He took another long swallow of the sweet milk, finding he had precious little stomach to pick up the iron hoe just yet. He still intended to finish the furrow before dusk swallowed the sky, but the dirt could wait a minute longer.
In truth, he didn't need to break his back out here at all. He could fling the tool into the ditch, wander back to the cottage, and snore on his straw pallet until midday tomorrow if the whim took him. He was paying for every bowl of pottage and every inch of roof with good, hard silver, far more lavishly than a hedge knight ought to throw around for a roof like that, truth be told.
Yet pride was a stubborn beast, or perhaps it was just the itching dread of sitting idle under another man's thatch.He personally blamed his father for that. He always had to keep busy whenever his father was awake or mrerely not drunk.
