Balin or marrying Raul or even marrying Raul's comatose son. It didn't matter, though; she only needed to be on Balin's arm to get him into the party. The group of them traveled to Pellam's castle.

King Pellam's castle is not named in this section of Le Morte D'Arthur but it ends up being a pretty important site later on, so I'll go ahead and clue you in: it's Castle Corbin, also referred to a few times as Castle Carbonek. The soldiers there drove Raul away with sticks, since he had no escort. Then they politely invited Balin and Susie in for the party. Before the party they were given a nice shower and a change of clothing, and then there was a little fracas over Pellam's no-swords-at-the-party policy. Sir Balin explained that he needed to have his two swords, it's his schtick! He's Mister Two-Swords, the Knight with Two Swords! They compromised: Sir Balin left his magic sword with the horses while bringing along the sword he took from Sir Lanceor. Susie, of course, had her spear; no one would dare take a lady's spear.

They entered the party! They were seated at one of the tables in the front on account of they're a knight and a lady, not common riffraff. Sir Balin spent the first part of the party looking around wildly, trying to spot the invisible knight. The first of a couple of flaws in this plan: he didn't have any idea what Garlon looked like.

Luckily, Susie was with him, and thus someone on his team was bright enough to think to ask people. The knight seated next to him was well-informed enough to point Sir Garlon out: he was the drunkard in the corner bragging about how he could turn invisible and murder knights.

Balin hopped up and made his way over to Garlon. "I'd better attack Garlon now, in the middle of his brother's party while he's surrounded by friends and well-wishers, because I might not get a chance to later on!" he thought to himself.

Garlon, a surly drunk, didn't appreciate Sir Balin intruding into his personal space. "What're you lookin' at?" He smacked Balin across the cheek with a bare hand.

"Oh, oh, you did not just slap me!" cried Balin. "Plus you murdered my two best friends, Sir Perrin and Susie's husband!"

"What?"

But before Sir Garlon could do more than look nonplussed, Balin had already drawn his sword. Without further ado, he lopped the king's brother's head off.

Without a word, Susie tossed him her spear! Sir Balin stabbed Garlon's body in the chest, so that plenty of blood welled out (I don't know why, really, I guess Garlon wasn't bleeding profusely enough from his stump of a neck).

"This would be a great time to make some kind of quip about taking Garlon's blood and using it to make a potion to heal that one guy's son," said Balin. He looked around at the assembled knights, Castle Corbin's whole chivalrous population, all of whom had variously stunned expressions on their faces. "I'm kind of bad at quips. Anyone have a good quip ready?"

As you would probably expect, there was a mad scramble to get Balin and kill him. All of the knights present threw themselves at him. Though he had a sword and they were all unarmed, he was outnumbered something like fifty to one (or fifty to two, counting Susie, who was sidling away towards the exit); they grabbed him pretty effortlessly.

King Pellam, the slain knight's brother, rose to his feet. "What the hell, guy?"

"He was evil!" cried Sir Balin. "I did you a favor!"

"That was my brother! You realize we're going to kill you for this, right?" Pellam asked him.

"Really?" asked Sir Balin. He'd sort of hoped they wouldn't. "Okay, then,let's joust!"

"You know what?" said Pellam. "I was going to let one of my men here do it, but you're a jackass. I'm going to kill you myself." And Pellam drew his sword (as king, he was entitled to a sword even at a no-weapons party) and made to chop Balin's head off.

Balin parried the blow, using his nonmagical sword, which kept him alive but shattered the sword.

What follows is best envisioned as set to the tune of "Yakkity Sax:" Balin rans through Castle Corbin, with Pellam chasing him. King Pellam's men all cheered their lord on, as Balin tried desperately to find something to fight Pellam with, another sword or something. But there were no weapons around! Sir Balin picked up various objects, chairs and things, and tried to parry with them, but Pellam chopped through them all.

This went on for a while.

Finally Balin burst into a chapel. This was a special chapel, this was. The Castle Corbin special castle, aka the Grail Chamber (did I mention that Castle Corbin was where the Grail was, when it's at home?). Naturally the room was all crazy luxurious: gold and rich red and purple cloth tapestries! A chaise lounge of the most sumptuous upholstery possible to imagine, with the perfectly-preserved corpse of Joseph of Arimathea lying on it! A massive golden altar, with the Holy Grail right there! (GRAIL SIGHTING 1!)

Balin ignored all of that, however; his eye went immediately to a golden table with the silver legs, upon which sat a spear helpfully labeled +3 spear of Longinus. Balin grabbed the spear, spun around, and stroke Pellam most dolorously, right in the jimmies.

"Arglebargle!" cried King Pellam, and collapses.

"Hah!" said Balin. He felt pretty pleased with himself, and would have probably laughed longer, except that just then the entire castle collapsed, slaying almost everyone inside. Susie, the knights, Raul with the dying son, all of them, killed nearly instantly. Balin, Pellam, and the whole room they were in were all crushed. All was still and dead for three days and three nights.

###  In which Sir Balin gets discouraged

On the morning of the fourth day, the sound and feel of digging woke Sir Balin. Wordlessly, Merlin shoveled him out of the ruins.

"Merlin!" cried Balin. "How did you get here? Is it time for the next stage of my quest?"

"C'mon, let's get you out of here." Merlin hauled him up and half-carried Balin to a horse already loaded up with his things.

"Where's Susie?" asked Balin.

"Behind you." Merlin gestured. "Under thirty tons of rock. She's dead. I'd say I'm sorry, but c'mon. I'm Merlin. We both know it would be a lie."

Sir Balin looked back, towards the ruins of Castle Corbin. Just a pile of rocks, now.

"Pellam survives," Merlin continued. "He and his few surviving people will rebuild. He won't recover from the wound you gave him until Galahad heals him, during the Grail-quest. You completely failed to notice the Grail and the preserved corpse of Joseph of Arimathea in the chapel, but they were there. Kind of a funny thing: you did manage to nab the spear that was stabbed into Christ's side during the Crucifixion, and use it to stab the holiest man in England -- Joseph's direct descendant. Hence the collapse of the castle and the death of many, many, many innocent people."

Sir Balin takes a minute to think about this. "I don't like this quest any more," he said eventually. "I'm going to go now and stop listening to you, and if I ever see you again I'm going to go the other way."

"Smart move," said Merlin. "Too late to do any good, though."

Balin rode off. For days and days everywhere he went he saw not another living soul. I don't mean he rode through empty wasteland wild country; he kept to main roads and passed through towns and cities. But everywhere he went, everyone had dropped dead. Lots of corpses, lots of abandoned possessions. It's direct out of Omega Man. Finally he started seeing people, but for the first few days out of the death-zone, they only pointed at him and screamed. Wailing, moaning, gnashing of teeth.

Eventually, he got far enough out, and met someone willing to articulate words at him; they told him about how he smote King Pellam ("no duh, I was there," responded Balin) with a dolorous stroke and as a result everyone in a three-kingdom radius was slain.

So, man, was Balin ever relieved to be out of there, once he finally exited of the area. No more people people howling "stroker! Stroker most dolorous!" at him.

After another week or so of riding after that he has one more strange adventure before his big finale. In a secluded forested valley Sir Balin found a tower by the side of his path. Outside the tower he saw a horse tied up and a knight crying.

"Hello!" Sir Balin waved as he approached. "I can't help but notice you're crying. Can I help? I'm, okay, I've pretty well ruined everything I ever tried, but I'm willing to give helping you a shot."

"Oh Jesu defend me!" wailed the knight. "Another monster come to gloat and make me miserable! You're only making things worse go away!"

Sir Balin backed away slowly. "I can see you've got your hands full, here. Let me know if I can help." Unwilling to just abandon the sad knight, Balin killed a little time checking out the knight's horse, which was a pretty nice horse. The sobbing knight didn't calm down quickly, though; he was all "oh, my lady, oh, you were supposed to be here by noon and now it's evening I'm sure you're sleeping with some other man, wah, wah! I shall kill myself with this sword!"

Balin tuned that out, but when he heard the shing of a sword being drawn, he snapped to.

"Dude, dude, dude, no, no, it's not worth it!" cried Balin. He lunged in and grabbed the knight's swordarm, knocking him down.

"Let go! I'll kill you!" shouted the sobbing knight as they rolled around in the dirt.

"Put the sword down! And then..." Balin searched for something to offer. "I'll help you find your lady, how about that?"

It's enough to get the guy to quit struggling. He sat up, as Balin carefully placed his sword out of the guy's arm's reach. "What's your name?"

"I'm Sir Balin, called the Idiot Knight."

"Oh, you. I've heard of you," said the sniffling knight. "They say you're the Knight with Two Swords, and also that you are pretty much an unstoppable killing machine in battle, due to some combination of a doom-curse and a magic sword."

"That sounds pretty plausible," said Balin. "What's your name?"

"I'm Garnish," said the knight. "Sir Garnish of the Mount. I didn't used to be a knight. My father was a farmer, but I distinguished myself in war and won a knighthood from Duke Hermel, and I love Hermel's daughter and I thought she loooooooved meeeeee!" He broke off into wailing and sobbing some more.

"Hey, now, Garnish, chin up," said Balin. "Let's go to Hermel's castle, I'm sure she's there. Keep a positive attitude! I'm sure if you talk to her, you can work this out or at least get some closure."

"Well, okay," said Garnish. "Hermel's castle is six miles up the road."

Garnish got all his stuff together and they set out. Six miles up the road, sure enough, castle. Sir Balin told Sir Garnish to wait outside while he searched for her.

Inside the castle Balin looked high and low, checked the bedrooms, nothing. Place was cleaned out. He was about to give up when he tried the back garden, and there he spotted her! A damsel lounging under a tree in the arms of another man, both fast asleep.

"Found her!" Balin chuckled to himself. "Well, I see no reason not to go fetch Garnish, who's in a very fragile emotional state, and bring him to witness his beloved's literally sleeping with another man!" And so he did that. He's the Idiot Knight, remember.

As you probably saw coming, assuming you're smarter than the Idiot Knight, Sir Garnish took one look at the couple sleeping under the tree and completely lost it. He started bleeding from the nose and mouth, Malory said. That's how intense his sobs were.

"Balin, man, what the hell?" he choked out. "Why did you show this to me? I was starting to feel better about the whole thing and now I feel as though I've been kicked in the chest!"

"I thought it would help," Balin said lamely. "If I were into a woman and she was sleeping with another man I'm sure seeing them sleeping together would be a fast way for me to get over her. It's just common sense."

"You're an idiot," said Garnish. He pulled out his sword and stabbed himself in the chest.

"Oh crap not again!" cried Sir Balin. "Oh crap oh crap oh crap! Not again! I'm going to get blamed for this! People will think I killed him! Just like Columbe! Whom I didn't kill."

Still, he mounted his horse and rode away as quick as he could, so we don't get to see the conclusion of this story and learn about how Hermel's daughter and the other knight and all reacted to the suicide. Instead we follow Sir Balin, who rode hard for three more days, and came at last to the edge of civilization and also the final end of his quest.

###  In which Sir Balin dies

At the very edge of everything, he spied a distant castle and, much closer, a sign with a golden message in Merlin's handwriting.

DO NOT GO INTO THIS CASTLE IF YOU ARE AN UNACCOMPANIED KNIGHT.

And then, for good measure, a mysterious old man who may or may not have been Merlin in a costume appeared! "Balin the Idiot Knight! You should not have come this way! Turn around right now!"

Balin heard a distant horn blow, and decided his best course of action was to ride to the castle. Because screw people telling him what to do, and screw trying to do the right thing, I guess.

