Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 183 of 619

The cart rolled out at first light. Tucker rode point with the new hire beside him. Chalam sat the bench with the silver purse under his knee. Ajax watched them clear the gate and drop out of sight down the coast road. Two days east. The port took them at second dusk, just as Chalam had called it. Tucker led the cart through the back lanes to the yard behind his house and swung down. The stranger stayed on his horse until told. "Off," Tucker said. "Bring your kit." The man dismounted. Tucker took him through the side door and up the stairs, past the rooms with lamps in them, to the one at the end that had stood dark since the run north. "Name," Tucker said. He had not asked on the road. Ajax had told him to get it under his own roof, where a lie sat heavier. "Rell," the man said. Tucker watched him a beat. "Rell what." "Just Rell." "Fine." Tucker opened the door. The room was clean. A bed, a chest, a window over the alley. "Yours. Rent comes out of your first week. You work the floor, and the rooms. You steal from me, you're gone." "Understood." "Sleep. We buy at dawn." Tucker went back down. Chalam had taken a table by the bar and set his staff against the wall. A cup of wine sat untouched in front of him. "He gave a name," Tucker said. “Rell” Tucker poured himself a cup and sat. "Ajax wants the list done in three days." "Then we start at the smith and end at the salt house. Tools before food. If we run short, food keeps in port. Tools do not." At dawn they went out with the purse split between them. Tucker took the smith and the timber yard. Chalam took salt, oil, nails, and the small things on the second page. Rell walked behind Tucker with a hand cart and did not speak unless spoken to. He lifted what he was told to lift. He counted coin back when Tucker handed him change and named the count aloud. Tucker marked that and said nothing. By the second day the cart in the yard stood full. Steel wrapped in oilcloth. Two kegs of nails. Salt in stitched sacks. A crate of lamp oil. Rope. Two axe heads. A bag of seed for the spring garden Ajax had not yet named but would. Chalam ran his hand down the load and counted against his page. "Complete." "Then we sleep here tonight," Tucker said. "Roll out at first light." They ate at the bar. Rell ate at the end of it, alone, and went up to the room at the end of the hall without being told. Tucker watched him go and finished his cup. The room was earning again. The cart was full. The port had not asked a single question about the coast.