Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 296 of 619

The first goods sat ready by the dock the next morning. Cloth in bales, hides tanned, needles in a locked case, blades from Vello's forge. Ajax stood over the pile with Grayson and Aldric when Tucker came down the covered canal, boots loud on the stone. "Ship master's asking questions," Tucker said. He rubbed a chain between two fingers, the way he did when he had an idea. "Not about goods. About a room. He wants a place at the port to sell what we make. Under our mark, the Black Oak seal. Away from these walls." Ajax turned. "A room at the port." "A sales hall," Tucker said. "Merchants come to it, not here. They never see the gate. They see the seal, they see the goods, they pay. You keep the dock secret and still sell to the whole coast." Grayson set his cup down hard. "No." He did not soften it. "A hall at the port means our name nailed to a door two days off. The old port already knows we're cutting their trade. Give them a spot to watch and they'll burn it. Or worse, follow it home." Aldric had been quiet, turning a bone needle in the light. He set it in the case. "Grayson is right about the danger." He closed the case. "But he is wrong about the need." He looked at Ajax. "A seal on goods sitting in a room the port controls is a seal they can copy. Our mark loses its worth the day someone fakes it." Tucker frowned. "Then we hold the room ourselves." "With what men?" Grayson said. "You'd split the house. Half here, half there." Ajax weighed it. A hall at the port would move more goods, faster. But it would tie Black Oak's name to ground he did not hold, guarded by men he could not spare. The whole plan lived on the dock staying hidden. A public room broke that. "No hall," Ajax said. "Not at the port." Tucker's face fell. "That's silver walking away." "It's silver with a knife behind it." Ajax picked up a bolt of gray cloth stamped with the leaf mark. "We don't sell where they can see us. We sell what they can't make. The seal stays here, on goods that leave by ship." He looked at Tucker. "Tell the master this. He wants Black Oak goods, he brings his hull to our dock. We don't come to him." Tucker studied Ajax a moment. Then he grinned, slow. "He won't like it." "He'll come anyway," Aldric said. "For the needles." Grayson nodded once, satisfied. Tucker took the ship master's answer up the canal that afternoon. By dusk he sent word through the bronze caller ring: the master had cursed, argued, then agreed to bring his ship to Black Oak's dock at thaw. The name would travel by sea, not by a door the port could watch. Ajax had traded reach for safety, and kept the gate his own.