Merlin watched him go. "Well, I tried."

Sir Balin arrived at the castle in the midst of a massive party. It was unlike most parties Balin has attended, which is to say it was better: the women outnumber the men three to one! Also, less awesome from Balin's perspective, there was a total lack of jousting happening. Everybody seemed happy to see him, as well as unsurprised. The partygoers pressed a drink into his hand, they watered his horse, they cleaned his armor, and so on. Just as he was getting good and relaxed he bumped into the queen whose castle it was.

"Ah, Mister Two-Swords!" she exclaimed. Apparently she knew him, though he didn't know her. "Are you having a good time?"

"Yeah," Balin said. "Yeah, I am, your ladyship. I've been through a lot lately and this party is just what I needed. Though I wish there was more jousting."

"That is good to hear," said the queen. "Now it's time for you to duel to the death for my pleasure."

"What?"

"There's a knight on that island," she said, pointing to a small island just offshore. "You go out there, and you joust him. To the death."

"I..."

"It's compulsory of every knight who comes here whose name starts with a B," she said.

"Doesn't seem fair, making me fight to the death..."

"Oh, come on, big strapping man like you, I'm sure you'll be fine. Besides it's just the one knight, we're not demanding you fight an entire platoon or anything," she said.

"Okay, well, I guess I don't have much reason to live at this point anyhow," said Balin. "My horse is tired and I'm pretty exhausted myself, but what the hell."

"Wonderful!" The queen snapped her fingers and Balin was quickly outfitted with some new armor, new protective face-concealing helmet, and a new shield.

"Where's my old shield?" Balin asked someone. "The one with PROPERTY OF SIR BALIN on the back and the KNIGHTS DO IT BAREBACK bumper sticker?"

"That stinky old thing? It's being dry-cleaned," said someone.

"Oh, okay."

Sir Balin let himself be loaded onto a boat and sent over to the island. There another maiden waited for him. While she moored the boat this extra maiden scolded Balin for getting himself into this situation, with a concealing helmet and a stranger's shield. No one could recognize him, done up like that.

"Well, what can you do?" Sir Balin shrugged. He checked his gear and his horse, mounted up, and rode off in search of the knight he's supposed to joust. It wasn't a very big island, so he didn't have to go far. Out from the shadows emerged his designated opponent, another knight all in red, likewise with a face-concealing helmet. Spoiler: this was Sir Balan, Balin's brother, last seen wandering off to no particular purpose after capturing Rience!

Balan saw Balin, Balin saw Balan, and neither recognized the other due to the helmets. Across the water the lords and ladies (mostly ladies) clambered up to the tower-tops and pulled out binoculars, so as to clearly see their bloodsport. Balan noticed that Balin had two swords, and suspected for a minute that it might have been his brother Sir Balin the Knight with Two Swords, but then he shook his head at that foolishness. After all, he knew quite well that Balin's shield had a distinctive KNIGHTS DO IT BAREBACK bumper sticker on it. This knight's shield featured no ribaldry.

Balin and Balan jousted! It's quite a joust; the ladies in the balconies cheered at the plentiful good bits. The two brothers put on a great show, without ever speaking, for what seemed like hours. Eventually they were both bleeding and circling around one another. Balin waved his magic sword around like he meant business. Both were winded, bleeding, frankly it was a wonder they were standing. If they sat down at this point, they were going to have a hard time standing back up.

Balan called a thirty-second time-out, and took a knee. Balin took a knee also. As they rested, Sir Balin asked Balan what his name was, on account of he'd like to know the name of the first knight to ever put up a decent fight.

Balan gave up his name readily. In fact he announced himself as "Balan the brother of Balin," as if otherwise Balin might not have remembered that he had a brother named Balan.

"Well, knock me over with a feather," said Balin. "I had no idea!" He tried to stand up but he was too surprised and injured, and fell over instead.

"Whoa, buddy," said Balan, and crawled over to Balin. They were both bleeding profusely, remember. "Let me get you some air!"

Balan pulled Balin's helmet off, and would have seen that he was Balin, except that Balin and Balan were both all mashed up in their faces and neither looked like himself, plus neither were all that great at seeing just then. But Balin, coughing up blood, said "Oh Balan! It's me your brother!"

"Balin! I knew it! You had two swords!"

"Why didn't you say something?"

"You had a different shield!"

"My shield is getting dry-cleaned back at that castle," said Balin, and tried to point but fell down again instead.

"If we weren't both dying," said Balan, "we ought to sack that place, teach them to make us fight bloodsports for their amusement and replace our shields and so on. You know I killed the previous knight they had here on this island, and then they wouldn't let me leave? That was weeks ago. If you killed me and survived, you'd have been their prisoner too I don't doubt."

"What jerks!" cried Balin.

Eventually the partygoers figured out that the bloodsports were finished. The queen rowed out to the island with a handful of retainers, and approached the two injured knights.

"So it looks like you're both dying," she said. "I guess that makes this a draw, then."

"Bury us!" said Balan.

"Bury us in one tomb!" said Balin. "We were in the same womb, it's only fitting!"

"That's poetic!" said Balan. "Oh I am dying!"

"Thank you!" said Balin. "I also am dying!"

The queen made the hurry-up gesture. "Fine, fine. I'll have you buried, yes. I suppose you want last rites also?"

"Yes please!" cried the knights. A priest was fetched, last rites given, yadda yadda.

"Be sure to put how we were brothers who killed one another on our tomb," said Balin.

"Got it," said the Queen. Her laborers were already setting a tomb up around the knights.

"Thank you!" said Balan, and dies.

"Oh my brother!" said Balin, and expected to die, but didn't, for hours and hours. I suppose this is Malory's idea of suspense.

Finally he died.

"Shoot," said the Queen. "I forgot to ask his name. Balan's name I knew, we had him for weeks, but what's his brother's name? Not 'Mister Two-Swords,' that's obviously an epithet. Anyone know?"

They didn't think to check Sir Balin's shield for his name, so the tomb-construction crew just put up an epitaph that says Here lies Sir Balan and His Brother Mister Two-Swords, Who Died Fighting One Another.

"Enh," said the Queen. "It'll have to do."

The next morning, of course, Merlin showed up. He pulled out his special golden pen and wrote under the epitaph on the tomb Here Lies Sir Balin the Idiot Knight, also known as the Knight with Two Swords, also known as the jackass who struck the dolorous stroke.

This attracted something of a crowd of onlookers, including the labor crew and the knights of the castle.

"You there," said Merlin. "Laborers. You aren't done with this tomb yet."

"Sure we are," said the foreman.

"No," said Merlin. "You need to put a bed in here, next to the crypt itself, for Launcelot to eschew."

"That seems pointless," said the foreman. "But you're the wizard."

While the laborers installed a bed, Merlin retrieved Balin's magic sword and disassembled it, replacing the pommel with a different pommel.

"You there," said Merlin. "Knight. Try out this sword, tell me what you think."

Merlin tossed the sword to one of the knights, who gave it a few practice swings before grimacing and throwing it to the ground.

"This sword is crap," said the knight. "What did you do to it? It's all off-balance now."

Merlin snickered, because he's a jerk. "You only say that because you aren't its destined wielder. His name is Launcelot, or if he's unavailable, his son Galahad. Launcelot will use this sword to slay Sir Gawaine."

"Why are you telling us this?" asked the knight.

"I'm dictating!" snapped Merlin. "Aren't you engraving this on the pommel?"

"No," said the knight.

"Fine, fine, I'll do it myself." Merlin took the sword and his magic pen and wrote down some dire predictions about Launcelot and Gawaine.

"Also build a bridge out to this island," Merlin told the queen on his way out.

"You never call, Merle," she said. "What's this about?"

Merlin ignored her. "The bridge should be made of iron, and six inches wide. Don't let anyone go over it, until heroic knights show up, which won't be for a long while," he said.

"That's a lot of work," she said.

"I'm doing all the hard stuff," Merlin grumbled. "Like this. Step back, I'm going to use magic."

And then Merlin cast another spell not to be found anywhere in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Player's Handbook that I know of, wish maybe. End result of the spell was that Balin's pommel-replaced magic sword was embedded in a block of marble -- swords being stuck in things being a recurring theme -- and that block of marble hovering eerily over the river. There, says Malory, it would remain for many years until it washed downstream to Camelot in the distant future of Book XIII.

"And I'm off!" Merlin then teleported without error back to Camelot.

Straightaway he found Arthur, and sat him down. "Have I got a story for you!" Merlin said. He told Arthur all about Balin's adventures, the dolorous stroke, and so on.

"That's a terrible story," said Arthur, when finally Merlin finished. "Balin's strange adventure makes very little narrative sense, and there's next to no characterization. Certainly no dramatic arc. The best part of the story was when it ended. I'm just glad I didn't have to experience it myself, like last time with Pellinore. These strange mystic quests don't make any more sense from the outside, though, it sounds like."

"Bah, kids today," grumbled Merlin.

"Still, it's a shame Balin and Balan died so miserably," mused Arthur. "They were remarkably badass. Thick as bricks, but well-intentioned."

And with that stirring eulogy, the tale of Balin the Idiot Knight ends, and with it, Book II.

##  BOOK III: The Best Table Ever
###  In which we meet the Round Table (also Guenever)

Malory begins Book III by laying out a few vital points he feels we need to be reminded of, before he can tell us the tale of Arthur's courtship of, and wedding to, Guenever. Spoiler alert: it is about the least romantic courtship and wedding you can imagine.

Just in case you missed the previous volume, I'll recap Malory's recap, like so:

1) Arthur is a young and unmarried king.

2) When he became king, a bunch of folks -- Team Lot & Mister 100, for instance -- refused to accept his authority because they didn't know he was Uther's son.

3) Merlin (and Igraine, Arthur's mother, who doesn't show up again I don't think) eventually got around to telling everyone about how Arthur was Uther's son.

4) Arthur is under the impression that Merlin is a wise dude whose advice should be followed. At times you get the sense Arthur doesn't go to the bathroom without Merlin's go-ahead. Other times, less so.

Got all that? Great!

One day, as our story opens, Arthur came to Merlin. "I've got a new project I want to get started. Tell me what you think of this."

"It'll all end in tears," said Merlin. "But go ahead."

"Okay, so, really it's the guys putting me up to this." Arthur cleared his throat nervously. "They're all the time ragging on me about how I only have illegitimate children and mistresses, and not a wife and legitimate kids like a king oughta. I was kind of thinking I'd just keep a stable of mistresses..."

"No, no, you need to marry!" Merlin scolded Arthur. "Put this mistress-stabling idea out of your head. Guy like you, king of England, magic swords, madcap killing machine, you'll be... well, not a great husband, but..."

"I like mistresses! I won't apologize for that! But okay. No more mistresses. Instead, a wife and total fidelity to her."

"Check."

"So I need to marry a lady. Let's see, I'll need to get a hall, a new suit, a priest..." Arthur ticked the items off on his fingers.

"And a wife," said Merlin. "You have to marry some specific woman. Do you have one in mind?"

"Oh, yeah, right!" Arthur had almost forgotten. "I do have a lady in mind, actually. By my reckoning she's the best lady: Guenever the valiant. You remember her? Princess of Cameliard? King Leodegrance's daughter?"

Merlin grunted. "Her?"

Arthur ignored him. "Apparently my so-called biological father Uther gave Leodegrance a really high-end table, years back. I'm hoping I can get him to throw it in alongside the daughter. Kind of a dowry sort of thing?"

