Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 227 of 619

Ajax slept hard for the first time in a season and woke at dawn with the small iron key still in his belt. He set it on the table and looked at the empty hall. The Keeper was ash. The road was clear. He had promised his men a table and he had not yet given it to them. He found Elara in the herb strip and asked her to send to the port for meat and wine. He found Grayson at the gate and told him to open the vault and take out a full purse. He found Bran in the stable and told him to lay the long boards on trestles inside the hall. "For all of us," Ajax said. "Tonight. Sworn men at the table." Grayson rode out with two of the port men before the sun cleared the cliff. They came back at noon with a barrel of red wine on the cart, a side of pork, salt fish, hard cheese, and two things wrapped in cloth that Cody's wife had sent up from her kitchen. Bran carried them into the hall himself. He set down a woven basket of honey cakes, the tops still warm and shining. Beside it he set a wide pie, crust crimped and dark filling pressed through the lattice. "Blackberry," Bran said. "She said it was for the man who held the gate." "Cut it at the end," Ajax said. "Not before." At dusk they came in one by one and took the seats they had earned. They knew the rule: Only Ajax was allowed to sit at the head of the table. His seat alone. Grayson at Ajax's right. Chalam across. Marco and Asher together. Tucker beside Bran. Rowan last, the gold chain across his bare chest catching the lamp. Elara sat at the foot of the table with a cup already in her hand. Ajax stood and lifted his cup. The room went quiet. "To the men at this table," he said. "You stood at the wall when she came. You held the gate. The shelf is ours because you did not run." He looked at each of them once. "To the shelf," he said. "To the walls we cut and the gate we hung. This is the house. You are the brothers of it." They drank. Grayson refilled the cups. Ajax cut the pork and passed the plates down. Tucker broke open the basket and pressed a honey cake into Bran's hand and one into Rowan's. Chalam ate slowly and watched the room. Marco leaned his shoulder into Asher's and did not move it away. When the wine was low Ajax cut the blackberry pie. He gave the first piece to Grayson. He gave the last to himself. The dark filling ran across the plate. He sat back and looked down the long carved table at seven men who had sworn to him. The brotherhood he had ridden out from Southern Oak to build was in the room. It had a roof over it and a gate in front of it, and it had a new name now and he was about to reveal it: Black Oak