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Page 378
face gray-white and covered with a sheen of sweat, his breathing shallow and uneven. Although his violent sickness had subsided when he cleared his breakfast from his stomach, he had remained too nauseated to eat or drink anything since their return. Even now his food and wine sat untouched before him on the table. The King's eyes flicked from Simon's face to the full plate and goblet.
"Salt fish," he said.
All eyes turned toward Richard, most containing blank amazement, but William du Bois and two other gentlemen from southern France nodded energetically.
"Harry," Richard said to the young squire who stood behind him to serve, "get me some raw salt fish at once." The boy ran off and Richard turned to look at Simon again. "When came this weakness upon you?" he asked.
Simon opened his mouth to deny anything was amiss, then cast a furious glance at Alinor, and shrugged. "When I ran to catch a mount, my lord."
"See," Richard said, "that comes of burying oneself in a country where the sun never shines and it rains so much that a man feels his toes and fingers will rot off or take root."
The squire returned with a limp herring on a salver. Richard waved him toward Simon. "Eat," he ordered.
Simon swallowed convulsively and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.
Richard laughed uproariously. "I know in this moment you would like to murder me," he chortled, "but by Christ's ten toes I mean you only good. Eat, I say. Now! Before your gorge rises."
Terrified at what she had brought upon Simon, for Richard was well known to love a practical joke, Alinor hurriedly cut the head and tail from the fish and severed three small sections from which she tore the skin and bone. Pulling Simon's eating knife from its sheath, she speared a piece and presented it to him,

 
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