Col’s wool is England’s weather in panniers.

“Pontage,” you say, and Osric’s fevered lesson sits in your mouth. “Not a fine for being a packman. A purse for timber. The middle cutwater is eating itself. If we don’t collect, the bridge becomes a ford with memories.”

Col spits in the river, not at you. “I’ve paid to cross worse.”

Fair. Also: he can see the hole if he lies down, and he will not lie down, so you show him with the pole’s empty bite.

He can come see Osric’s roll, names and spends, a book that makes a toll into a sentence.

Or he can pay in a wool-clip now, ugly and useful, and you can shore with hands instead of theory.

Col’s panniers would knock a high parapet to pieces or knock themselves. That is why the bridge is built like a trough for baskets. He knows wool. He is learning water. You are the translator, eleven, lime-free, river-full.