Osric’s roll smells of smoke and damp leather.

You read names: timber from a mill that is not your adventure, stone promised, pontage taken at Easter, spent on the south starling last year. The middle cutwater is this year’s mouth.

Col listens, jaw tight, then nods once. “Written. Spent. I’ll pay. I won’t like it.”

That is as close to a hymn as a packman comes.

Osric, from the bed: “Sound, don’t guess.” Then a sentence that is only fever. Then: “Staff on the ridge was leaning Tuesday.”

Shoring still has to happen with hands. Rain may be walking down the valley.

The roll’s Easter line: pontage taken, south starling mended. This year’s line is still blank until you fill it with timber. Col seeing ink is different from Col hearing a child lecture. Osric’s “sound, don’t guess” is the whole law of rivers.