Lark Pennyfeather: Song, Sog, and Stalemate: The Bridge Remains Barred

Gorm Underbeck, arms like oaken beams, who stamped my copper at dawn. I'm composing your ballad, sir. Verse one wants the reason the bridge is shut.

Gorm's eyes flick toward your flapping little paper as you outline your ode. "The bridge is shut because my young troll, meant to learn the trade, went home early for laughing at a traveller," he says without ceremony. "Whether that was a lesson or a mistake, I haven't yet decided." His arms remain folded, bulk unyielding as stone. "I'd like to hear the second verse, bard."

Verse two: The lad who laughed was sent to bed, the master kept the stone instead. It scans, Gorm. A teacher, not a tyrant. Where does the lad sleep?

Gorm chuckles, a low rumble. "The lad's in a hut beyond the southern willows. No luxury, but dry enough." He studies your folded receipt, then looks back at the cart and the others waiting. "You've made a song of it, and that saves me from a sermon. Now, what's verse three?" His bulk leans just a fraction forward, like a boulder nudging the riverbank.

Verse three wants the river; it's the best verse. Look at it, Gorm, so I can write your face. The water climbed, the keeper turned, and saw... go on.

Gorm peers at the receipt, now limp in your hand, before casting a glance at the rising water, which he deliberately ignores. "That river climbed while I stood firm—bridge keeper or not, a stubborn thing," he mutters. "Good words, but they don't lower that chain. Next verse better be fair payment, bard." His arms fold tighter, the reminder that poetry doesn't pay copper.

Payment: no copper, but your name. The Ballad of Underbeck, sung in every inn past the willows till the lad hears and slinks back. Verse four: open.

Gorm snorts at the idea of your song touring the inns. "My name’s mud if I let a ballad swap coppers," he says. "Your lad’s lesson cost my patience, not my toll. But I’ll hear your verse four, and it’d better ring like a promise or I’m shutting down until dawn." Already the water edges higher, as if taking bets.

Verse four, writ on the receipt: Five crossed at dusk on Underbeck's word, and the bard walked to the willows and fetched back the lad. Signed, Lark.

Gorm frowns down at the damp, scrawled receipt, brow creasing like a storm cloud. "Five crossed on your word, yet here's the chain still holding the cart and the women and a certain stubborn grandmother. Fetch the lad, you say? That would be a start." He taps the receipt. "Words alone can't trouble the river or change its mind."

A start, he says! Then I start. Drop the chain; I'm to the willows at a run, lad back by moonrise. The four cross behind me as witnesses to the verse.

Gorm eyes your bold order and the spray-soaked receipt tight in your fist. He scratches his chin, amused. "The lad’s hut beyond the willows isn’t a dungeon—he’s more likely asleep. You sprint for him, and I’ll watch the chain. Four witnesses, you say? Make it three or he makes a run for home; either way, the chain stays until the lad proves he's worth trust."

I stuff the receipt in Gorm's fist and sing the Ballad of Underbeck at the willows, full voice, chorus about the lad who laughed. Wake, lad. Come see.

You thrust the soggy receipt into Gorm's massive fist and belt out the ballad by the willows, voice cracking over the chorus about the laughing lad. Gorm listens, stone-faced, eyes narrowing to slits as the chorus fades. He doesn't chase the lad from his hut, nor flings the chain aside. "That was loud enough to wake the river," he mutters, resolute. "But not enough to stir trust or lift this chain." The bridge remains barred; dusk deepens.