Travelling on the punt, Reynevan had many new experiences and gained a little knowledge of life on the river. He learned the difference between hand nets and cast nets, and between weirs and dams. He ate things he’d never eaten before, like grilled fillets from a catfish measuring five cubits and weighing in at a hundred and twenty pounds. He also learned how to ward off a vodnik, a nix and a virnik. And he heard a lot of very bad words about German lordlings who oppressed the Water Poles with swingeing tariffs, tolls and taxes.

The following day turned out to be Sunday, when the Water Poles and the local fishermen didn’t work. They prayed long at roughly carved figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint Peter, then feasted, then had something like a moot, then drank and fought.

So, although the journey was lengthy, time didn’t drag at all. And now it was dawn or rather morning, and the city of Oława was around the next bend. The Water Pole’s wife pressed herself against the steering oar and her breasts pressed against her blouse.

“In Oława, I’ll need one—at most two—days to deal with various things,” said the skipper. “If you can wait that long, I’ll take you to Wrocław, young Master Silesian. Without further dues.”

“Thank you.” Reynevan shook the skipper’s proffered hand, aware he had been honoured with friendship. “Thank you, but during the journey I’ve had time to think over a few matters, and now Oława suits me better than Wrocław.”

“As you wish. I’ll set you down wherever you want—on the left bank or the right?”

“I need the Strzelin road.”

“So the left. Am I correct in thinking you’d rather steer clear of the town?”

“I would,” Reynevan admitted, astonished by the Water Pole’s perspicuity. “If it doesn’t put you out.”

“How could it? Turn to port, Maryśka. Make for Drozd’s Weir.”

A vast oxbow lake spread out beyond Drozd’s Weir, entirely covered with a carpet of yellow-blooming water lilies. Through the fog shrouding the lake came the distant sounds of Oława’s suburbs: crowing cockerels, barking dogs and the clanging of a church bell.

At the skipper’s signal, Reynevan jumped out onto a rickety jetty. The punt brushed against a stake, parted some weed with its prow and languidly swung around into the current.

“Don’t leave the causeway!” called the skipper. “And keep the sun on your back until the bridge over the Oława, then turn towards the trees. There’ll be a stream and beyond it the Strzelin road. Can’t go wrong!”

“Thank you! Godspeed!”

The punt began to vanish in the fog rising from the river. Reynevan threw his meagre bundle of possessions over his shoulder.

“Young Master Silesian!” came a voice from the river.

“Aye?”

“Red leather, yellow leather!”

Chapter Six