Badge at the basin.

Pewter, cheap, heavy with having walked. The itinerary is true in your pocket and on your legs. You slept at a hospice, or paid an inn, or both at different hours. You did not take the marsh. You treated the ridge like a list with feet.

Jennet’s face does a quiet thing. Aelric draws a small well in the margin, which is as wild as he gets. Col’s wool, if it arrived, will go farther than prayer and also beside it.

You are eleven. You are a person who made a road exist by using it honestly.

You stand with the basin and the list completed in mud. No one knights you. Jennet buys a second badge for a pocket because pockets lose things. Aelric’s well in the margin is lopsided. The ridge, behind, is a spine you can still feel in your calves.

THE END

What you learned: pilgrimage is walking plus rules—lists, landmarks, badges as proof, not magic. An itinerary of places and hours is a map you can trust more than a shortcut.