Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 276 of 619

The first bolt of cloth rode to port at dawn. When Tucker returned three days later, he brought coin and a new problem. Ajax gathered his men at the hall table to hear it. Tucker dropped the silver purse on the wood and sat. "The cloth sold fast," he said. "But hauling it by cart wastes half our profit. The docks want more than we can carry." Ajax leaned forward. He had an idea already, and he wanted them to hear it. "We build a dock," he said. "On the shelf below the walls. A big one, and a ship to sail it. Merchants come to us. We tax every boat that lands. More goods move than any cart could carry." Grayson set down his cup. He had ridden beside Ajax since the first day, an equal who spoke plain and never softened it. "A ship needs a shipwright," he said. "We have none. And a dock on that shelf takes stone and months. The Keeper's dead, but a harbor draws eyes. Every trader knows where we are." Torren spoke next. He had guarded the port treasury for fourteen years before joining, and he knew the water. "The shelf drops off sharp past the tide line," he said. "Deep enough for a hull. But the surf runs hard there. A dock breaks apart without a breakwater first." He said it flat, no apology in it. Aldric turned a scrap of parchment in his hands. The scholar had read the old maps of this coast. "The cliffs here are worked stone underneath," he said. "Your father's people cut them. A breakwater could tie into that base. It would hold." He looked up. "But you'd need a man who has raised one before." Kael had been quiet, one hand resting near his knife out of habit. "I sailed two seasons before I came inland," he said. "Crewed a trade hull. I know a dock from the deck. I don't know how to build one." He shut the subject with that. Ajax weighed it. A ship was too much, too soon. But a dock was not. "No ship yet," he said. "First the dock. Torren, you know the water and the port men. You find a dock-builder there, one who has raised a breakwater. Aldric gives him the old cut-stone marks so he ties into the base. We build the breakwater, then the pier. Merchants land, we tax the landing." Grayson nodded once. "Dock first. Ship when it pays for itself." "Done," Ajax said. He clapped Torren on the shoulder. "Ride at dawn. Take Marco with you. Bring back a builder who can weigh a breakwater the way Tarron weighs cloth." Black Oak had a trade and a wall. Now it would have a door to the sea. Torren left for port at first light, carrying Aldric's marks and Ajax's silver, and the whole plan hung on the man he brought home.