The crossing holds.

Cutwater shored, ugly and good. Pontage understood as timber. Waymarks honest. Ferry counted. Hospice full, inn paid, Osric’s fever breaking to hammers. Pilgrims will walk tomorrow. Some walk today on a deck you wave one-horse-at-a-time.

You were not a knight. You were the road.

Hawte sends bread. Pernell sends a look that is a blessing in work-clothes. The Lynne goes south, brown, unimpressed, which is how you want a river.

One-horse-at-a-time is a law you invent with your arms. The deck holds. Cutwater’s new face is ugly as a good scab. Pontage sits in the roll as timber, not insult. You sleep in Osric’s hut like a knot that finally pulled tight. In the morning the Lynne is still brown and the middle cutwater is still ugly, which is how you want a repair to look: like work, not like a song. Hop, if he stayed, practices the word tomorrow instead of badge, and tomorrow is a road.

THE END

What you learned: a packhorse bridge is narrow, with low parapets for panniers and cutwaters to split current. Pontage, shoring, ferry backup, and waymarks are one system.