Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 275 of 619

The gray cloth lay folded on the loom, and Ajax turned it in his hands. It was good work, warm and even. But cloth in a shed earned nothing. Ajax found Tucker at the fire and set the bolt in his lap. "You know the port and its men," Ajax said. "Find a buyer for this. A steady one who takes cloth every season." Tucker ran a thumb along the weave and whistled low. "I can sell this," he said. "There's a merchant off the docks who moves wool north. He'll pay for even work." Tarron was no fighter, and every man there knew it. But he had made the thing they meant to trade. "The shed is yours," Ajax said. "You keep the flock and the loom. You get a cut of all profit and loot from raids.” Tarron took the cloth. He looked at it, then at Tucker. "Sell it," he said. "I weigh them and place value before you go each time. Not the man at the bar." He handed it back. "That's the terms. I know this trade and it’s worth." "Done," Ajax said. Tucker grinned and stowed the bolt in his pack. Rowan came in from the tree line then, a brace of hares over his shoulder. He dropped them by the fire. "The snares held," he said. "Four hares and a young buck in the deadfall by the stream. The fish trap's full too." He crouched and pulled a fat trout from his sack. "Set them where the game already runs. Tarron read the ground right." Tarron nodded once. "Ground doesn't lie," he said. Ajax looked at the hares, the fish, the folded cloth in Tucker's pack. Meat for the table and wool for the port, both come from the old man's hands. He clapped Tarron on the shoulder. “You’re one of the twelve. Meet us at dinner as usual.” Tarron held his eye a moment. Then he nodded and walked to the fire, and sat down among the sworn men. Black Oak had a trade now, and a man to run it. The first bolt would ride to port at dawn.