midday
God keep you , for you stand in need of it . ' * * * * * At supper that night there sat all such knights and lordlings as ate at the King 's expense in the great hall that was in the midmost of the castle , looking on to the courtyard . There were not such a many of them , maybe forty ; from the keeper of the Queen 's records , the Lord d'Espahn , who sat at the table head , down to the lowest of all , the young Poins , who sat far below the salt-cellar . The greater lords of the Queen 's household , like the Lord Dacre of the North , did not eat at this common table , or only when the Queen herself there ate , which she did at midday when there was a feast . Nevertheless , this eating was conducted with gravity , the Lord d'Espahn keeping a vigilant eye down the table , which was laid with a fair white cloth . It cost a man a fine to be drunk before the white meats were eaten -- unless , indeed , a man came drunk to the board -- and the salt-cellar of state stood a-midmost of the cloth . It was of silver from Holland , and represented a globe of the earth , opened at the top , and supported by knights ' bannerets .