The keystone is here.

That is the whole miracle, and it is not a miracle. It is Holbeck, oxen, rollers, a road, a man who would not snatch, a child who may have snatched and learned. It sits on the centering at the crown of the rib, still wrapped, heavier than pride.

Below, the choir is a well of shadow. West, the nave’s round arches listen. South, flyers wait for the shove that will only be real when the vault becomes a vault.

Rowan (or Ned, if Rowan is still wiping quarry off his hands) says, “Plumb and string. Mortar bed. No speeches.”

You can set now, eyes on the bob.

Or you can go down to the tracing house and make the plaster confess the last measurement, because a finger off at the crown is a crack in a year.

Up close the keystone is bigger than ceremony. It has tool-marks, a fossil, a bedding line. The centering groans: oak talking to load. West, round arches listen like old relatives. You can set, or you can ask the plaster one more time. Both are kinds of respect.