Garlon of Listineise

   Garlon was the brother of King Pellam. For all of the worshipfulness of Pellam, Garlon seems the black sheep. He kills Sir Herlews le Berbeus and later Sir Perin de Montbeliard. There is a possibility that Garlon may have attacked Herlews because of some unknown quest that Herlews was on with a damsel but the death of Perin is less clear. Perin joined Balin after he took up Herlew's quest. If Garlon wanted to stop the quest, why did he not also attack Balin for he was invisible according to Malory? His lack of honor is additionally clarified when the story is related from a rich gentle man that Garlon had wounded the man's son because the gentle man had bested Garlon in a recent jousting. He was also quick to take offense. When he espies Balin looking at him, he confronts and challenges him. Balin rises up and cleaves him to the shoulders with his sword and then takes the truncheon (the point of a jousting spear that broke off in the body of Herlews) and smote Garlon through the body with it stating that he had slain a good man with it and now it sticketh in his body. The good man's father needed the blood of Garlon to cure his son. Either Pellam did not know of his brother's foul acts or did not care, for he rose up to revenge his brother's death.
   Malory does not explain how Garlon ventured forth invisible but there is precedent for the gift of invisibility, the cloak of invisibility that is one of the thirteen treasures.