So Anguish goes to Tristram, looking for him first in the bath, then in his bedroom, and finally finding him out in the stables, where he’s suited up and packing to leave.  Famous Hebes told him about Queen Isoud’s attack, so he knows the jig is up.

“Crap,” says Tristram when he sees him.  “Well, I suppose we’re jousting now.”  He mounts up and draws his weapon, and waits for Anguish to do likewise.

“No point,” says Anguish,  “You’ve got, what, maybe thirty years on me?  Besides, my guards would cut you down eventually.  But listen here, I always liked you, and my daughter too, and so, listen, I’ll let you leave my land in peace, if you tell me who you really are, and whether you killed my brother-in-law Marhaus.”

“Sir, I am Sir Tristram of Liones, son of King Meliodas and Queen Elizabeth, whose brother is King Mark of Cornwall.  I was born in the forest, where my mother died in childbirth, and named Tristram for my sorrowful birth…”

“I didn’t ask for your whole life story.”

“Sorry.  Anyway, long story short, I’ve been calling myself Tramtrist because I didn’t want you to know who I was, and it’s a clever pseudonym you’d never have guessed ever, right?  But yeah, as a favor for King Mark I fought with Sir Marhaus, which was my very first strange adventure.”

“Well, under the circumstances I can understand,” says Anguish.  “I sent Marhaus to Cornwall to fight Mark or Mark’s champion, after all.  But if I let you stick around here, my wife will kill me.  I mean, literally, she will have one of her many cousins kill me and seize my throne.”

“I’ll just be going then,” says Tristram.  “No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings.”

“Cool.  If we ever meet up again, in England maybe, I’ll look on you as a friend, and do you service.  In the meantime, I will do great deeds in honor of milady, your daughter, the lovely Isoud.”

“Check.”

Tristram and the lovely Isoud have a touching goodbye scene, wherein Tristram recaps the first eight chapters of Book VIII to bring her up to speed.  The lovely Isoud sobs and Tristram cries a single manly tear, probably.  He thanks her one more time for saving her life, and she promises not to marry anyone else for seven years, unless Tristram gives her permission, which is either more weird sexism or kinky power exchange stuff, I’m guessing the former.  They exchange rings, and Tristram leaves for Cornwall.

Actually, before he leaves for Cornwall, he does a victory lap around Anguish’s court and all the barons and Queen Isoud and her cousins, and he announces that he’s Sir Tristram, badass knight from Liones, in Cornwall, and that he killed Sir Marhaus and that he’s now going into voluntary exile from Ireland, unless someone would rather joust him right here, right now, and avenge Marhaus.  Anyone?  Anyone?

Tristram didn’t think so.  He spits on the ground, glares at “some knights that were of the queen’s blood, and Marhaus’s blood, but they would not meddle with him.”

Tristram OUT.  He drops the mike, walks offstage.