Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 117 of 619

Ajax met the crew at the shelf edge before the sun cleared the water. Grayson gave the count. Marco stood at the back with his thumbs in his belt, quiet in a way Ajax had learned to read. "Anyone at that house see faces they shouldn't have?" Ajax asked. Grayson glanced at Marco. Marco stepped forward. "The woman at the door. The girl who poured. Dockmen at the bar. Two at the card table who watched us go up." Marco counted them on his fingers without hurry. "And the men upstairs. Everyone who saw us saw enough." "How many?" "Twelve. Maybe fourteen with the ones I didn't see clean." Ajax looked at the sea a moment. The Keeper's people had spent silver at the port before. A collared man had walked those lanes. If word of Ajax's crew moved from that bar to the wrong ear, the walls here meant nothing. "Ride down with me," Ajax said. "You and Chalam. Tucker too." They took the coast road at a hard trot and reached the house by midday. Tucker went in first and cleared the bar. The woman at the door frowned but stepped aside when Tucker set coin on her palm. Marco walked the room slow, touching the back of each chair as he passed. "Line them up," Ajax said. "Bar, card table, kitchen, upstairs. Everyone who was here that night." Tucker fetched them. Nine came down. The woman brought the girl. Marco stood at the end of the bar with his hands loose at his sides. "Every face," Ajax said. "Every name we said. The men in the rooms. The stairs. Take it clean." Marco nodded once. He worked left to right. He set two fingers on the bar and closed his eyes and each person in turn went still. The dockman at the end blinked and rubbed his jaw like a man waking from a nap. The card players sat down where they stood. The girl set her rag on the counter and forgot what she had been about to say. The woman at the door touched her hair. It took less than a quarter hour. Marco opened his eyes and drank the water Tucker put in his hand. "Done," he said. "They remember a night. They don't remember us." "The upstairs rooms?" "Two more men slept off drink in the back. I took them too." Ajax laid silver on the bar for the woman's trouble and told Tucker to close the house for a week. On the ride back he pulled Grayson and Chalam aside at the trail bend. "The port's clean," Ajax said. "But the Keeper knows a name was crossed off his list. He'll send someone here before the walls are up. I want a plan by dark." Chalam set his staff across his knee. Grayson nodded and turned his horse toward the shelf. The port was closed behind them. The next fight was already coming.