Matthis Crowmere

He ferried the warden's columns across by day and the marsh households by night, and was paid by both. When the Terms were made in 3716 his crossing was one of those kept, and every holder of it since has been named Matthis.

The ferrylords are the power the northern corridor calls its own, and the Crowmeres hold the best known crossing of them. The Chronicle names a Matthis Crowmere, Ferrylord, among the people of the Oxford Marsh Campaigns, and the present holder of the Crowmere rights is also a Matthis. The family's account is that the first of them won the crossing in the campaigns and that the name goes with the ferry.

As the ferry house tells it, he was a marsh man with one flat boat and a chain who carried whoever paid. The warden's columns paid by day and the households of Little Mere paid by night, and he asked neither side what the other was doing. When the columns lost a crossing, his was the one still running in the morning. By the last year of the fighting he had three boats, a post, and men who would defend the landing.

At Reedwater his crossing was among those the Terms kept, and he took on its observances with it. The family has been in court over the rights in every generation for two centuries without a ruling, which the Crowmeres regard as proof that nobody can find a better title than the first Matthis's: he was standing on the ford when the terms were made.

In person

About thirty-five, lean and long-armed, dark-haired and clean-shaven, with a narrow, amused face and hard hands. A short leather jerkin over a grey wool tunic, cross-gartered hose, a knife at the belt and a ferry pole; he poles a flat boat across dark water at dusk.