Balin Captures King Rience

Balin and Balan’s capture of King Rience is a carefully arranged ambush that gives King Arthur a formidable enemy as prisoner and brings the brothers’ prowess to the king’s attention. Guided by Merlin, they intercept Rience on the road, overcome his party, and accept his surrender rather than kill him; Merlin then reveals Balin’s identity and foretells the brothers’ coming loss.

Merlin’s counsel and the ambush

Merlin lodges the brothers in a wood beside the highway and has them rest until near midnight. He tells them that Rience is approaching with sixty of his best knights, while twenty riders have gone ahead to warn Lady De Vance of the king’s arrival. Rather than meet the party at random, Balin and Balan wait in a narrow way where Merlin says they will encounter him.

When the brothers meet Rience, they strike him down and fight his escort, killing more than forty of his men. The rest flee. The encounter is both a military success and a test of what the brothers will do with a defeated opponent: they would have killed Rience, but he asks them to spare him, arguing that his life can benefit them whereas his death cannot.

Surrender and delivery to Arthur

Balin and Balan accept the appeal and take Rience on a horse-litter to King Arthur. Merlin has already gone ahead to tell Arthur that his chief enemy has been captured and defeated by two knights. When Arthur asks who they are, Merlin postpones the answer until the following day.

The brothers arrive at dawn with their prisoner and leave again after handing him to the porters. Arthur asks Rience how he came into his custody; Rience identifies the captors as the knight with two swords and his brother, praising them as knights of remarkable prowess. Arthur says he does not know them but is indebted to them. Merlin then names Balin as the knight who achieved the sword and Balan as his brother, commending Balan’s prowess and worth.

Prowess, gratitude, and foreboding

The capture strengthens Arthur’s position against an enemy Merlin says is preparing to attack with a large host the next day. The immediate success therefore leads directly into a larger military danger: Rience is in Arthur’s hands, but the conflict around him is not over.

The scene also gives the brothers recognition at Arthur’s court while placing that recognition under a shadow. Merlin calls their achievement a great service, yet predicts that Balin will not endure long and says his death will be the greatest sorrow he has known of a knight. Arthur responds with pity and acknowledges that Balin’s kindness has earned more gratitude than Arthur has yet shown him. The successful capture thus establishes both the brothers’ value to the king and the tragic expectation attached to Balin’s future.