"I can't wait till sunset," Percy said.

"Well, I can," Annabeth replied. "I still have to cook dinner then and you'll have to fetch more kindling."

"We'll be out of the cold," Percy pointed out.

Annabeth snorted as she grasped an onion and pulled it out from the ground. Her hands were smeared with dirt and her hair was messy, but her grey eyes gleamed. Percy suspected that she enjoyed their bantering more than he did.

"And I can help cook tonight," Percy offered.

Annabeth's hands stopped moving for a few moments as she looked up at him. "That would be very helpful."

"Then, I'll do it," Percy said as he squatted down and began digging up onions; he had previously been helping harvest oats with a few other men.

Percy was becoming more accustomed to the life of a peasant, but it had involved several rude awakenings. The hunger was the hardest thing for him to grow used to; he had always eaten his liking in the castle. The only hunger he had ever known was when his hunting trips lasted too long and even then, it was tolerable. The hunger he was experiencing now was different. It was the kind that made it difficult to sleep. It was the kind that made you feel tired and weak, but also energized and alert. It was the kind of hunger that made Percy realize why someone would risk their life to steal a loaf of bread.

Next to the hunger, the work was the next hardest thing. Percy realized that peasants were some of the hardest working folk in the kingdom. He still woke up with sore arms and legs from hours of digging, carrying, and hauling things. As a king, he was meant to be the head of the state. He now realized that peasants were the feet.

Percy was thinking of the smaller adjustments like fewer baths and different social events when he heard two loud voices. He grasped the onion he had been digging up, set it in the pile, and looked up to see two men shouting at one another.

Percy recognized the two men from the previous Sabbath service. One, a scrawny man with wiry hair named Tantalus, was trying to snatch something from a blotchy-faced man named Dionysus. The two men were both so unpleasant that Percy was half-tempted to ignore the squabble until he heard their exchange.

       "That's my handkerchief," Tantalus said. "You hear me? Mine. Give it back."

        Dionysus side-stepped Tantalus and smirked as the latter nearly tripped while snatching at air. "You shouldn't be trying to steal my wife's handkerchief," Dionysus said.

        Percy stood up quickly. A woman's honor was involved. As the king of Chestnutia and head of the knights, he was raised on the code of chivalry. However much he disliked these two men, he had to protect Ariadne's reputation.

      "Percy, what are you doing?" Annabeth demanded.

      "What chivalry requires," Percy said and he quickly walked away before she could dissuade him.

      "Look, I never stole your wife's handkerchief," Tantalus said. "Maybe she gave it to me."

    Dionysus was growing extremely purple in the face, so Percy stepped between the two men. "Ariadne would do no such thing," he said. "She is a good and chaste wife. For you to even slander her good name, Tantalus, is outrageous."

     "Oh shut, will you?" Tantalus said. "You're not some priest and besides, everyone knows Ariadne is a loose woman. Why else did such a beautiful woman marry a man like Dionysus? She wasn't a virgin when they exchanged vows."

      "Don't you dare insult my wife!" Dionysus yelled.

     "You're not even denying the truth!" Tantalus said, his face contorted into a gleeful sneer. "Your wife is a little minx. I doubt her sons are your own—"

     "Why you little—" Dionysus snarled.

       "That's enough!" Percy said in his most commanding tone. "Tantalus, go work over in the oat fields. Dionysus, you can help Annabeth and I harvest the onions."

    He glared at both men until they complied. Later that night, Annabeth asked him why he did it as he helped her make soup.

     "I couldn't let Tantalus ruin Ariadne's good name," Percy said.

     "What if what he is saying is true?" Annabeth asked. "The other women—"

     "It's still wrong to tarnish a woman's name," Percy said. "It's against the code of chivalry."

     "Seaweed Brain, you're supposed to live like a peasant for a month," Annabeth said.

     "And I am," Percy said. "Chivalry isn't just for knights. Peasants must have their own code. They just haven't named it yet."

   Annabeth shook her head, but Percy stuck by his belief. If there was one thing he had learned from this experience, it was that there were peasants as honorable as knights and knights as honorable as thieves.