Erling woke, reluctantly, to the greatest pain he'd ever felt. His whole body ached in a way he hadn't felt since the year he insisted on picking grapes alongside the commoners in his vineyards.
At the time, he thought that it was important to understand the labor that sustained Fayle barony, so he spent several days filling basket after basket with bunches of grapes and carrying them back to be crushed into juice.
He worked from sun up to sun down with the hot sun burning overhead and few moments to rest. By the end of it, he'd gained a profound respect for the men who worked in the vineyards. He also found muscles he didn't know he'd possessed when those muscles started to cramp and complain at the abuse he'd put them through.
That was how he felt now. Like every muscle and sinew had been stretched to the limit again and again, right up to the point they should snap.