"Really? Her?" asked Merlin again. Merlin actually constructed the Round Table, we learn in a story much much later in Le Morte D'Arthur, but somehow Uther ended up with it.

"Yes!" said Arthur. "She's valiant and it'll tighten up ties with Cameliard and North Wales, which is important if I ever want to not be at war. Plus a great table. I admit I don't know Guenever very well, but she seemed all right."

Merlin sighed, heavily. "I can see your mind is made up. I've been putting together this report, the Top Fifty Reasons Arthur Should Marry Someone, Anyone, Who Isn't Guenever, complete with plenty of photos of other fair and valiant ladies, but I'm too late."

"You bet my mind is made up!" said Arthur. "Famously valiant, peace in the west, my father's old table, and when we met that one time she was nice enough."

"So now you're going to marry her."

"Yes."

"Then listen up. Yours will be a cold, loveless marriage. No children shall issue. And also Guenever will cheat on you with Sir Launcelot."

"La la la I'm not listening!" cried Arthur, and plugged his ears up. "Besides half your predictions are crazy nonsense anyhow! I don't feel obliged to pay attention them."

"Fine, fine," said Merlin. "All right, we'll do it your way. Here's what we do. I take some of your knights with me to Cameliard, where King Leodegrance is, and I'll set it all up."

In Cameliard, Merlin met with Leodegrance, and told him about Arthur's interest in his daughter.

Leodegrance couldn't have been happier. "Arthur the king of all England and Britain and Logris wants to marry my daughter? Sign me up! He's the Most Eligible Bachelor in Britain! I can't wait to welcome that MEBIB into the family! Should I sign my kingdom over to him?"

"Okay, okay, calm down, hold onto your horses," said Merlin.

"I know, I know." Leodegrance shook his head sadly. "He's already king of all England, what would he want with the throne of Cameliard..."

"You can keep the throne," said Merlin. "But there is one piece of furniture Arthur's interested in."

"Merle, I know it's medieval times, but my daughter is not literally a piece of furniture." Leodegrance laughed. "No," he said with a chuckle, "I'll send him the Round Table."

"Great," said Merlin. "That's what I came here for."

"I'm not using it myself," said Leodegrance. "It seats one hundred and fifty, and I've only got a hundred knights left alive since the Rience affair back in Book I."

"Enh, we'll take your knights, too," said Merlin. "Can't have too many knights."

Merlin loaded up the Round Table and Guenever (who pretty clearly had zero say in this whole affair, most valiant lady in England or no) and the hundred knights and hauled the whole kit and caboodle back to London, because Malory can't keep straight whether Arthur lives in London, Caerlaeon, or Camelot. He phoned ahead, so Arthur knew that he was getting not just Guenever and a table, but also a hundred extra knights.

Arthur's glee knew no bounds. He was excited about receiving, in order of importance, the following: the Round Table, a hundred knights, the Round Table again (it's such an awesome table), and Guenever. Arthur called his court in London (or Camelot or wherever he was) together for a major address.

"Everybody," he said. "Everybody, listen up. There's a woman coming, her name is Guenever. I am seriously excited about her, she's famous for being valiant, and that one time we met she seemed nice enough, when I rescued her Dad from Rience back in the day. Now I know, many of you are, like me, going to be disappointed that I'm no longer sleeping with a bunch of mistresses, but we've all got to make sacrifices for Britain, people. Or for Logris. England. Same place, I'm told. Plus, did I mention how valiant she is? Smart as a whip and better-looking."

Nods, murmurs of agreement.

"Also, and this is not to undercut the Guenever thing, we are also getting the most awesome table ever!"

Cheers! Rousing applause! Prolonged, stormy enthusiasm! "Table! Table! Table!" they chanted.

Arthur set up to throw himself a lavish wedding, using his funeral-arranging prowess. Meanwhile he had a special task for Merlin.

"Merlin," he said. "We need fifty more knights to sit at this table, so, go out, find fifty awesome knights, the best ever, ones who earn the Merlin stamp of approval."

Merlin went out and found all the knights he could, but only twenty-eight knights made the cut. England/Logris/Britain just didn't have enough good knights any more. Maybe they'd all died in the horrible massacres which were the war against Team Lot & Mister 100.

So, the Round Table seated 150 or 50 or 30, because these twenty-eight knights left just two empty seats. Is this a number that included Arthur & Ulfius & Brastias & Kay & so on? Am I supposed to go back and count all the knights who have already been mentioned, who would be in Arthur's court, and would I find out that those guys plus twenty-eight more equals forty-eight? Why is it that Leodegrance would have 100/128ths of all the virtuous knights in England? Malory does not always show his work when it comes to these kinds of mathematical demonstrations.

Anyway, all but two of the seats at the Round Table were filled, somehow, and everybody's buddy the Archbishop of Canterbury came by and blessed everything in sight. Afterwards Merlin found a pretext to get everybody else out of the room, and then he "discovered" that the seats around the Round Table had been emblazoned with knights' names in golden writing. Two seats were empty and thus unlabeled.

In the midst of the Round Table seating, young prince Gawaine showed up. He'd been mentioned a couple of times already, but only at this point does he enter the narrative directly.

"Gawaine!" Arthur was not unhappy to see him. "My nephew by Lot and Margawse! You've grown up into a fine young man, and I should know, as I'm a fine young man myself."

"Yeah, whatever, greetings." Gawaine didn't waste time with pleasantries. "Uncle Sire, I need a favor, so I'm cashing in my blood-relatives-deserve-special-treatment card."

"No problem," said Arthur. "I owe you, what with your father dying while making war with me, and your half-brother being my son who got drowned in a tragic accident I arranged for some reason, and everything."

"I want to be a knight!" said Gawaine. "Make me a knight!"

"Really? Is that all? Sword!"

Someone handed Arthur a sword. He gave Gawaine a quick shoulder-tap. "Arise, Sir Gawaine! And don't call me Uncle Sire, okay?"

###  In which Arthur solves the Mystery of the Good-looking Peasant

All of Camelot/London was one big festival, what with Arthur getting married. Everyone was drunk and partying and jousting in a big fun tournament (JOUSTING TOURNAMENT 4!). Into this mix wandered these two guys, a father and son. The father, a cowherd named Aries, was your typical oppressed yeoman. He'd spent most of his life laboring and watching friends die, and looked sixty even though he was just south of forty. His son Tor, though, was remarkably good-looking. He was dreamy-eyed and fair-skinned, just eighteen and actually looked it. Most peasants looked eighteen for a couple of months in their early teens, and then jumped straight into middle-age, but Tor had dodged that somehow. Tor rode in on a workhorse Aries led. As they passed through the enormous party, they asked passersby directions to King Arthur.

"Why do you ask?" responded the passersby. "Are you looking for him?"

"Yeah," said Aries. "That's exactly right."

"Thought so," said the passersby, and directed them to Arthur's hangout.

So the twosome headed on into Arthur's court, where the party atmosphere was if anything even more intense. Arthur, lounging on his throne drinking, looked up from his soon-to-be-ex-mistresses as they approached.

"Ho, sire," said the aged peasant, saluting. "Great King Arthur, beloved lord, worshipful sire, I come to beg your indulgence."

"Hmm?" said Arthur. "Have we met?"

Aries shook his head no. "But, mighty sire, I have heard that for the sake of your nuptials, you're granting requests made of you. People ask you for things, and you give them the things, assuming the request isn't unreasonable. So it is said!"

"That does sound like me." Arthur searched his memory and pet a soon-to-be-ex-mistress. He'd been partying pretty heartily the last couple of days, but even intoxicated, Arthur was liable to stick a rider like 'assuming it's not unreasonable' on his drunken boasts. That's just the kind of wise king he was. "I'm not saying I remember saying that, but if that's what people are claiming, I'll go along with it. As king, I try to live up to people's expectations."

This scene is one of quite a few in Le Morte D'Arthur, some of which we've already been through, in which Arthur made an effort to avoid being an unreasonable dude. He's a decent guy at heart, at least up until Book XX. He was in a weird situation, king of Logris/Britain/England and all, but he was making the best of it. At least he didn't rape anyone.

(Malory, please let us get through this whole book without Arthur raping someone.)

Back to the story. "Thank you sire," Aries said humbly. "I've come to ask you to make my son here a knight."

Arthur pursed his lips and sucks in his breath. "Hmm," he said. "Hmm."

"Sire?"

"I'm trying to decide if that counts as reasonable," Arthur said. "I think you could make a strong case either way. Okay, some questions, so I can evaluate the reasonableness of your request. First, what's your name? It doesn't impact the reasonableness, but it's good to know."

"Aries Cow-Keeper, sire." He bowed.

"Second question." Arthur thought for a moment. "Is this your son's idea or is it something you're putting him up to?"

"Oh, it was his idea entirely," said Aries. "Listen, I have thirteen surviving children, all boys, I work fourteen hours a day seven days a week, and I expect all my children to do the same. All my other kids -- Bor, Dor, For, Gor, Jor, Kor, Lor, Mor, Nor, Por, Ror, and Sor -- all do as they're told, but Tor here, he's the eldest and ought to set and example but he hasn't worked a day in his life. Look at him! He's the laziest peasant in the village! He won't work! Instead he throws darts and sings songs and watches jousts, and complains that he wants to be a knight."

"Mmm-hmm," said Arthur. "So your name is Tor?" he asked, addressing the son.

"Yes sire," said Tor. "And yeah, Dad has it about right."

"I see, I see," said Arthur. He looked Tor up and down. "Well, you're strikingly good-looking, and you appear to be in pretty good shape."

"I practice jousting with sticks, for exercise." Tor demonstrated with a little footwork.

"Okay. I think I've made up my mind." Arthur got a crafty look. "But before I announce my decision, I need you to fetch Bor through Sor. I want to eyeball them."

Aries fetched his twelve other sons, and lined them up. The contrast was striking: even though Tor is the eldest, several of his brothers looked withered and aged compared to him. It was the mark of being a hard-working peasant. They took after Aries in other ways too, jawline and hair and so forth. Tor stuck out among them like a sore thumb.

"Am I the only one who's noticed this?" asked Arthur.

Aries, Tor, and the rest just looked at him blankly.

"Okay. I've made my decision: I'll knight you. Sword!"

Someone handed Arthur a sword, which he drew.

"Kneel down, Tor, and make the formal request," said Arthur.

Tor kneeled down and started "sire I heartily beseech thee --"

"Good enough! Let's not waste time!" Arthur tapped Tor on the back of the neck with his sword. "I dub thee Sir Tor, knight! Play your cards right and you might get promoted to Knight of the Round Table! We have two or twenty-two or a hundred and twenty-two empty spots, so I need to be stingy about handing out commendations. Or maybe I need to send a bunch out to promote guys up, I don't even know. Anyway. Welcome to the team!"

Everyone applauded and Arthur turned to Merlin. "So Merlin, you're all the time spouting dire prophecy, do something useful for once. How about you tell us how Sir Tor here will work out? Will he end up murdering his brother's wife, or dying trying to prevent me from killing you, or some crazy random nonsense like that?"

Merlin growled.

"Okay, sorry, I shouldn't tease the wizard."

"He will be a fine knight," said Merlin. "Just like his father before him."

"Huh?" said Aries.

"Called it!" said Arthur.

Merlin glared at him.

"I mean, 'How so, sir? What by Jesu dost thou mean? Gadzooks!'" said Arthur.

"Better." Merlin sighed. "Aries Cow-Keeper is not Sir Tor's father any more than you're Sir Ector's son."

"You know, Ector did raise me," said Arthur.

Aries scoffed. "But I'm married to his mother! How could I possibly not be his father? How would that even work?"

