The tenant’s name is Hob, and his anger is a mill-toll with nowhere to go. He talks with his hands.

“Multure,” he says. “We must grind at Hew’s mill—manor mill—and leave a portion. I know why. Stones cost. Wheel costs. Hew does not cheat me with a hollow measure; I have watched.” He holds up a thumb, then two. “Still stings when the field was thin and week-work already took a day I needed—days on the demesne, the lord’s own strips. Not a song. A contract. I paid it. I still have to eat.”

You listen, because Hew told you listening is part of the indenture. Hob is not wrong that the system bites. Hew is not wrong that a cracked stone is everyone’s bite at once.

“If the stone fails,” Hob says, quieter, “I still owe, and I cannot grind, and that is a joke I will not laugh at. Court should hear the crack and the sting together. Or you show them Hew’s honesty at the stone itself, where grit does not lie.”