A Mark Under the Buttress

At Longmere, Jory Brisk set the last course of a buttress that will carry no roof in his lifetime, nor his son’s. He chiselled a small mark into the underside, where no pilgrim would ever look, then brushed the dust from his thumb and went back to the lake-side wall. The water took the sound of his mallet and gave nothing back. Somewhere past the dimming, someone would stand beneath this arch and never think of him.