"Who is the father?" asked Arthur, ignoring Aries.

Merlin looked smug. "King Pellinore!"

(Dramatic sting!)

"Pellinore... Pellinore..." Arthur took a moment to place the name. "Oh, that guy! The one who stole my horse and then killstole King Lot!"

Merlin nodded. "The same."

"That guy is a jerk!"

"Nevertheless he is a fine knight and a good man," said Merlin. "He's also a king!"

"In what sense, exactly, is he a good man?"

Aries cleared his throat to get Arthur's and Merlin's attention. "I said I don't buy it," he repeated.

"Let me explain with a surprise witness! I summon Tor's mother and Aries's wife, Mitzi!" (You can tell which of those three names is the one I had to toss in because Malory couldn't be bothered to name her.) Merlin either sent a runner to fetch her, or he did magic and teleports her in. It doesn't matter. What matters is that she appeared on command.

And Mitzi was impressive! Even after twenty years of hard serf living, she was full womanly, says Malory, and fair.

"Wow," said Arthur. "For a serf you're pretty hot."

"It's true!" cried Mitzi. "I am pretty hot! Also, years ago, when I was a sexy milkmaid and shortly before I married Aries, I met a knight. He was stern and fair and I couldn't say no to him. I mean, he had a sword."

"So Pellinore is also a rapist," sighed Arthur.

"I'm not saying that, exactly. Although my consent was certainly dubious." Mitzi shrugged. "He was fair and I didn't say no. But he had a sword."

"I'm reluctantly obliged to buy this," said Aries. "I mean, look at me, look at Tor, look at Tor's refusal to work a day in his life... I can believe it." He wasn't thrilled about it, though.

"I'm not thrilled either," said Tor. "If for no other reason that my mother is getting painted as a woman of loose virtue by current, by which I mean medieval, standards!" He glared at Merlin and hefted his new sword.

"Oh, Tor, don't worry about it," said Merlin. "Your father is a good knight and a good man \--"

"In what sense is he a good man?" Arthur asked again. "Guy stole my horses."

"He's a king," pointed out Merlin. "If he knew Tor existed, Pellinore'd probably cover both him and Mitzi in riches. He has no idea."

"Hmm." Tor considered. "I'm somewhat mollified."

"And Aries, this was before you and Mitzi were married, so she was having semi-consensual sex as a free agent, not as your property," Merlin told the cowherd.

"Hmm, good point." Aries weighed his options. "Okay, I'm officially okay with this." Then he, Mitzi, and all their children (excepting Tor) exited the story forever.

The next morning King Pellinore arrived at Arthur's court for the huge ongoing party. Arthur welcomed him warmly, I guess because Merlin kept prodding him. Arthur filled Pellinore in about Tor his illegitimate child, and hey, maybe Pellinore and Arthur bonded a bit over having illegitimate children.

When Tor and Pellinore met, Pellinore looked him up and down, noted how clean and unwilling to labor he was, and confirmed that Tor was plainly his own son.

"Hey Merlin," said Arthur. "Explain a thing to me. I notice that due to some really dodgy math there's exactly two empty seats at the Round Table, not counting the one marked DO NOT SIT. Also what is the deal with the one marked DO NOT SIT?"

"Ah, sire," responded Merlin. "Only the greatest knights may be promoted to the Round Table and we're short two great knights, is the beginning and end of that."

"And the third seat?"

"That is the Siege Perilous," intoned Merlin. "Siege is what we're calling seats now. There is one man who may sit in the Siege Perilous and any that aren't him who try it shall be smote!"

"Huh!" said Arthur. "You learn something every day."

"The knight who takes that seat shall be peerless, the best ever. He will be way better than you or Kay or anyone."

"Just so long as it's not Pellinore."

Pellinore did not get to sit in the Siege Perilous, no. But Merlin did gift Pellinore with one of the two empty chairs at the Round Table, which was huge deal.

Meanwhile, remember Sir Gawaine? Gawaine got knighted just before Tor arrived, but because Tor's father was present and Gawaine's died fighting a rebellion against King Arthur, Tor was shunted to the front of the class. You may recall -- I would not hold it against you if you forgot -- that Sir Gawaine was the son of King Lot, and that Pellinore killstole Lot at the end of his war against Arthur, back in the previous volume. Sir Gawaine was stuck in second place for the cake and the kiss-a-wench line and the jousting and whatever other honors the knights all lines up for. He was not happy about this, but everyone ignored his seething. At one point, perhaps just after Sir Tor won the award for Most Promising New Knight, he turned to his brother and acting squire, Gaheris.

"That's it," Gawaine hissed. "Go get my sword! As soon as I have it, I'm going use it to murder Pellinore! And maybe his stupid son, too!"

Gaheris talked him out of it, though. It wasn't that Gaheris thought that murdering a knight of the Round Table in front of King Arthur and the assembled knights was a bad idea (did no one learn anything from the story of Balin the Idiot Knight?). No, Gaheris's objection was that he wanted in. Sir Gawaine needed to hold off until Gaheris had been knighted himself, and then the two of them would team up and kill Pellinore together. Gawaine agreed, and they shook on it. (Spoiler alert: Gawaine would eventually kill Pellinore solo, but he and Gaheris later team up for the murder of one of Pellinore's other sons).

Finally it was the biggest day of the festival, the wedding of Arthur of Guenever! Actually, no. That's no true. It's the second-biggest day of the festival, the wedding of Arthur and Guenever. The biggest day was the unveiling of the Round Table. We're all agreed on this one.

Malory skips the ceremony completely, which is just par for the course with him. Guenever still hasn't had any lines. They wed at the Church of St. Stephen in Camelot, so I guess this all happened in Camelot and not London after all.

At the reception, just as everyone sat down to eat, Merlin did a last-minute nose count. He made sure that all 29 or 129 or 149 knights of the Round Table were in place, and told them to sit tight, because a strange adventure was about to start.

Sure enough, during the soup course, in ran a white hart, getting run down by a white hound and thirty black hounds. Right in the middle of the wedding reception, hart and thirty-one dogs.

"Oh, for the love of --" said Arthur. Guenever rolled her eyes.

"Wait for it," said Merlin.

As the hart was running around all the tables (including but not limited to the Round Table), the white hound caught up to it and ripped out a chunk of its hindquarters. They both went spinning base over apex and knocked right into some knight sitting at a sideboard in the back. The knight threw down his food, grabbed the white hound by the scruff of the neck, and ran out of the hall to his waiting horse. As he rode off, the injured hart recovered quickly and dashed away, too.

"Wait for it," said Merlin.

As the dognapper and the hart departed, a lady on a white walking-horse came riding in from the other direction. Believe it or not, this lady is in the Top Four Ladies of Le Morte D'Arthur countdown, and I'd place her at 1 myself. We'll get into it later.

"My dog!" she shouted to King Arthur. "That knight just stole my best white brachet!"

"It's my wedding day!" Arthur shouted back at her. "You're crashing! Get lost!"

"Wait for it," said Merlin.

And then another rider came in behind her, a knight on a big ol' horse. He scooped up the shouting woman and carried her off, her screaming and protesting the whole time. All Arthur's knights looked to Arthur and Merlin for direction: should they leap up and subdue the guy, or what? But Arthur just held his head in his hands. Merlin signaled for everyone to sit tight, so they didn't move.

"I hate this strange adventure stuff," Arthur said finally. "Let's just pretend that never happened and try to enjoy the rest of the reception."

"Sire!" said Merlin, reproachfully.

"I mean, she busted in here and she was shouting, and I don't want to deal with it," said Arthur.

"But thou must!" cried Merlin. "When strange adventures get started you've got to deal with them or else all hell breaks loose."

"Fine, fine." Arthur slammed down his fork. "But I'm not doing it myself. I refuse. I hate these strange adventures."

"Very well," said Merlin icily. "Then you must send Sir Gawaine to track down the white hart, and Sir Tor to track down the white hound, and send King Pellinore to rescue the damsel or else die in the attempt."

"Hmm, die in the attempt, you say?"

"These three knights shall be sent off, and have strange adventures," proclaimed Merlin. "Which will occupy the bulk of the remainder of Book III, and occur contemporaneously, but we'll start with Sir Gawaine, because he was mentioned first."

Have you noticed yet that Guenever still hasn't had any lines?

###  In which Gawaine completes his first quest with only a little whining

Sir Gawaine and his brother Gaheris rode out together, knight and squire, after the white hart. Before too long they came across a pair of knights on horseback, jousting.

Gawaine approached, in between the two knights.

"You two random dudes! Take five, and answer my questions!" he shouted. "Have you seen a white hart run through here? An injured white hart?"

The two knights explained that they weren't just any random pair of dudes, they were brothers. Sir Sorlouse of the Forest and his younger brother Sir Brian of the Forest (Brian of the Forest, that greatest character of the Arthurian canon) had been just hanging out, but then a strange adventure had sprung up around them: the sudden appearance of a white hart, running hard, chased by thirty black hounds and one white hound.

Sorlouse had wanted to chase after the hart, because he could tell straightaway that this was an adventure hook set up for King Arthur's wedding. He'd reasoned that if he ran down the hart he could take it to the wedding, to which he had not been invited. But as the hart-catcher he'd get to show off, and meet Sir Kay and everybody.

Brian, on the other hand, had wanted to do all of those things himself, on the grounds that he, Brian of the Forest, was a better knight than his brother. So, naturally, they'd started jousting over it.

"Okay, so, first off, dummies, you shouldn't be fighting," said Gawaine. "That one's a no-brainer. Save your violence for foes who aren't your brother. I'm sure this dictum will never turn around ironically on me. No way will I eventually die in battle against one of my brothers."

Gaheris nodded, because what were the odds that he and Gawaine (or their presumed-dead infant half-brother Mordred) would ever end up on the opposite sides of an issue?

According to Malory, Sir Gawaine then suggested that they go to King Arthur and apologize to him for fighting one another. Apparently this was a reasonable thing to suggest, because Sorlouse and Brian agreed to it.

At first Gawaine wanted them all to head back to Camelot together, but Brian and Sorlouse lost a lot of blood fighting one another and needed some time to recuperate, so Gawaine decided to press on after the white hart without them. "As soon as y'all are feeling up to it, head to Camelot and apologize to Arthur for being jerks, okay? And let him know that Gawaine sent you!"

So the one set of brothers went one way as the other set of brothers went another, and Gawaine and Gaheris arrived at the next scene.

A great rushing river! Hella majestic! The hart spotted! Even as Gawaine approached, it swam to the other side, black hounds still chasing it.

"My lucky day!" cried Gawaine. He made to cross the river, but paused when another knight appeared over on the far bank.

"Give up!" shouted the other knight. "Do not chase this hart over here or else we'll have a fight! For no reason whatsoever!"

"Screw you!" shouted Gawaine back, and swam across. Or, to be more precisely correct, he made his horse to carry him over the water.

Sure enough, Gawaine and this other knight fought, blah blah, Gawaine fought competently, blah blah, other knight was soon dehorsed.

"Give up?" asked Gawaine.

"No!" said the other knight.

"Well I'll just kill you then! Also what's your name?" asked Gawaine.

"I am Sir Allardin of the Isles!"

So Gawaine dismounted and they did the part of the joust where you fight on foot. If this was the story of Sir Allardin then maybe there'd have been another outcome, but no. Gawaine knocked his block, as they say, off. It's messy.

Gaheris complimented Gawaine on the helmet-crushed-into-brainpan finishing move he'd just pulled off. Unfortunately by the time Allardin was dead the hart was long gone, so Gawaine and Gaheris moved on. It was at about this point that Gaheris decided to release the dogs.

