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homespun, which reached to his thighs, and breeches so faded and grimy that it was hard to tell if they’d ever owned acolour.
    He walked with a strange gait, heaving his left leg out in an arc until he could place it flat directly beneath him. On the water, his element, he appeared no different from other men, but on land the stranger’s gaze was immediately drawn to his leg. He had tried many different shapes of wooden leg over the years, spending the long winter evenings whittling whenever he had a fresh ideaand could find a good piece of wood. But finally he had settled on this as being best for balancing on the punt as his body twisted, and for spreading his weight as he limped across the boggy ground around his home.
    His cottage huddled close to the riverbank on one of the few firm patches of ground between the river and the Edge, a ridge of cliff that ran behind the fields and marshlands. Themain village of Greetwell sat high on the Edge, safe from floods and the midges that swarmed over the bogs and mires below in summer, but a boatman couldn’t live up there: he’d lose hours each day traipsing to and from his punt, precious hours when he should be earning. Besides, Gunter had lived by the river all his life and couldn’t sleep without the sound of water rushing through his dreams.
    He pressed down on the latch and pushed against the door, swollen and warped after the flood. The stench of damp and river mud rolled out. The bunches of dried herbs and onions hanging from the rafters rocked in the sudden draught as he stepped inside. He closed the door hastily behind him as a billow of smoke swirled up from the fire. The single-roomed cottage was a tight squeeze for five people,but Gunter had never known bigger. Two beds occupied the space against the walls on either side, with shelves above to store boxes and clay jars. The rest of the room was pretty much taken up with a table and stools, but they needed little else.
    Nonie glanced up briefly as her husband entered and straightway spooned pottage into a wooden bowl from the pot hanging over the fire. She didn’t needto be told that her husband was hungry. There were no cargoes to fetch on a Sunday, but that meant work of a different sort, fetching fuel for the winter and fodder for the two goats.
    In the fifteen years since they had hand-fasted, Gunter had never once returned home without feeling thankful to find Nonie there. As a child, he’d watched his mother stirring a pot over a fire, turning to smileat him, as Nonie did now. It had never occurred to him that his mother would not always be standing there when he returned from play. Even as the Great Pestilence swept through the land, he had not believed it could reach his cottage, until the day he had come home from gathering kindling to find his mother dead and his father dying. Ever since, it had been Gunter’s nightmare that one day he mightreturn to find the fire cold and his family once again ripped from him.
    Gunter glanced down at the beaten-earth floor where four-year-old Col, his youngest child, was sitting. The tip of his pink tongue stuck out in concentration as he tried to knot pieces of old cord together.
    ‘What you up to, Bor?’
    When the boy didn’t answer, he looked at Nonie.
    She shook her head in exasperation. ‘He’smaking himself a net, says he going fishing. This is your doing, it is, telling him what you used to catch as a lad. A fish with a gold piece in its belly, indeed.’
    Gunter chuckled, holding up his hands. ‘It’s true, I swear it. Didn’t you ever hear tell of St Egwin? He fettered his ankles with an iron chain, threw the key into the river, then walked all the way to Rome to see the pope. The popeordered a fish for dinner and when he opened it, the key to the saint’s fetters was inside.’
    Nonie snorted. ‘Well, you’re no saint and neither is your son. I don’t want you encouraging him. If he slips and falls into the river he’ll be swept away, like those