Canon Odo finds you because you are floury with lime and therefore look like work.

He is not a villain and not a saint in a window. He is a man whose chapter has rents from farms, a gift from a wool merchant who wanted his parents prayed for, and a bishop’s share that arrives with opinions. The lodge eats. Timber costs. Holbeck stone costs. Height costs more than shortness because it is more days of more people not falling.

“The nave was good enough for our grandfathers,” Odo says, not unkind, standing in the cloister walk. “Why spend for pointed air?”

You can say it like Maud: the pointed rib and the flyers share the shove, the walls need not be as thick, the windows can be stories in glass, the choir can be brighter than the nave without pretending stone has changed its mind about weight.

Peverel, behind him, lifts the wage-board a little, like a shield that does math.

The well in the garth creaks. The centering, up in the crossing, is a wooden secret Odo has not properly met.

Wool-money built more English choirs than miracles did. Odo knows it and prefers not to say it in the chapter house. You can say it on a scaffold because lime makes people honest. Height is days. Days are bread. Bread is rents. The pointed arch is not free. It is a choice the purse has to agree with, or the walls stay thick and Iseult stays poor of holes.