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-we
nch 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