Hawaiian certificate and a chart and timetable and deck of Powerpoint slides showing that Gorlas had been dead for three hours when Uther and Igraine slept together and that less than two weeks later Uther and Igraine wed. So Arthur was definitely not illegitimate and his claim to the throne was unassailable.
"Well, shoot," said the assembled kings.
"He's definitely king, you guys," said Merlin. "And he'll be king for a long time, King of All England, including Wales and Scotland and Ireland. The whole schmear. Unless someone murders him, I mean. If he dies young, say putting down a civil war, then he won't be king long. But for right now he's totally the rightful king."
King Lot, at this point, had gotten sick and tired of Merlin and his damnable Powerpoint slides. Lot called him a "witch" as well as a "tiresome jack-ass," and refused to accept what Merlin was saying. But he was in the minority; the other kings by and large were at least willing to hear Arthur out.
Early the next morning, in his tower, Arthur woke up to find a soothsayer in his bedroom.
"Who are you and how did you get in here?" Arthur demanded, not unreasonably.
Merlin said not to worry, he was Merlin. And yes, this was technically the first time they met (at least it's the first record Malory makes of their meeting) but it was all cool, come out of the tower and have a nice civil sit-down with the kings.
"The kings who are trying to kill me?" asked Arthur.
"The very same!" said Merlin. "And some of them still want to kill you, so, you know, when you talk to them, sound tough."
Arthur for whatever reason completely accepted Merlin's advice, and went out to chat with the other kings, though under his party clothes he wore a suit of armor. That couldn't have been comfortable.
They were all, so you're Arthur son of Uther who thinks he's better than us, and Arthur was all, so you're Lot and Uriens and Mister 100 and the other guys whose names I can't remember, who dispute my divinely-granted right to rule you like, and I mean this literally, a king.
"Grr!" said the kings. "We'll never bow to you!"
"Grr!" said Arthur. "I'll make you bow to me!"
"Grr!" said the kings. "No way! We're leaving!"
"Grr!" said Arthur. "Well thanks for coming out! Have a nice trip back!"
"Grr!" said the kings. "Oh, we will! We're doing some antiquing on the way home!"
"Grr!" said Arthur. "Be sure to get a gift basket on your way out! It's mostly fruit! Stay healthy!"
"Grr!" said the kings... anyway, this went on for a while because neither side wanted to let the other have the last word, but eventually the kings left. Merlin caught up to them and was like, what now?
"Listen, Merle, get out of my face. I'm really not in the mood right now," said Lot.
"Pshaw!" Merlin returned to Arthur. "Hey Arthur," he said, "go attack Lot. He was mean to me just now."
"Sure," said Arthur.
Arthur was in the middle of a big crowd of his knights who were all saying things like "you did great back there boss" and "you sure told them, huh boss."
"Great," said Merlin. "But listen, don't pull out your new magic sword-from-the-stone sword. Use a regular sword until you're right in the shit, and then draw Excalibur. It'll be great."
90% sure that the sword-in-the-stone sword isn't Excalibur, but Malory has Merlin call it Excalibur here, so, that happens.
"Sure sure," said Arthur. He and his knights hopped onto horses and rode off to attack the various other kings and their knights, as they packed up to go.
Big fight scene! Sir Baudwin killed a guy! Sir Kay killed a guy! Sir Brastias was getting up in years but he killed a guy also! King Arthur killed a pile of guys!
Counterattack! The other kings and their knights mounted horses and circled around and got our boys from behind! Mister 100 was just laying into them! Oh no! Someone killed Arthur's horse! Arthur is down! King Lot is kicking him in the stomach and laughing! Why aren't the refs stopping this?!
Arthur's men rescue him! It's a classic play, folks, real textbook medieval combat you can tell your kids about! He's back on another horse! He's pulling out -- is that a magic sword?
Yes, I think it must be his magic sword which may or may not be named Excalibur! You can tell because all of his enemies were blinded! Arthur's just cutting into them now! Really making the most of that +1 to attack and damage!
The crowd loves it! We've got a capacity crowd here at Caerlaeon Stadium, and every one of them is on their feet shouting ARTHUR! ARTHUR! Now they're spilling over onto the field and rioting and attacking Arthur's enemies! This is one for the history books!
Then Lot and the other kings fled, because it was either that or start trying to kill all the peasants in the region. Was Arthur going to chase them down and kill them? No, no, Arthur's head coach Merlin pulled him out of there instead.
