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