The towpath is a wet ribbon. Willows lean over the water like old women sharing news. You hear the barge before you see it: a hollow bump, a muttered word that is not a swear so much as a tired animal sound.

Piers the bargeman is there, soaked to the thigh, poling against a snag that has hooked his hull the way a comb hooks a knot. The barge is not stolen. It is stuck. Sacks of salt sit under a canvas, most of them dry, one of them sulking where river-water kissed a corner.

“Rope parted at the mooring,” Piers says when he sees you. “Tide and a rotten strand. I walked her down. If I leave her, the next bump is a mill-weir I do not like.”

There are no outlaws in green hoods. There is a man whose job is a road that floats, and that road can still hit a tree.

He eyes your letter. “Keep wants salt for market week. Meat without salt is a clock running fast. Help me pole, and I’ll owe you a true story. Or ask why my cousin’s name is in the clerk’s mouth like a bruise.”

The current tugs. Michaelmas is tomorrow.