Sir Aldric Graves came back to the ruined chapel to rebuild it. He found strangers living in the nave. Smoke rose from a fire pit where the altar had once stood. This was the chapel he had sworn to guard, then abandoned the night a child died. He had come to earn the ground back. Someone else had claimed it first. A dog met him at the broken doorway. Its coat was patchy, a chain hanging loose at its neck. It growled low and did not move. Aldric raised both hands and stood still. He had killed men. He would not kick this animal. "Call him off," Aldric said. "I mean no harm." A man rose from beside the fire. He wore a wide hat and a black patch over one eye. He walked with the ease of someone used to being obeyed. "You knock quiet for a man in armor," he said. "I am Ragnar. These walls are mine now. Finders keep." "These walls belong to God," Aldric said. "I came to raise them again." Ragnar laughed. He pulled something from a sack at his feet. It was a shrine of carved stone and gold, cracked but whole, set with dull jewels. A relic taken from some holy place. "God pays well," Ragnar said. "We took plenty like this. We move on soon. Or you make us." Aldric looked at the stolen relic. Anger rose in him. He pushed it down. Ten men sat around the fire. He had one sword and no cause worth their blood. Killing them would stain the ground he wanted clean. An old man near the wall spoke up. Gray beard, stone dust on his hands, a mason's tools at his belt. "There is a farmhouse west of here," he said. "Empty. Roof mostly holds. Better than this cold heap." He looked at Aldric, not Ragnar. "You truly mean to fix this place?" "I do," Aldric said. Ragnar weighed the choice. A dry roof cost him nothing. He had already stripped the chapel bare. "The farmhouse for the shrine," he said. "You carry it. We do not." Aldric took the stolen relic in his arms. It was heavier than it looked. He led them west and stood at the sagging farmhouse until the last man went inside. The dog stayed at the door, watching him go. The old mason did not follow. He walked back to the chapel beside Aldric. "Name is Gareth," he said. "I lay stone. I have no work and no god, but I know these walls want mending." He set a hand on the broken arch. "You cannot lift this alone." Aldric stood in the empty nave. The squatters were gone. The ground was his to clear. In his arms sat a relic torn from another church. He had traded a shelter for a sin, and now he held it.

The squatters were gone, but the chapel still lay in ruins. Aldric stood in the nave at first light. The roof had fallen years ago. Half the walls leaned like tired men. He picked up a stone from the rubble and it broke in his hand. Rotten. He tried another. The same. Every block he touched crumbled to grit. He could not cut new blocks from stone that fell apart. Gareth came in behind him. The old mason had stayed when the others left, trading his tools for a place at the work. He crouched and scraped a wall joint with his thumb. Dust ran out. He said nothing for a long moment. "This stone is dead," Gareth said. "Frost got in. It will not hold a chisel. Build with this and the roof falls again in a year." "Then where do we find sound stone?" Aldric asked. Gareth stood and looked past the broken arch. "There is an old watchtower. West of here, on the high ground. I passed it walking in. The masonry cracked, but the core blocks are good. Cut deep, laid tight." He wiped his hands. "Better stone than we could quarry in a month." They walked out to it together. The tower stood alone, moss on its old face, one whole side split open. Aldric climbed through the gap. Inside, the fallen blocks lay in a heap. He set his palm against one. It held firm. He struck it with the flat of his knife. It rang. "This one is sound," he said. Gareth ran a hand along the edge. "All of these are. Enough to raise your walls twice over." He looked at Aldric. "But we cannot carry them. Each block is heavier than a man. We have no cart. No beast." Aldric knelt by the largest stone and pushed. It did not shift. He pushed harder and his boots slid on the floor. The block held like it was rooted. He sat back, breathing hard. Gareth watched without offering false comfort. "You cannot drag these on your back," Gareth said. "Not a hundred paces. Not one." Aldric looked up at the tower's broken teeth against the sky. He had found what he came for. The stone was here, good and true, more than enough. And it lay dead weight on the ground, a full day's walk from the chapel, with no way to move it. He stood and set his hand flat on the block. It was cold and solid under his palm. Real. The first real thing since he came back. "Then we need something that can pull," Aldric said. "A beast strong enough to haul stone this size." Gareth nodded slowly. "You will not tame that yourself. And a beast like that costs coin, or a debt owed." He looked at the heavy blocks. "We have neither."

The stone at the watchtower was good, and it would stay there until Aldric found a beast to haul it. He had no coin. He counted what he carried and found only his sword, his belt, and the silver spurs. He had worn them since his knighting. They caught the light even now, clean where the rest of him was dust. Gareth watched him turn them in his hands. "A farmer three hours east keeps a draft ox," Gareth said. He drove his chisel into a fence post to test the wood. "Broad as a wall. Pulls a plow through clay. That beast could move your stone." "He will not lend it for nothing," Aldric said. "No," Gareth said. "He will not." They walked east until the sun stood high. The farmer met them at his gate. Behind him stood the ox, taller than a man at the shoulder, its brown hide thick over heavy muscle. It chewed and watched them with slow eyes. Aldric felt the weight of the animal just standing there. He asked to hire it. The farmer named a price in coin. Aldric had none, and he said so plainly. The farmer began to turn away. Aldric took off the spurs and held them out. The silver shone against his palm. The engraving was still sharp. "These are worth more than your ox," Aldric said. "Take them. Keep the beast until I bring it back." The farmer lifted one spur and turned it in the light. He bit the metal. He looked at Aldric's face, then at the road they had come from, and he nodded. "Bring it back sound," the farmer said. "Or the spurs are mine and the ox stays lost to you both." Aldric roped the ox and led it out the gate. Gareth said nothing for a long while. The animal walked easy beside them, its breath loud in the still air. "You gave up your spurs," Gareth said. "I gave up nothing I need," Aldric said. But his hand went to his empty heels, and he felt where the leather straps had worn the boot smooth. They reached the watchtower near dusk. Aldric backed the ox to the largest block and looped the rope around it. He set his hand on the animal's shoulder and pushed it forward. The rope went taut. The stone scraped, then slid. It moved. He stared at the track the block cut in the dirt. For the first time the chapel felt possible. Then he looked at the beast, breathing hard already, and at the pile of blocks still waiting. One stone had moved a single pace. The chapel lay a full day's walk away. The ox could pull, but it needed to eat, and it needed to rest, and he had traded his last thing of worth to borrow it for a debt that had no end date he could name.