Yeah, Malory totally forgot to mention this, but it turns out they brought dogs! Six greyhounds, specifically. The greyhounds dashed on ahead and caught up to the hart easily. The thirty black hounds that had been chasing it are no more, for whatever reason; it was down to just Gaheris's greyhounds and the hart. The dogs chased the hart into a castle tucked away in the woods, in the central courtyard of which they cornered the hart, laid into it, and killed it.

Before Sir Gawaine and Gaheris caught up to the dogs, this racket from the death of the hart alerted the knight who lived in the castle. That guy stormed out, sword drawn! He lay into the dogs and started killing them. All the while he cursed them out about the hart; apparently it had been his hart, and a present from his queen. A pretty terrible present, I'd say, but what do I know?

Gawaine and Gaheris showed up just as the four or so surviving greyhounds ran off with their tails tucked between their legs. Of course Sir Gawaine was pissed that this knight took it upon himself to kill their dogs, wouldn't you be? He drew his sword and advanced on the knight. "What the hell, dude? You killed my dogs!"

"Yeah I killed your dogs," said the knight. "They killed my hart!"

"They're my dogs!" spit Gawaine. "If you're going to revenge yourself on someone, revenge yourself on me!"

"Don't mind if I do!" shouted the knight, and he and Gawaine started sword-fighting.

One short fight later, the knight lay on the ground, bleeding from several wounds, begging Gawaine not to kill him. It was pretty pathetic.

"I'm so sorry! Have mercy! Look into your heart! I'm so sorry! I'll make it up to you, anything you want, just let me live, look into your heart!" Wailing, moaning, gnashing of teeth.

"What heart?" muttered Gawaine. He wound up to decapitate this knight the same way he decapitated Sir Allardin in the previous chapter. But then -- oh no! -- It's this knight's wife! She ran up, she screamed, she ran straight into Gawaine's sword! Oh, it's pretty bloody.

Apparently knights accidentally killing ladies used to happen kind of a lot. Gawaine didn't even realize he'd hit her at first. I guess she ran up behind him, straight into his backswing? But when he saw her body lying there, well man, that took the wind out of his sails I can tell you.

"Oh, bad on you, Gawaine," said Gaheris. "Boo, Gawaine. Boo. You just know that's going to come back to haunt you. You better be nice to people from now on, starting with this guy."

"Yeah," said Gawaine. "Wow. Sorry, dude. I mean, from the way Malory describes it she appears to have run straight into my sword mid-chop, which one might interpret as a lot of things, the wife heroically taking the blow for her husband even, but we're all going to call it misadventure. So, bad on me, I guess. I'll give you mercy after all."

"You just killed my wife!" The knight was stunned. "I don't actually want your mercy any more. First you kill my hart, then you kill my wife, what the hell is the matter with you?"

"Look I said I was sorry," Gawaine said, a little testily. "I was trying to kill you, not her. I didn't even see her. Listen, go to Camelot and tell King Arthur this whole story, he'll know what to do. This is above my pay grade."

"What? No, no, I'm not your errand-boy, I'm Sir Ablamar of the Marsh!" said the knight. "I don't care if you do kill me after all, I'm not carrying off your message to King Arthur!"

"If you don't I will, in fact, kill you," said Gawaine.

"Oh, really? Well, I'll do it, then," said Sir Ablamar. "But I don't like it."

So Ablamar mounted up with a couple of dead greyhounds and headed back to Camelot, and Gawaine went inside Ablamar's and his wife's castle, to lie down for a while. It'd been a whole big thing. Normally when Malory brings in a damsel or wife or maiden and doesn't give her a name I step up to the plate, but I don't have the heart to give Ablamar's wife a name. She literally ran in from offscreen and died, in such a transparent women-in-refrigerators moment that even the characters in the story seemed a little sickened by it.

In Ablamar's castle, Sir Gawaine lay down, but he couldn't get comfortable what with his armor and his sword and his extra sword and his dagger and his mace. He started to take all that stuff off, when Gaheris protested.

"Whoa! Gawaine, brother, seriously, you're going to remove your armor? We're in hostile territory here, man, you don't know who might show up at any moment!"

No sooner had he said this then, as so often happens in Malory, his concern was immediately demonstrated as well-founded. Four knights appeared from nowhere and started assailing at Gawaine, assailing at him hard.

"Jackass!" cried one.

"Foul knight!" cried another.

"You shouldn't even be a knight!" said the third. "Knights are guys who are merciful and don't go around murdering ladies!"

"You should be ashamed of yourself!" shouted the fourth. "If you have no mercy then we'll have no mercy for you, I tell you what! Get out here so we can beat on you!"

So Gawaine and Gaheris sprang out and there was a fight! Maybe it's because Gaheris was like twelve, maybe it's because they were outnumbered two to one, maybe it's because an archer from out of nowhere and started peppering Gawaine and Gaheris with arrows and Gawaine took one hard in the bicep of his swording arm, but before too long the four knights had the brothers down on their knees, about to strike the killing blows. Then suddenly a thing happened!

Four ladies ran onto the scene and somehow were not accidentally slain by the four knights on their backswings. No, these four ladies beseeched the four knights to be better men than Gawaine and Gaheris, and show mercy after all, and the knights agreed and took Gawaine and Gaheris prisoner.

"This sucks," said Gawaine, once he and Gaheris were ensconced in a cell.

"You think this sucks? You at least have armor and get to call yourself a knight," said Gaheris. "I've got it way worse than you. I didn't even kill anybody, remember, and here I'm paying the penalty for your crimes!"

"Don't be that way," whined Gawaine. "Anyway my arm really hurts, it's probably going to get gangrene and have to be chopped off."

"Whatever," said Gaheris.

"I'm related to King Arthur, you know? This shouldn't be happening to me!"

"Gah, dude, I am just as related to him as you are, and I didn't kill anyone and also I have to listen to you whine."

Early the next morning the lead lady of the foursome, Carmen let's say, went to the little gaol in the castle. "Listen," she said. "We heard you complaining all night. What the hell is the matter with you, you whiny little baby?"

Gawaine just moaned and whined some more.

"This is your own fault," pointed out Carmen. "You killed Mrs. Sir Ablamar, and she did nothing to you, nothing to deserve it. Mrs. Sir Ablamar was a fine woman! You'll suffer for what you've done, in this world and the next! Boo! Boo!"

Gaheris may or may not have joined in, Malory doesn't say.

"Anyway, that being said..." Carmen cleared her throat. "Are you truly related to King Arthur? Last night you kept bawling out how this shouldn't be happening to you because you're related to King Arthur."

"Yeah, so what, leave us alone."

"What's your name and how are you related to him?"

"Not telling," said Gawaine.

"Fine then, I'll just have one of my four knights -- all of whom are grumpy because your caterwauling kept them up all night, by the way -- pay you a visit with, say, this executioner's axe." Carmen hefted the weapon threateningly, then remembered that what with this being Malory, women aren't supposed to touch weapons, and she set it down.

"Whatever," said Gawaine. "You don't scare me. But entirely of my free will and own choosing I'll tell you what you want to know. I'm Sir Gawaine, the son of Lot of Orkney and Margawse, King Arthur's sister."

"So Arthur is your uncle, and a blood relation," mused Carmen.

"Yes," said Gawaine. "I just said that. I'm his favorite nephew."

"Hey! I'm right here!"

"He didn't knight you," Gawaine reminded Gaheris.

Carmen went back far a chat with the other three ladies and four knights. None of them wanted to be on Arthur's bad side, so they decided to just send Sir Gawaine back to Camelot and hope for the best. They put him back on a horse, with Gaheris, and with the body of Mrs. Sir Ablamar, so that Arthur would see what a terrible thing Gawaine did. Sort of like sending a kid home from school with an F on a test and a demand for a parental signature. Gawaine wanted the white hart, since that was his quest in the first place, and Carmen reluctantly handed that over, too.

CUT TO Camelot, where Merlin had cast zone of truth on Gawaine. Sir Gawaine spilled out his entire shameful, shameful story, with the lack of mercy and the killing of Mrs. Sir Ablamar, and all.

Arthur was furious. "First of all, no more killing ladies for two weeks. No, no, a month! Furthermore, I want a written apology to Mrs. Sir Ablamar!" Arthur had never had to discipline a knight before; he didn't really know how.

"I'll handle this. And by the way, I can't believe that when I finally get lines," said Guenever, "this is the context. I didn't expect a rose garden, but I did think I'd be in the loop at least." Guenever snapped her fingers and a cadre of her ladies-in-waiting appeared.

"Ladies!" she cried, pointing to Gawaine. "You see this miserable specimen of the knighthood? I'm releasing you from all your usual waiting duties. You have a new job. Follow this one around, for the rest of his life, and make sure he's being kind, gentle, virtuous, and above all courteous to ladies, at all times. His parole begins immediately, you are his parole officers, and will continue as such until you retire, in which case we'll name replacement parole officers, until such time as Gawaine dies, probably of shame. The only time he is ever permitted to act against any woman is if another woman tells him to, such that he as her champion fights another lady's champion. I, Guenever, have spoken. So mote it be!"

"Wow," said Arthur.

"And that is how you make a speech," said Guenever. "You're welcome."

Thus ends the Tale of Gawaine. Spoiler alert: for whatever reason, Guenever's sentence on Sir Gawaine was not carried out. It's a real shame, too, because man, did he ever get himself into scrapes where he could have really used a cadre of ladies-in-waiting to serve as his conscience.

###  In which Tor makes new friends

Right and so we turn back the clock to just as Sir Gawaine, Sir Tor, and King Pellinore set out. Tor was sent after the white hunting dog, the brachet.

Before he'd gone very far, he nearly ran over Peter, who was for whatever reason standing the road with a club. (Malory doesn't specify that this was the same guy with dwarfism as Peter from Book II, Chapter VII, but I choose to believe all the guys in Le Morte D'Arthur who have dwarfism are the same guy). Peter walloped Sir Tor's horse with the club as he rode by, knocking down the horse and Tor both.

"What the hell?" demanded Tor, as he got back up.

"Yeah, okay. There's a joust over there." Peter pointed to some pavilions set back from the road.

"I don't get it." Tor shot Peter an ugly look as he helped his horse back up and remounted.

"Sorry, I'll explain again. I hit you with a club because there's a joust over there." Seeing Tor's incomprehension, Peter elaborated further. "The knights at the joust are looking for opponents, and I told them I'd waylay any knights who came by and get them to joust."

"Hmm, I do love a good joust," said Tor. "But no, I'm on a quest, so, that's happening. I can't really take a joust break..."

"This isn't optional." Peter hefted a warhorn menacingly. "You want I should blow this?"

"Why, what happens if you blow your horn?"

Peter blew his horn, and a knight rode over from the pavilions, all dressed for jousting. Without preamble, he started trying to dehorse Tor. They jousted a bit, Tor won.

"Okay, fair enough, good joust," the knight said afterwards. "You should joust my partner, though."

"Your partner?" asked Tor, and maybe would have asked more except that the other knight, the first one's partner, had ridden up behind and engaged in a dishonorable backstab-joust! Or at least, he tried to; Tor was too quick for him. They jousted some, until Tor wounded the other knight, and he surrendered.

"Great," said Peter.

"Are we done here?" asked the knights. "You beat us, which is all we wanted."

"Yeah, no," said Tor. "You guys are basically bandits, I can't help but notice. I want you to head back to Camelot and surrender."

"Okay," said the knights. "When we get there who should we say sent us?"

