Gawaine’s still dining with Sir Carados, and Carados is still telling him about Pellas.  Pellas won a tournament, specifically for Ettard’s honor.

“Very sweet,” says Gawaine.

“What you don’t know, though, is that Ettard was not into Pellas at all.  I don’t know why.  She liked lots of men, but zero of them were Pellas.”

“Oh, I see.”

“All the other maidens at the tournament were extremely jealous of her, for Pellas could have had his pick of any of them, and he wanted Ettard, and she treated him with scorn, refused his circlet, and went back to her castle.”

“Uh huh.”

“Pellas followed her, plighting troth the whole time, swearing never to leave her…”

“I’m not going to get out of here without hearing this whole story, huh?”

“Long story short, he’s a crazy stalker, she keeps refusing him and sending her knights off to defeat him, and then he’ll let himself get captured by them.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Gawaine says.  “He totally let himself get captured!  They tied him up to his horse’s belly.”

“Heh!” Carados snickers.  “He was lucky then.  Usually they tie him up so his face is directly under the horse’s tail.”

“Ew!”

“Whenever they capture him, Ettard’s knights take Pellas back to Ettard’s castle, where she chews him out and tells him to get out of her lands, and he puts up with it because it’s his only chance to see her.  Then she has him dumped in a ditch outside her castle.”

“Man just can’t take a hint,” says Gawaine.  “So, Trixie, is it my strange adventure quest to unite Pellas and Ettard?”

 

At this point Gawaine notices that Trixie dumped him halfway through the last chapter.

 

“Oh.  Shoot,” says Gawaine.  “Shoot.  Well, okay.  I guess it’s my quest to unite them.  I’m working without a playbook here.  Can you direct me to Pellas?”

Carados can, in fact, point Gawaine towards the ditch where Pellas inevitably ends up after he’s captured, and Gawaine wastes no more time in going there and finding the man.

“Ho, Pellas!”

“I remember you,” says Pellas.  “You were the one who didn’t help me!”

“Yeah, but I’m helping you now.  My name is Gawaine and I’m here to help.  So what’s the trouble?”

Pellas launches into another telling of his failed romancing of Ettard, the tourney, the beatings, the scorn, and so on.

“And every time I fight her knights, and demonstrate my devotion to her…”

“Check check,” says Gawaine.  “I get it.  I get it.”

“There are so many tales of chivalrous knights overcoming obstacles to win a lady’s love, surely my story is just one many.”

“Yeah, okay.”  Gawaine thinks for a second.  “So I’ll get you your lady, Pellas, I swear to you on my father King Lot’s grave and my uncle King Arthur’s Round Table, of which I am a knight did I mention I’m a knight of the Round Table and Arthur is my uncle?”

“No, but that’s awesome!  If your uncle is King Arthur then surely I can trust you.”

“Yeah, you can trust me.  Here’s what we do.  You give me your horse and armor and everything, and I’ll ride up to her castle and make out like I killed you and have come to her castle to demand her love.  She’ll realize she loved you, but you’re dead, and then, boom, you pop up alive again!  This plan is utterly foolproof!  It can’t fail!”

 

NEXT CHAPTER: GAWAINE’S PLAN FAILS!