Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 177 of 619

Bran put the folded shirt and pants under one arm. He walked to Tucker's room and set the clothes on the trunk at the foot of the bed. The boots he put beside the trunk. He kept the chain on. He put on a pair of shorts tight shorts. He caught his shape in the small glass Tucker kept above the washstand. The chain lay bright against his chest. His shoulders filled the frame. He turned once, the way Tucker had shown him, and then went back out into the sun. The wall was where he had left it. The masons had stopped work when he crossed the yard earlier. Now they stood with stones half-lifted, watching him come back. One of the port masons whistled low. "Bran," he said. "That you?" "It's me," Bran said and flexed a bicep. He picked up the block at his feet and set it into the course without waiting for the second man. The stone went where he wanted it. He tapped it true with the flat of his hand. Cody came up the line with a bucket. He looked at the chain and looked at Bran's face and grinned. He set the bucket down. Bran lifted the corner stone alone. The masons watched him do it. He set it, tapped it, and reached for the next. After a minute the second man bent and picked up his own stone, and then the third, and the wall began to move again. Tucker walked out of the barracks and leaned on the doorframe. He did not speak. He watched Bran sweaty at work with the chain swinging against his chest, and he watched the masons watch. He caught Ajax's eye across the yard and tipped his chin once. Ajax stared and smiled, attracted. Ajax came down from the kitchen wall. He stopped where Bran was setting the third stone of the course. He looked at the chain, at the shorts, at the way the port men had started moving faster now that Bran was among them. "Keep him on the wall until it closes," Ajax said to Cody. "Same pay as before. Don't crowd him." "Yes." Ajax turned and walked back to the kitchen wall. Behind him the wall grew a full course before the light went. The port men worked without talking. Every time Bran bent for a stone the chain caught the sun, and every time it caught the sun a mason looked, and then looked back at his own hands and worked faster. By dusk the course was set. The wall stood one stone higher than it had that morning.