Launcelot’s slaying of Sir Turquine frees sixty-four imprisoned knights and ends a feud rooted in Turquine’s hatred of Launcelot. The rescue begins when a damsel leads Launcelot to the captor’s manor, but the encounter becomes a test of identity and allegiance: Turquine offers friendship and the captives’ release to an opponent who will name himself, then rejects peace when Launcelot proves to be the knight he has sworn to kill. After Turquine’s defeat, Launcelot makes Sir Gaheris responsible for releasing the prisoners and rides on with the damsel, keeping his promise to help her and other distressed women.

The damsel’s request and Turquine’s captives

A damsel riding a white palfrey encounters Launcelot in a forest and offers to lead him to a formidable knight, provided he identifies himself. Launcelot gives his name, and she names the knight as Sir Turquine. He has sixty-four knights of Arthur’s court in his prison, captured by his own prowess. The damsel also asks Launcelot to help her and other women whom she says are daily distressed by a false knight. Launcelot agrees to fulfill her request if she takes him to Turquine, joining the immediate rescue to a promise of further service.

The damsel leads him to a ford and a tree where a basin hangs. Launcelot strikes the basin with the butt of his spear until its bottom falls out, then rides alongside the manor. He sees Turquine approaching with a bound, wounded knight laid across a horse. Recognizing the captive as Sir Gaheris, brother of Sir Gawaine and a fellow of the Round Table, Launcelot announces that he will rescue him. He also suspects that two of his own brothers are prisoners there, and says he intends to free all the captives if Turquine cannot defend them. The rescue therefore begins not as an abstract challenge but with a recognizable fellow knight being carried away in captivity.

The offer of peace and the disclosed feud

Before fighting, Launcelot tells Turquine to put the wounded Gaheris down and let him rest. Launcelot challenges Turquine over the shame he has inflicted on knights of the Round Table. Turquine, in turn, declares that if Launcelot belongs to the fellowship, he defies both him and all its members. The confrontation is thus framed as more than a contest between two strong knights: it pits Turquine’s hostility toward the Round Table against Launcelot’s stated duty to defend its members.

Their first charge ends with both horses collapsing beneath them. They continue on foot, exchanging blows until both are wounded and exhausted. After fighting for more than two hours, they pause, leaning on their swords. Turquine praises his opponent’s size and endurance and says that, if he is not the man Turquine hates above all others, he will make peace, release all sixty-four prisoners, and become his companion. The offer makes the cost of disclosure immediate: friendship and freedom for the captives are conditionally available, but only if the opponent is not Launcelot.

Asked to identify the hated knight, Turquine explains that Launcelot killed his brother, Sir Carados, at the Dolorous Tower. He says that he has killed a hundred good knights and maimed as many more for Launcelot’s sake, and that sixty-four captives remain in his prison. This account reveals the motive behind the mass imprisonment and makes clear that the proposed reconciliation excludes the very person Turquine has pursued. Launcelot answers that his identity might have brought peace had he been someone else, but now reveals that he is Launcelot, son of King Ban of Benwick and a knight of the Round Table. Turquine welcomes the disclosure as a reason they will not part until one is dead, and the personal feud resumes.

Turquine’s defeat and the prison opened

After the renewed fight, Turquine grows faint and lowers his shield. Launcelot seizes the opening, pulls him down by his helmet, removes his helm, and kills him. The defeat resolves the conflict that had stood between the prisoners and their freedom; rather than claiming Turquine’s offer of fellowship, Launcelot ends the feud on its terms and turns immediately to the practical work of rescue.

Launcelot tells the damsel he is ready to accompany her, but has no horse. She offers Gaheris’s horse, and Launcelot asks Gaheris to lend it. Gaheris agrees, saying Launcelot has saved both him and his horse and calling him the best knight in the world. When Gaheris asks his name, Launcelot identifies himself and explains that he owed help to Gaheris for Arthur’s sake and especially because Gaheris is Sir Gawaine’s brother. He points out that the manor contains many Round Table knights, their shields visible outside, including those of Sir Kay, Sir Marhaus, and Launcelot’s brothers Sir Ector de Maris and Sir Lionel.

The horse makes it possible for Launcelot to keep moving, but his obligation to the damsel determines what he does next. He asks Gaheris to greet the prisoners, tell them to take what they find, and have his brothers wait for him at court. He expects to be there by the feast of Pentecost, but says that he must now ride with the damsel to fulfill his promise. The rescue is therefore not a conclusion to his journey: even after freeing his companion and defeating Turquine, Launcelot leaves the newly opened manor to continue the service he pledged.

Gaheris and the captives’ return to freedom

Gaheris goes into the manor and throws the porter to the ground, taking the keys and opening the prison door. The captives release one another from their bonds. They initially thank Gaheris, believing that he had been wounded in the encounter. He corrects them: Launcelot, not Gaheris, defeated Turquine, and Gaheris witnessed the victory. He also passes on Launcelot’s greeting and request that they hurry to court; Sir Ector de Maris and Sir Lionel are asked to wait there for their brother.

Launcelot’s brothers refuse to wait and set out to find him, as does Sir Kay. The freed knights retrieve their own armour, horses, and other belongings from the manor. A forester then arrives with four horses laden with venison. Sir Kay remarks that the group has not had a good meal in many days, and the venison is roasted, baked, and boiled for supper. Some knights stay at the manor overnight, while Sir Lionel, Sir Ector de Maris, and Sir Kay ride after Launcelot. The account thus carries the rescue through its aftermath: captivity gives way to recovered equipment, food, and the renewed movement of the knights toward court and toward Launcelot.

Rescue, fellowship, and obligation

The event links individual prowess to the duties of fellowship. Launcelot acts when he recognizes Gaheris, and he explicitly connects his intervention to service owed to Arthur and to Gaheris’s kinship with Sir Gawaine. His victory releases the broader company, but the captives’ freedom depends on the sequence of actions after the duel: Gaheris receives the horse, enters the manor, takes the keys, and opens the prison so the knights can free one another.

The episode also sets rival forms of loyalty against each other. Turquine offers Launcelot peace and companionship only on the condition that he is not the man Turquine hates; once Launcelot names himself, vengeance overrides the offer and the captives remain at the center of the danger. Launcelot, by contrast, makes his name the basis of accountability and follows the victory by honoring a different commitment: he leaves with the damsel because he has promised to help her. The rescued knights’ return to their equipment and their pursuit of Launcelot extend that contrast from the duel into the ending, where release restores movement and fellowship without bringing the companions immediately back together.