Bede Lanyard Cuts an Owl

On Scriveners’ Lane Bede Lanyard bent over a slab of soft grey stone and cut a small owl, two drilled dots for eyes and a hooked beak, the way his master had taught him before the fever took her. The owl was meant to say that the crossing was carried clean and paid in full, a promise nobody at the ferry would stop to read. He blew the dust off the mark, wiped his chisel on his apron, and sold it to the next buyer for a tenth of a drop.