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