Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 277 of 619

Torren rode back into Black Oak three days later with a stranger on the second horse. Ajax met them at the gate. The man dismounted slow, favoring one knee, and looked at the cliff face and the surf below before he looked at Ajax. Torren said only, "He's built two breakwaters. Both still stand." Marco, riding behind, gave Ajax a small nod that meant the man was clean. The builder walked the tide line while Ajax watched. He crouched at the worked stone Aldric had marked and pressed his palm flat against it. "This holds," he said. "Old cut, but true. I can tie the wall into it." He named a price and a season of work. Ajax counted the silver against the trade the dock would bring and agreed. They shook on it. Black Oak had its door to the sea, or the start of one. While the builder measured the shelf, Tarron came out from his shed with Rowan. The old woolwright had been quiet since the first cloth sold, but Ajax saw he stood straighter now. "The pen's ready," Tarron said. "Empty. Wool grows on animals, not stone." It was the plainest complaint Ajax had heard from him. "Then fill it," Ajax said. Tarron and Rowan rode out at dawn and returned by dusk two days running. They brought sheep from the grove flocks and goats bought cheap from a coast farmer. Rowan drove them through the gate one by one while Elara named each past the ward. Tarron walked the pen wall, checking every gap a lamb could slip through. He knelt by one ewe and ran his fingers through her fleece. "Hungry," he said. "Weak staple here. She needs the good grass by the stream." He moved her himself. By the second dusk the pen was full and loud, forty head crowding the trough. Tarron stood at the rail and watched them settle. "This is a proper flock now," he said. He did not smile, but his voice had weight in it. The next problem was storage. Damp ruined fleece, and Tarron's shed had only shelves. He said so once and left it. Ajax sent Bran and two of the port masons with a felled cedar and Vello's saw. They worked three days in the shed. Bran cut and joined the boards while Tarron watched the grain and told them where the wood would swell. When it was done, a broad cedar chest sat against the shed wall, lidded and dry inside. Tarron lifted the lid, ran his hand along the joint, and shut it. "Cedar keeps the moth out," he said. "This holds a season of cloth." He set the first folded bolts inside. Ajax looked at the full pen, the chest, the builder pacing the shelf below. Black Oak fed itself, armed itself, and now clothed itself for trade. The men would work the winter, not idle it. What Black Oak lacked now was only the dock to move what it made.