Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 305 of 619

Ajax had planned to hunt at dawn. He never got the chance. Before first light, Grayson found him in the hall with the ledger still on the table. Grayson was his lieutenant, the blunt sellsword who once refused to kneel and now held the gate when Ajax rode out. He dropped a folded paper in front of Ajax. "Rider left this at the road," he said. "Then rode off before Torren could stop him." Ajax unfolded it. A merchant's mark, and a short list. Three ship masters wanted goods before the thaw. One offered silver for hides. One wanted needles. One wanted anything Black Oak would sell. Ajax set it down. "They talk," he said. "Word spread faster than I meant." Aldric came in with his ledger under his arm. He read the note over Ajax's shoulder and set his own count beside it. "Three orders," he said. "Two hides and one tooth in the vault. You cannot fill even one." He tapped the trade page. "The gold buys nothing they want." Tucker followed him, boots loud on the stone. He wore his two gold chains and the easy look of a man who had already done the math. "So that's the answer, isn't it," he said. He pulled out a chair and sat. "You keep asking what to do with the coin. This is what. You spend it to make goods worth selling. Beasts, wool, iron. Turn the pile into a trade that feeds itself." Ajax looked at the two pages. Coin on one. Four thin lines on the other. Tucker was right, and he did not like how plain it sounded. "Coin sits in a hole," Ajax said. "It can't hire ships. It can't hold men through spring. Only goods do that." "Then stop counting it," Grayson said. "Use it." Ajax stood. He decided in one breath. "We turn the vault into a house of trade," he said. "Not a hoard. Silver pays hunters, weavers, the forge, a second dock crew. We buy what we cannot make and make what we can sell." He looked at Aldric. "Open a third page. Wages out, goods in. I want the coin working every day it sits." Aldric wrote the heading and underlined it. "A trading house," he said. "Not a raiding camp." "Yes," Ajax said. That was the answer to the question that had gnawed at him since the count. The wealth was not the goal. It was the tool. It would build the brotherhood he wanted, one that answered to him and paid its own way. Tucker smiled. "I'll ride to the port," he said. "Tell the three masters we'll fill their holds by thaw. We could hire two hunters. Should we?”