Book two, chapters 4-6: Sir Balin kills an orgulous idiot of a knight

Today's Arthur-reading bonus: I learnt a new word. Orgulous. It means haughty. 

Sir Lanceor, son of the Irish king and a knight of the round table, was a very orgulous knight. He got pissed off with Balin for drawing the magic sword (see previous entry) after Lanceor had failed. So pissed off, in fact, that he asks Arthur's permission to ride after Balin and kill him as revenge! WTF? That's some serious orgulousity right there! (Just kidding: "Orgulousity" is not actually a word.) King Arthur, still mad at Balin for decapitating Lake Lady, says okay. 

Suddenly Merlin arrives! He declares to everyone that Lake Lady was right, and Sword Lady really is a terrible bitch. Everyone goes wut? Yes, Merlin says, and I will tell you why (here comes the backstory I wanted last time!):
Sword Lady had a brother, a really good knight. She also had a boyfriend. Her brother didn't want anyone to bang his sister, so he killed the boyfriend. Now Sword Lady got really mad at her brother for doing this. So she went to the Lady Lile of Avelion and asked her for help. Lady Lile put the magic sword on her, and said that a great knight will be able to pull it out of its sheath, and after that happens, the same knight will end up slaying Sword Lady's brother.
Apparently Sword Lady thought this was a great plan at first, but from what we saw last time, she seems to have regretted putting this fate on Balin afterwards.
Merlin goes on to say that Balin is now dooooomed, dooooomed I tell ye, and this is super tragic, since he's the best ever. 

It seems, in this part of the text, as if the real evil of Sword Lady was that she conspired to murder her own brother. Even though said brother did kill her boyfriend, and this is the kind of thing that people normally think warrants vengeance by death in this book (heck, way smaller matters are considered sufficient grounds for killing your enemey - see Sir Lanceor's hate of Balin above). I guess him being her brother makes all the difference here.

Anyway. Sir Lanceor arms himself, rides after sir Balin, catches up with him and challenges him to a joust. Balin doesn't even know who Lanceor is (I guess because Lanceor joined King Arthur's court during the time Balin spent in the dungeon). Balin also (reasonably) thinks that Lanceor wants to avenge Lake Lady, rather than restore his pride after Balin drew a sword that Lanceor couldn't. When they joust, Sir Balin runs his lance straight through a) Lanceor's horse's neck, b) Lanceor's shield, and c) Lanceor's armour, all in one go, and both knight and horse drop dead.
I'm gonna go ahead and mark this blog entry with "superpowered knights", since, seriously... that's some jousting! (Balin's horse might need powers to for this to even begin making sense.)
Then Balin feels sad over killing Lanceor. And, yeah... he was killed for extremely stupid reasons, but on the other hand, Lanceor started it, and Balin only agreed to joust with him because he insisted. 

Next thing he knows, a lady rides up on a horse, says she was Lanceor's girlfriend, and now when he's dead, she's got nothing more to live for. She jumps off the horse, takes Lanceor's sword, and immediately faints. Then she wakes up again, and makes "great dole out of measure". Balin tries to take the sword from her, but he can't, since she's holding on so tight that he fears he might hurt her. So she commits suicide with it. Considering the super strength that sir Balin just displayed, I'm calling bullshit on him being unable to stop her from killing herself; he probably thought it was just easier to let her do it than dealing with her.

Right after this sir Balin's brother sir Balan rides up to him. They take off their helmets, hug and kiss. Balin asks what Balan is doing there, and Balan says he heard a rumour that Balin finally got out of the dungeon, so he "rode to this country" to look for him.
This raises so many questions.
If Balan wasn't even in England, then a) how did he hear about what happened at Camelot this same day? (I went back and re-read some parts but... it really does seem like it's still the same day.) Did they have magic telephones or something? Messenger ravens a la Game of Thrones with superspeed? b) What are the odds he'll actually come across Balin as soon as he rides over to England to look for him... like, England is pretty big?

Anyway. 

Sir Balin tells Sir Balan everything that happened, including his plan to get back into King Arthur's good graces by killing King Rience of North Wales, a.k.a. the creepy beard taylor. Right now, he lies at siege at Castle Terrabil. Balan promises to help his brother Balin with this, and they ride off together.