The Bridge of Three Arches spanned the deep, rock-strewn gorge where the Blackwood River cut through the final limestone ridge before uniting with the broader basin of the Lower Ouse. Built thirty years ago by the trade ring to control the only all-weather crossing in fifty miles, it had been a monument to stone-built arrogance and financial piracy. The toll-collectors had operated from an iron-barred gatehouse in the center of the span, charging two silver crowns for a loaded cart, forcing common foot-passengers to squeeze along a dangerous, eighteen-inch stonework ledge over a fifty-foot drop to the boiling river rapids below.
Now, as Tomas Reed and Nessa Vale approached from the north, the bridge was transformed.
Under the comprehensive civil works program enacted by the Free Valley League during the Great Bypass, the entire superstructure had been remodeled. The hateful center gatehouse had been dismantled down to the roadway level, its cut granite blocks reused to build a wide, eight-foot pedestrian walkway on the western side of the bridge. It was separated from the heavy wagon lanes by a sturdy timber guard-rail of seasoned heart-oak.
Nessa stopped at the northern bridge pillar, resting her brass folding staff against the first cut-water pier. She brought out her land-mapper’s notebook, turned the page with her gloved fingers. Then she peered down into the churning green-and-white foam of the river gorge.
