Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 269 of 619

The gift was in Ajax's hands, but a man alone could not clothe a house. He could spin thread by the fire, yet he had no loom to weave it wide, and no one to keep the work when he rode out. So he called Tucker and Marco to the hall. Tucker knew the port and its brokers. Marco could read a stranger's mind and tell truth from lies at a glance. Ajax gave them silver and a task. "Buy a loom," he said. "A good one. And find me a weaver who can trap and fish. A man who knows wool from the animal up." They rode out at dawn and came back the next dusk with a cart. On the cart sat a loom of heavy timber, well made, the beam worn smooth by years of use. Beside it walked a tall, thin man with gray hair and a kind, worn face. He led the horses without a word, his eyes on the wheels and the ruts. "His name is Tarron," Tucker said. "Woolwright. We found him at the water. He had rabbit snares set and a fish trap woven from creek reed. The loom is his own. Built it himself." Marco leaned close to Ajax. "He's clean. No mark, no lie in him. He built that loom over three years. Fought the tension until it broke him twice." He paused. "He wants somewhere worth staying." Ajax walked to the cart and put his hand on the loom's beam. The wood gave a little under his weight. He looked up. "You built this?" "I did," Tarron said. "The beam gives instead of fighting. That was the trick. Took me long enough to learn it." Ajax told him what he had. Raw wool in the shed. Silk from the last cave. A hand that could spin fine thread but no craft to weave it wide or keep the flock. He said he needed a man to run it all. Tarron ran a thumb over a fleece from the cart. He read it the way another man reads a page. "This staple's hungry," he said. "Your sheep want salt. Feed them right and the wool comes clean." He set the fleece down. "I can weave what you spin. I can trap the creek and snare the ridge. I need a shed with light and no one crowding the beam." "You'll have it," Ajax said. Elara added his name to the ward that night. Tarron crossed the gate without a spark. The loom went into the smithery corner until Bran could raise a shed for it. Ajax stood at the hall door and watched the old man run his hands along the beam, already at work. He had thread, a loom, and a craftsman to bind them. Come spring his men would ride to the port with cloth, not blades. The house would trade and grow. But a fourteenth man now sat inside his walls, and Ajax had not yet decided what to swear him to.