"Don't say Sir Tor," said Tor. "No, no, say the knight who went hunting the knight who had the white hound. They'll know what that means."

The knights, whose names were Sir Felot of Langduk and Sir Petipase of Winchelsea, which are terrible knight names, two of the worst so far, shrugged.

Peter cleared his throat. "Listen, I don't want to work for these two any more, and I can't go back to Camelot after what happened without some kind of triumph, so, Tor, can I come with you?"

"Sure thing. No reason not to."

"Cool," said Peter. "I deduced from what you said to those to bozos that you're after the knight with the white hound? I know where he is; he came by here before. In retrospect I guess I should have clubbed him, but I didn't for some reason."

"No worries!" cried Tor. "This quest has been super easy so far. Lead on!"

So the two knights departed for Camelot and Tor and Peter rode off (Peter confiscated Felot's horse). Little side note: Malory never mentions Felot again, but Petipase would eventually join the Round Table.

Peter led Tor through the woods to a nice little spot next to a convent, with a couple of big tents set up. One tent had a white shield, and the other a red one. Peter signaled for them to dismount, which they did. Sir Tor put his finger to his lips, and Peter nodded. Tor handed Peter a glaive and silently indicated Peter should guard the horses.

Sir Tor sneaked up on the tents, all stealthy-like. He peeked into one with the white shield. Inside it appeared that three maidens had been lingerie/pillow-fighting, until they got all tuckered out and collapsed in a heap together on the bed. Tor considered taking some time to leer, but decided against it; he was on a quest, after all. Then Tor sneaked over to the tent with a red shield and peeked in that one. Within he saw a lady sleeping, curled up with the white hound.

That white hound wasn't asleep, and she started barking as soon as she saw Tor! He reacted quickly: Tor dashed in, grabbed the dog, then dashed back towards the horses, quick like a bunny. The lady and her maidens woke up in the commotion, and came running after him. Poor Peter wasn't about to swipe at them with a glaive since they were ladies, but they weren't combatants, either; Sir Tor and Peter mounted back up, and all the ladies could do was mount strenuous objections.

"Why are you taking my dog?" demanded the lady.

"I'm on a quest to find the dog, and also the knight who came with it. You haven't seen him, have you? He was a guy, in armor?"

"I wouldn't tell you if I had, jerk. I can't stop you from stealing my new dog, but I can tell you it won't go well for you."

"Whatever," said Tor. "This quest has a cakewalk up to this point. I got Peter here, a dwarf squire of my own. Also I peeked at four hot ladies while they slept! And now I have the dog! No comeuppance for me!"

He and Peter rode off.

"We should head back to Camelot and drop this dog off," said Tor. Maybe he said that because the dog was yapping and biting him, I dunno. "It's too late to make it back there tonight, though. Do you know of a place to stay, Peter?"

"I don't, sorry," said Peter. "Well, except for that hermitage." He pointed to a convenient hermitage that they happened to be riding past at that exact moment, purely by chance.

"I guess that counts," said Tor.

Peter and Tor barged into the hermitage and took advantage of the hermit's hospitality, meager though it is. In the morning they were most of the way back to Camelot when they heard shouting behind them.

"You! Hey, you! Come back here! You stole my girlfriend's dog!"

Tor and Peter stopped and wheeled around and, sure enough, there was the knight they were looking for. His name, Malory tells us, was Sir Abellus.

"I don't remember him being so tall, so heavily-armored, or so well-armed," said Tor.

"That looks like a glaive kind of problem," said Peter, hefting the glaive Tor gave him. "Here, take your glaive back and I'll watch the horses while you handle it."

What with one thing and another, Tor and Abellus jousted. It took quite a while; eventually they were both pretty badly beaten, though not quite at die-from-your-wounds levels like Balin and Balan. Tor eventually got the upper hand, and asked for Abellus's surrender during a thirty-second timeout.

"No," panted Abellus. "You stole my girlfriend's dog, I've got to get it back or else die in the attempt."

"Guy, it's just a dog," said Tor. "I don't want to have to kill you over a dog. I've never killed anybody."

"You don't have to kill me," pointed out Abellus.

"I kinda do," said Tor. "My quest is to bring you and this dog back to Camelot. Preferably both alive, but if I have to kill you, that's life."

He might have said more, but he was interrupted by shouting. "Tor! Tor!" A woman on a horse came riding up.

"Oh, damn," muttered Abellus. "Janice."

"What?" asked Tor, still poised with his sword, trying to get Abellus to surrender.

"Sir Tor!" The woman, Janice, came to a stop right in the middle of the jousting arena. "Sir Tor!"

"What? What is it? Also, how do you know my name?"

Janice did not answer that one. "I beseech you! I beg a favor! For love of King Arthur, I beg you!"

"And I say again, what? What is it?"

"Oh, thank you. This scum," she said, pointing at Abellus, "murdered my brother and stole my virtue, and I demand his head!"

"His head? Really?" Tor was chagrined. "I don't want to kill anybody. Can't you settle your dispute peacefully?"

"No!" cried Janice. "He slew my brother, right in front of me. My brother was a better knight, and this scum ambushed and betrayed him, after they went on multiple strange adventures together! When my brother lay there, crippled, I begged for his life. And this scum had the temerity to demand oral sex favors from me!" Janice shot Abellus a look. "Which I very reluctantly did! And then after he'd had his fun he decapitated my poor brother anyway!"

"Oh my God." Tor was mortified. "Is this true?" he demanded of Abellus.

"No! Not a word." Abellus resented Tor for even asking him that. "Well, technically all the facts are as she lays them out, but..."

"I demand vengeance!" cried the lady. "If you do not grant it to me I shall be forced to go to Camelot and disclaim you in front of Arthur and his knights. I don't want to, but if you won't kill this murderous rapist I don't think I have a choice."

"Well, he's clearly monstrous, but I don't want to just kill him," began Tor. Just then Abellus decided to make a break for it! Tor's sword was in his hand already, and... basically by reflex SHOOMPT Abellus's head flew one way as his body slumped another.

"See? That right there, that's what I wanted to prevent," said Tor.

Malory's phrase for it, by the way, is "and I kneeled half an hour afore him in the mire for to save my brother's life," which I suppose might be taken to mean she pleaded with him on her knees, but in context I don't think I'm overly reaching to interpret as I do.

Janice and Tor and Peter ended up returning to Janice's house, where her husband offered them dinner. Janice's husband was a pleasant older gentleman who had no knowledge of Janice's sordid story and absolutely no one told him about it. In the morning Peter and Tor headed back to Camelot, but not before Janice told him that he would always be welcome in her neck of the woods, and she thanked him again for killing Abellus.

Tor made it back to Camelot, and everyone was pleased to see him. They congratulated him on seizing the dog and killing the knight whose dog it was. He was given a new horse and a new suit of armor, Arthur and Guenever were charmed by the tale of his adventure, and Merlin announced that Tor was a good egg who would do many great things, which prompted Arthur to promote Tor from knight to earl.

So I'm guessing Gawaine felt pretty bad about it in comparison.

Thus ends the tale of Tor! Next, the tale of Pellinore!

###  In which Pellinore is a dick

The third tale in our triptych is the Tale of Pellinore. Again, we roll back to the moment when Sir Gawaine, Sir Tor, and Pellinore set out from Arthur and Guenever's wedding reception; this time our camera remains focused on Pellinore, that dick.

That dick mounted up and rodes after the mysterious lady and the mysterious knight who abducted her. Out in the woods, not too far from the reception, he stumbled across a couple in trouble: a knight, all bloody and unconscious, and a damosel, waving and shouting and trying to flag down passing motorists. Pellinore slowed down and stopped.

"Pellinore! King Pellinore! For Christ's sake, help me out here!" cried the damosel. Apparently she and Pellinore knew one another?

"No," said Pellinore. "Questing. Back later." He rode away before the conversation could continue.

"Why that lousy horse-stealing Griflet-jousting son of a..." the damosel shook her fist at his back. "God," she prayed, "let Pellinore be in need just as I have been in need just now and him ignoring me like a big ol' jackass."

Then, just for good measure, the knight died of his wounds and the damosel took his sword and chopped her own head off. "That'll show Pellinore" may or may not have been her last words.

If I could give one piece of advice to anyone going to Arthurian times, it would be, don't be a damosel.

Pellinore, that dick, rodes on, ignorant of the damosel's suicide.

In the next valley over he met a cheery serf. "Ho, knight!"

"Ho yourself," said Pellinore. "I'm looking for a man and a woman, you seen them?"

"Oh, you bet!" The serf was happy to be of service; serviceable peasants were less likely to get their limbs sliced off. "I know just who you're talking about, you couldn't be clearer. The knight was on a horse and the lady was shouting for somebody, anybody, to get the knight to release her."

"Great," said Pellinore. "Which way did they go?"

"Funny story," said the serf. "They're jousting over there at the jousting field. Well, the knight is. The lady's cousin showed up and tried to claim her."

"Free her, you mean?"

"No, no, claim her like she was lost luggage. Anyway, the knight who had her didn't think real well of that, so, long story short, they're jousting right now."

"And the lady?"

"Each knight has a squire watching over her in that tent over yonder," said the serf, and pointed.

"You've been very helpful, serf," said Pellinore. "So I won't slice any of your limbs off."

"Thank thee, sir knight," said the serf. He waved good-bye as Pellinore left him, grateful to be alive.

Given the option of hitting up the jousting knights or examining the tent, Pellinore hit to the tent first. He headed inside without knocking or dismounting. Sure enough, within he found the lady in question, tied up with two squires watching her. As bondage scenarios go, it was not a terribly sexy one.

"Lady!" cried Pellinore. "I've come to bring you back to King Arthur's Court!"

"You've come to free me?" She looked up at Pellinore on his big horse, there inside the tent.

"No," said Pellinore. "To retrieve you."

"Hey now." One of the squires raised his hand. "I... we..." He glanced over at the other squire, who nodded at him. "We're here to guard her and prevent people from stealing her. If you want to steal her you should take it up with our bosses. They're outside jousting."

"Fine." Pellinore rode back out without saying goodbye. In the adjacent jousting field outside he interceded between the two knights. They'd been jousting very slowly; they'd only just then gotten to the dehorsed fighting-on-foot phase of the joust.

"Knights!" he cried. "I need a thing. What are you fighting for?"

"Well I'll tell you," said the first knight. "This jackass here has been holding my father's sister's daughter against her will, so I'm fighting him."

"Pshaw," said the second knight. The second knight's name, I am not making this up, was Sir Hontzlake of Wentland. "I won her," said Sir Hontzlake. "I won her at King Arthur's wedding reception. King Arthur gave her to me, for being the best jouster."

"Bull," said Pellinore. "I was there. You just abducted her, plain and simple. Arthur sent me to bring her back and make you face justice, either by his court or my hand."

"Yeah, well, so what?" said Sir Hontzlake.

"Okay, great." Pellinore didn't care enough to engage with Hontzlake. "I'm taking her back to Camelot. We'll be back in time to get some wedding cake. So you two stop fighting each other, or don't, I don't care. But either accept that I'm retrieving the lady, or else team up and fight me."

"We'll do that, then," said the knights, and made ready to fight Pellinore two-on-one, their prior argument temporarily shelved in the face of this interloper.

"Hold on, hold on," said Pellinore. "Let me get off my horse."

He started to dismount, but Sir Hontzlake, jerk that he was, jumps the gun and stabbed Pellinore's horse in the side. With a gurgle, it collapsed and died.

