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 f
irst 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