Final score Arthur sixty-three, Lot and Mister 100 et cetera seven.
After the battle, Arthur headed back to London, where Merlin told him to call all his barons together for a planning session. Team Lot & Mister 100 were dangerous business, not folks whom Arthur could just ignore. Arthur assembled everyone together for a planning session, they sat down at the royal whiteboard and then, silence.
"Okay, pitches!" Arthur snapped his fingers. "Pitches, I want to hear pitches."
And the barons exchanged glances and they shrugged. They'd tried nothing and they were out of ideas. Their best plan was "have a big fight with Team Lot & Mister 100," which was also Arthur's best idea, and he was worried it wasn't a very good idea.
So Arthur called in Merlin. "Okay," he said. "I know you said to get everyone together and hammer out a plan, but we're flailing here. What are we missing?"
Merlin nodded. "Well, first off Team Lot & Mister 100 has recruited four more kings while you guys have been sitting here, which brings them up to a total of ten kings. You, Arthur, are one king. 10 to 1. Those aren't great odds."
"Well, I could win or I could lose, so that's fifty-fifty, right?" asked Arthur. The only math Arthur knew was how to keep track of the score in jousting.
"That is not how that works," said Merlin. "Listen, though, I got a plan. You know France, right?"
"Right."
"And you know Benwick, right?"
"Of course," said Arthur. "Who hasn't heard of the powerful and mighty Western European nation of Benwick, and its mighty capital Castle Benwick, with all of those Roman ruins, rich history, center of art and commerce?"
"So I happen to know Bors, the King of France, and Ban, the King of Benwick. They're a couple of good dudes with a pile of knights each. They'll make great allies."
"Cool," said Arthur. "But how do I bring them on board?"
"Not a problem," said Merlin. "There's this other guy, King Claudas, I don't even need to tell you where he's king of, he's at war with France and Benwick both at once. There's this one castle that all three of them claim, and Claudas is kicking their asses, really, it's shameful."
"Mmm-hmm." Arthur considered. "So you want me to ally with losers. Lot won't be expecting that."
"What you do is," said Merlin, "what you do is you contact Ban and Bors and promise to help them defeat Claudas if they help you defeat Team Lot & Mister 100."
"Sounds sharp to me," said Arthur. "I'm sold on this plan. This was a great planning session. Thanks for the idea of holding a planning session, Merlin!"
King Arthur got his two best knights -- Brastias and Ulfius, the two guys he used for everything, the old firm, I dunno whatever happened to Sir Jordanus but it couldn't have been pretty. He wrote out a couple of nice letters to Bors and Ban and gave one letter to each of Brastias and Ulfius. Brastias and Ulfius sailed out to the city of Antwerp Benwick, which was where Bors and Ban ware. No, I don't know why Bors the King of France was in Benwick. Their trip was super uneventful except at the end as they were going into the city they bumped into this gang of eight knights.
"You're under arrest on suspicion of not being from around here," said the eight knights.
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"It's cool," said Brastias and Ulfius. "We're King Arthur's men, here to deliver letters to Bors and Ban about teaming up to take out Claudas."
"Oh, then you're double under arrest," said the eight knights. "We're Claudas's men. We were just hanging out in Benwick behind enemy lines causing trouble. We'll take you back home and ransom you. It'll be great for us, expensive for Arthur, and humiliating for you two. Also Bors and Ban will be humiliated. That's a win-win-win!"
"That doesn't sound like a good deal for us," said Brastias and Ulfius, so there's a fight.
No one wanted to kill anyone else during this fight, so they wrapped up their spears in pillows before they get started. At first there were two on Arthur's side and eight on Claudas's, then was two and six, then two and four, then two and two, and I guess the last two of Claudas's men declined to retreat because pretty soon all eight of them were lying on the ground, bruised and pillow-to-the-faced. Brastias and Ulfius rode on into Benwick.
Ah, Benwick! City of Cod! Have you ever been to Benwick? How's the Benwick cuisine? I've always wanted to see the big museum there.
They were stopped by a couple more knights, Sir Phariance and Sir Lionses (whose names sound remarkably made-up and fake). They assumed it was going to be more of the same, but no, Phariance and Lionses had been sent by Bors and Ban to investigate this story that was going around the city about Arthur having sent a couple of messengers in. The messengers were supposedly hella badass, able to take on four-to-one odds.
Ulfius and