"What the hell?!" Pellinore was mightily pissed by this. "I stole that horse from King Arthur!"

"Hah!" cried Sir Hontzlake. "Now you don't have a horse at all! What're you going to do about it, huh?"

Pellinore pulled out his sword and smote Sir Hontzlake of Wentland in the head, so hard that his skull cracked open and the sword sank down into the head as far as the chin.

"I'll do that," he told Sir Hontzlake's corpse. Then he turned to the other knight, who reflexively dropped to his knees.

"Okay, you can have my cousin," he said. His name was Sir Meliot of Logris. "Take her, just don't hurt her, okay? Don't be a villain."

"What, you aren't going to fight me?"

"Yeah, no. No. I am not going to fight you after what I just saw you to to Hontzlake here."

"Feh." Pellinore glared at Meliot. "I can tell you she'll be fine in my company, because I'm a true knight, not a sniveling little pansy like some people. Now I just need a horse to replace the one this guy killed. I guess I can take his, he won't be using it."

"Tell you what," said Meliot. "Take my horse. It's a better horse and gets substantially better gas milage. Also, let me buy you dinner."

"Hmm, okay."

So Pellinore and Meliot and Meliot's cousin, the lady Nimue had a nice dinner together and then Pellinore got a good night's sleep. In the morning Nimue and Pellinore saddle dup. Meliot was about to say goodbye when he realized he never caught Pellinore's name.

"I am King Pellinore of the Isles, Knight of the Round Table!"

"Oh, you're with the Round Table? I can be confident you won't rape Nimue then," said Meliot. "Pity you never met my brother."

"Your brother?" Nimue didn't recall her cousin having a brother.

"Well, frat brother. He's in the other tent over there, the one you never went into? He doesn't like to talk to people, so he just stays in there most of the time. He's a good knight, though. He abhors unnecessary violence, you see, so this being Malory, the best thing he can do is just avoid people. He says he's less likely to accidentally cause the death of a damosel that way."

"Huh," said Pellinore. "What's his name?"

"His name," Meliot said grandly, "is Sir Brian of the Isles."

"Really?"

Really! Meliot would end up joining the Round Table eventually, by the by. Brian of the Isles would not, though he does appear, in a subsequent strange adventure in Book IX.

Anyway. Pellinore told Meliot to bring Brian of the Isles to Camelot sometime (never happens). Nimue waved goodbye, and the two of them rode off. But this was not a comfortable ride-off, no, no. First Nimue's horse stumbled and she was thrown from the saddle and dislocated her shoulder. Pellinore wanted to press on, because he was a heartless dick, but Nimue convinced him to stop for a bit. He stretched out under a tree and slept all day while, I guess, Nimue relocated her shoulder using magic.

That night Pellinore woke up, ready to hit the road again, but Nimue pointed out that it's pitch dark -- "ye may as well ride backward as forward," is how Malory claims she phrased it. So, they stayed there overnight. Pellinore couldn't sleep, maybe because he'd spent the whole day napping. Round about midnight he heard the sound of approaching horses.

"And here I thought my strange adventure was already over!" he muttered to himself, and started putting his armor back on.

So this next thing that happens is hella awesome except that it's also hella vexing. I'll explain after. Pellinore hid in the bushes while two knights rode up -- from opposite directions! It was Pellinore's lucky day, plainly. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time to overhear this particular conversation.

"Hey there."

"Hey. How's Camelot?"

"Worse than we thought. I was just barely able to get away without being caught."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. They've got a Round Table, now. It's awful. Knights, honest heroes, far as the eye can see. No room for villains like us. Everybody loves Arthur."

"Jeez."

"I know! It's the flower of chivalry, is what it is. So I'm headed North, to tell our evil lords about Arthur and Camelot and this whole Round Table nonsense. Next thing you know it'll be so a knight can't even randomly slay a damosel!"

"Well, good luck, pal. I'm headed South, towards Camelot."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I came prepared. I've got this vial of poison, it's awesome poison. I'm just going to poison everybody there. Poison food, poison wine, poison drapes."

"Really? You're going to do that?"

"Well, not me. We've got an inside man. Someone Arthur trusts. He agreed to do the poisoning in exchange for fabulous prizes."

"Cool. Well, one piece of advice..."

"Lay it on me!"

"Two words. Mer-lin. Dude is half-demon, you know. Doesn't age. Knows everybody, knows everything. You'd better have something planned for Merlin."

"Oh, don't you worry about that. I've got it all taken care of."

"Well, I'd best be off. Have an ominous night!"

"And an ominous night to you!"

And then the knights rode off without Pellinore seeing their faces. Pellinore woke Nimue, and told her they needed to get to Camelot toot sweet. They loaded up and rode out, despite the darkness. Around dawn they passed the spot in the woods where the lady and the wounded knight had been -- you remember, from the beginning of this story? Pellinore saw them, and the knight's looking okay, except that he was dead. Also, wild animals had skeletonized the damosel, except for her head. Pellinore wept and wailed.

"They're dead! They're both dead! And it's all someone's fault!"

"What?" Nimue didn't get the context on this at all, so Pellinore had to explain.

"Yeesh," said Nimue afterwards. "Okay, here's what we do." (NIMUE BATS CLEANUP 1!) "We passed a quarter-mile back. We take the knight's body there, let the hermit deal with it. The damosel, I don't know, just grab her head and present it to Arthur."

"He'll get a kick out of it, sure."

"No, I don't..." Nimue sighed. "Whatever."

"I'll do it!" Pellinore did like messing with Arthur, and a woman's head lent itself to all kinds of japes. "Did I tell you about the time I stole his horse?"

"Yes, like three times!"

"Well, you won't mind hearing it again, then. It was at this fountain..."

When Pellinore and Nimue reached to Camelot, Arthur was out jousting, but Merlin and Guenever were there. Merlin cast zone of truth again, and Pellinore lay out the whole story, culminating in his retrieval of the damosel's head.

"So this damosel died because you couldn't be bothered to stop, and you ignored her requests for aid..." Guenever shook her head. "Is he leaving anything out?" she asked Nimue.

"The parts I was there for, I can confirm," she said. "I spent a lot of this story tied up in a tent."

"Great. Just great," said Guenever. She rubbed her temples and sighed. "All right. Ladies!" She snapped her fingers and a host of ladies-in-waiting appeared.

"Hold on!" interrupted Merlin. "I'll handle this one!"

Guenever shrugged. "As you were, ladies, apparently Merlin is going to actually do something today," she said.

"This was your fault anyway," Pellinore told Guenever.

"Really? My fault? How do you figure that exactly?" Guenever straightened up.

"It was your wedding," said Pellinore. "And Nimue here disrupted it with her hounds, not me."

"Am I going to get my white brachet back, by the way?" Nimue asked. No one answered her.

"Go on," said Guenever. She was looking daggers at Pellinore. "My wedding, you said."

"So clearly it's your fault," said Pellinore. "Yours and Nimue's."

Guenever pulled Merlin aside. "This guy is in the Round Table on your say-so, right?"

"It's for the best," said Merlin. "So says Merlin!"

"That line may work on Arthur, Merle, but I'm a big girl --"

"It is for the best!" Merlin insisted. "It's got to be this way, Guenever. Ma'am. I'm not just saying this because I'm half demon."

Guenever glowered.

"Now, Pellinore," Merlin said, turning back to him. "Truly you are a foul jackass and you should feel bad."

"I do feel bad!" said Pellinore. "I'll feel bad about it for the rest of my life! I'm just saying Guenever should feel worse."

"Shut up, man, I'm trying to help you not get thrown off the Round Table here," hissed Merlin. Then, louder, he continued. "You should feel bad, Pellinore! Feel bad! And know that this poor damosel whose head you hold is your own daughter! Yes, Elaine, daughter of the Lady of the Rule!" (ELAINE 2!)

Pellinore groaned. "Oh, man, another illegitimate child I didn't know about?"

"Yes, Elaine, who was traveling here with her beau Sir Miles of the Launds, and a tearful reunion it would have been, were it not for her sad fate!" Merlin cried. "A foul villain, Loraine the Thug, false knight, coward, snuck up behind Sir Miles of the Launds and stabbed him with a spear! And then she slew herself out of sorrow at his passing and also because you wouldn't help her! And because she's now dead, you shall one day be in great trouble and your best friend will abandon you just when you need him most! This will happen! Carry this doom forward! The man you trust most shall betray you and lead you into peril and abandon you to die!"

"Well, that sounds bad," said Pellinore. "But whatever."

When Arthur returned from the jousting, Guenever filled him in on the situation and gave him some lines for a speech she wanted him to make. Once all the strange adventures were finally over, he gathered all his knights together and delivered Guenever's speech.

It was about how murders, atrocities, random acts of cruelty, and treason were all forbidden, for all of Arthur's knights. It was about how they were to always give mercy when it was asked for, upon pain of being exiled from Camelot, and it was about how they were to always help out women, damosels, gentlewomen, and ladies in need on pain of getting hunted down and slaughtered like animals. Arthur was not kidding about that part.

"PS," he said, "no fighting for unjust causes regardless of how much money they offer you. And no fighting on opposite sides in wars. Tournaments yes, wars no."

All the knights swore to abide by this oath which sounded suspiciously like the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons paladin's code of conduct. And... that's it, the end of Book III.

Here's a postscript on Book III: remember the ominous conversation Pellinore overheard, the one that prompted him to get up early and rush to Camelot? The one that, once he arrived at Camelot, he completely forgot to mention? Funny story: it never comes up again and never pans out in the slightest.

<<<<>>>>

##  Women in Malory: Necessary Evil?

So the thing about women is, Malory doesn't understand them. This is painfully obvious whenever he has to treat a female character as dramatic subject, rather than object. I've read Chip n' Dale's Rescue Rangers fanfiction with a better grasp of female characters than Malory.

Yes, I've read Chip n' Dale's Rescue Rangers fanfiction. That's not the point here. We're not talking about my issues. We're talking Malory and his horrible interpretations of female characters.

His solution is that, whenever possible in Le Morte D'Arthur, women are omitted, and to the extent that they must be included, they're downplayed as much as Malory possibly can downplay them. This book totally fails the Bechdel Test. Even relatively significant characters are often left unnamed; I have to invent names for Percivale's sister the Grail nun (Magdalena), Tristram's evil stepmother (Hestia), and Sir Bors's would-be seductress (Catherine).

Nevertheless, a few named women have wormed their way into the Le Morte D'Arthur canon. Here for your joy I list them, by name, and in order of their appearance. I've erred on the side of inclusion; Lady of the Lands is far from a well-developed character, but is identified by some kind of name, so onto the list she goes.

BOOK I

Igraine. Arthur's mother. Duchess of Tintagil, and later Queen of Logris. Wife of Gorlas the Duke of Tintagil, then Uther Pendragon the King of Logris. Mother of Margawse, Elaine, Morgan, and Arthur.

Margawse. Arthur's eldest half-sister. Queen of Orkney. Wife of Lot the King of Orkney. Mother of Gawaine, Gaheris, Gareth, Agravaine, and Mordred.

Elaine 1. Arthur's middle half-sister. Queen of Garlot. Wife of Nentres the King of Garlot.

Morgan le Fay. Arthur's youngest half-sister. Queen of Gore. Wife of Uriens the King of Gore. Mother of Sir Uwaine. Necromancer and wielder of plot-relevant magic. Tries to kill Arthur, fails. Exiles her husband from Gore and rules it. Aboard the magical barge that bears Arthur to Avalon.

Lionors. Lover of Arthur, mother of Sir Borre.

Guenever. Arthur's wife. Launcelot's longtime lover. Queen of Logris. Daughter of King Leodegrance of Cameliard. Eventually becomes a nun.

Lady of the Lake. Gives Arthur Excalibur. Gets her head lopped off by Sir Balin.

BOOK II

Lile of Avalon. Queen of the mystical island of Avalon and enchantress; dispatches a maiden with a cursed sword.

Columbe. Lover of Sir Lanceor, kills herself under suspicious circumstances after Sir Balin kills Sir Lanceor.

Lady de Vance. Lover of Rience.

Queen of the Waste Land. Sister of Pellinore, and thus aunt of Elaine, Sir Percivale, Sir Lamorak, Sir Tor, and Sir Aglovale. Malory doesn't mention it, but in many traditions she's Pellam's wife or mother. In versions wherein Pellam is two people, she's wife of one and mother of the other.

BOOK III

Elaine 2. Pellinore's illegitimate daughter. Kills herself to spite Pellinore.

Nimue. Merlin's infinitely more capable protege and cousin of Sir Meliot of Logris.

Lady of the Rule. Mother of Elaine 2.

Ettard. Pellas the Good's ex. Supposedly dies of grief after Nimue steals Pellas away from her.

Lady of the Rock. Associate of the earl Fergus. Antagonized the Red Castle brothers.

BOOK IV

Elaine 3. Wife of King Ban and mother of Launcelot.

BOOK V

Clarisin. Duchess-countess of a besieged Italian city-state which is definitely not Florence.

BOOK VI

The Queen of Northgalis (aka the Enchantress of Northgalis). Morgan le Fay's confidante and traveling companion.

The Queen of Eastland. Morgan le Fay's other traveling companion.

The Queen of the Out Islands. Morgan le Fay's third traveling companion.

Hellawes. Widow of Sir Gilbert the Bastard. Indeterminate witch.

BOOK VII

Linet. The more shrewish of the Fabulous L Sisters, with an endless supply of magic healing potion. Marries Sir Gaheris.

Lionesse. The less shrewish of the Fabulous L Sisters. Marries Sir Gareth.

Laurel. The niece of Lionesse and Linet. Marries Sir Agravaine.

BOOK VIII

Elizabeth. Beloved wife of Melodias. Mother of Tristram.

Queen Isoud of Ireland (Isoud 1).

The lovely Isoud. Isoud's daughter (Isoud 2).

Lady of the Lands. Cousin of the lovely Isoud. Her hand was the prize in Tristram's first tournament.

Bragwaine. Isoud's henchwoman.

Isoud the White, aka Isoud la Blanche Mains (Isoud 3). Tristram's wife. Princess, then Queen of Brittany.

BOOK IX

"Marcie" aka Ill-Tongue (Maledisant) aka Clear-Sighted (Bienpensant) aka Sweet Living (Beauvivante). Sir Breunor's lady friend with three nicknames and no given name.

Lady Annowre. A sorceress who wants to marry King Arthur and won't take no for an answer.

BOOK X

Anglides. mother of Sir Alisander and sister-in-law of King Mark.

Alice the Lovely Pilgrim. Beloved of Sir Alisander.

BOOK XI

Elaine 4. Pellam's daughter. Launcelot's rapist and lover and wife. Galahad's mother.

Dame Brisen. Elaine's advisor and enchantress.

Elaine 5. Bors's daughter by the daughter of King Brandegore (unless she was a guy named Sir Helin or Sir Elian).

BOOK XVIII

Elaine 6. Elaine le Blank. The Fair Maid of Astolat. The Maiden of Shallot. Launcelot's maybe-lover.

BOOK XIX

Felelolie. Sister of Sir Urre. That is her actual name.

##  Peter the Dwarf and Other Inventions

By itself, Le Morte D'Arthur is pretty dry. That's the whole point of this project, after all: to take the narrative as presented by Sir Thomas Malory and convert into something that is fun to read, or failing that, something that isn't painful to read. Part of that recasting that I do requires invention, and I'd hate for anyone to misunderstand. Don't go to a dinner party and note that the whiteboard dates back at least to the fifteenth century, or remark on what a coincidence it is that the teleporting dwarf in Le Morte D'Arthur shares a name with actor Peter Dinklage. Don't do that. You don't deserve that.

Many of the odder things people say are paraphrases of actual bizarre Malory dialogue, but by no means is this true in every case.

So here I list off the major anachronisms, interpolations, and inventions included in Arthur Dies at the End. There are certainly more than these; if in the slightest doubt check the text of Le Morte D'Arthur.

  1. Every word that is not bolded. Only words and phrases in bold text are verbatim quotations from Le Morte D'Arthur.

  2. The royal whiteboard is invented.

  3. The names of most of the female characters are invented. Named female characters are listed separately; if a woman is not named on that list, she goes unnamed by Malory. This includes Percivale's sister the Grail nun and Tristram's evil stepmother and Sir Bors's special temptress lady-friend.

  4. Arthur does not assert that he thinks it's a bad idea to send away all the little boys to die, nor does Malory present it as Merlin's idea that Arthur reluctantly goes along with.

  5. Wilma, in Book II, does not textually express sexual interest in Balin.

  6. The assumption that all the various royals already know Merlin, in Book I and Book II, is an interpolation.

  7. The character of Peter is invented; while every scene featuring Peter is one that features a dwarf, Malory never gives any indication that he means the same character every time.

  8. Peter's ability to teleport is based on some dodgy reading of his activities in the tail end of Book VII, as he travels easily from inside a besieged castle to outside it to a distant lodge in less time than it takes Sir Gareth to eat breakfast.

  9. The relationship between Merlin and Nimue as presented at the start of Book IV is hyperbolic but based on my reading of the text.

  10. In the original text, fewer of the people Launcelot meets in Book VI make direct reference to his affair with Guenever.

  11. Sir Gawaine's reference to Arthur as "Uncle Sire" is invented.

  12. The Knights of the Round Table never arm-wrestled, caber-tossed, or played Team Fortress 2 or Magic: the Gathering.

  13. At no point does any character in Le Morte D'Arthur ever break the fourth wall, Merlin included.

  14. Arthur never mistakenly assumes he is speaking to Merlin in disguise.

  15. No one ever misses Merlin or makes reference to it being bad that he is gone, with the sole exception of Arthur, once, just before Arthur's death.

  16. While Arthur never displays any affection towards Guenever after Book I, he is never explicitly cold to her, either; he never asserts that their marriage is purely political.

  17. Arthur's realm is generally referred to as one of a) England, b) Britain, c) Logris (also spelled Logurs) or d) simply 'Arthur's realm.' It is never called England-Britain-Logris, or any permutation thereof.

  18. I interpolated Morgan le Fay's more anachronistic feminist principles as well as her antimarriage stance. She merely complains that society favors Arthur more than her on account of he's male, which is pretty basic Feminism 101 stuff.

  19. Arthur's level of shock at Morgan's betrayal is exaggerated.

  20. The titles of Emperor Lucius are a mix of text and my hyperbole. He is never referred to as Caesar Augustus Caesar Lucius.

  21. Arthur's hatred of strange adventures is hyperbolic exaggeration.

  22. There were no potatoes in Logris. Ditto tomatoes.

  23. The lovely Isoud and her mother don't explicitly decide to clean Tramtrist's broken sword before they discover the truth.

  24. The characterization of Sally Segwarides is all me. She's basically just an inanimate object in Malory. I also combined several anonymous ladies into one: Segwarides's wife and Gawaine's lover in Book VIII are not presented by Malory as the same person.

  25. At no point does Sir Tristram cook bratwursts.

  26. Sir Tristram does not react at all with surprise when Marcie explains she had a baby she was going to give to Sir Launcelot.

  27. Sir Dinadan does not react when Sir Tristram calls Sir Palomides one of the best knights living in this realm.

  28. The messenger at the beginning of Book XIII is not called out as being Brisen. Malory does not state that she tramples the feast.

  29. The nuns' enthusiasm for Galahad's hotness is hyperbole.

  30. Bors does not question the nonsensical dream interpretation he receives from the abbott.

  31. Catherine is far less explicit in her offer, but it's a pretty reasonable interpolation. I bet Bors later kicked himself when he realized that Catherine, unlike the Devil, was genuine. At least he might have gone to the Tower of the Hot Chick after the Grail Quest ended, just to say hi. They totally hook up in my Le Morte D'Arthur fanfic.

  32. Nacien isn't Nacien every time. For more explanation, see the separate article on Nacien.

  33. The Mystery Knight's squire is not explicitly Jesus, but he does explicitly assert that it isn't sinful for the Mystery Knight to steal Launcelot's stuff if the squire gives him permission.

  34. Bors's protests at Magdalena's stories in Book XVII are my invention.

  35. Horses are not cars.

  36. No one is ever named Sir Arglebargle, nor is the name 'Sir Guy Incognito' every tossed around.

  37. Trudy's multiple appearances can more easily be attributed to different ladies. But come on, I've got to amuse myself somehow.

##  Abridged Index of Knight Names

Additional bonus material! The funny knight names, or the ones I liked at least. Knights in italics are part of a set.

Mister 100, the King with a Hundred Knights

King Brandegoris of Stranggore aka Morgamore aka Brangoris aka Brandegore

King Agwisance of Ireland aka Anguish

Sir Balin

Sir Balan

Sir Brian of the Forest

Sir Brian of the Isles

The King of the Lake

Sir Wisshard, the worst knight name

Sir Floridas

Sir Ethelwold

The Duke of Dutchmen

Sir Gilbert the Bastard

Sir Phelot

Sir Pedivere

Sir Percard, the Red Knight of the Red Lands

Sir Ironside, the other Red Knight of the Red Lands (not Sir Percard, a different guy)

Sir Gringamore

Sir Grummore Grummursum

Sir Sadok

Sir Dinas, not the same knight as Sir Dinadan, Sir Dodinas, or Sir Dinant

Sir Dodinas the Thug, not the same knight as Sir Dinas, Sir Dinadan, or Sir Dinant

Sir Dinadan, not the same knight as Sir Dinas, Sir Dodinas, or Sir Dinant

Sir Dinant, not the same knight as Sir Dinas, Sir Dodinas, or Sir Dinadan

Sir Godelake

Sir Epinogrus

Sir Malegrin

Sir Segwarides

Sir Adtherp

Sir Famous Hebes, aka Sir Hebes le Renoumes

Pitiless Bruce, aka Breuse Sans Pity

Sir Kehydius, son of Howel and brother of Isoud the White

Earl Grip

Sir Suppinabiles

Sir Frol of the Outer Islands

Sir Belliance the Orgulous

Sir Dagonet, Arthur's jester

Sir Driant

Sir Darras

Sir Daname, Darras's nephew

Sir Hemison, Morgan's lover

Sir "Good Uwaine" Uwaine, Sir Uwaine's brother also named Uwaine

Sir Cari from Gomeret

Sir Guy from Cameliard

King Hermance

Sir Helius

Sir Herlake

Sir Hermind

King of the best part of Wales with many other countries

Sir Weird Kainus, aka Sir Kainus le Strange

Sir Plaine the Forceful aka Plaine de Fors aka Plaine de Force

Sir Plaine the Lusty aka Plaine de Amours

The Earl of Plaines

Sir Colgrevance

King Labor

Sir Tirre

Sir Urre

<<<<>>>>

Copyright © 2014 by Jeffrey Wikstrom

If you enjoyed Something About a Sword and a Stone? without having already read the rest of the Arthur Dies at the End series, I wholeheartedly implore you to seek them out! Visit my web site, www.jeffwik.com, for links!
