Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 311 of 619

The Code was the plan. But a man could not swear an oath from a crowded bunkhouse floor. Ajax walked the yard at dawn and counted the beds instead of the men. Four hunters. Two dock men. More coming with the thaw. He needed room to hold them before he could ask them to stay. He found Grayson at the arms shed and Aldric at his ledger by the hall door. "We're out of bunks," Ajax said. "Six more men arrive when the ships do. Nowhere to put them." Grayson set down the whetstone. "Then build." He nodded toward the bunkhouse. "Six bunks fit along the north wall if we add a length. Second hearth to warm it." Aldric looked up from the ledger. "Wood costs less than stone and goes up faster." He tapped a line on the page. "But the port house by the sea gate holds two. You want six dock men by summer. It needs doubling too." "Both," Ajax said. "Bran leads. Chalam cuts stone where we need it fast." They started at midday. Bran squared the new footings for the bunkhouse while Chalam sliced blocks clean with his staff. The wizard tired by dusk, so they timed his work in bursts. By the second morning the north length stood chest-high. Aldric marked each course in his ledger and checked the hearth flue himself. "Draw it wider," Aldric told Bran, pointing at the second hearth. "A cramped flue smokes the room. Men won't sleep in smoke, and men who don't sleep don't swear." Bran widened it. By dusk the six new bunks stood along the wall, and the second hearth drew clean. Ajax laid the last of the roof planks himself. The port house took one more day. Bran extended the walls seaward and framed two more rooms. Aldric fitted a window to face the water so the dock men could watch for masts. Grayson walked the finished house and pushed on each wall. "Solid," Grayson said. "Holds six. Away from the sworn quarters, like before." Ajax stood in the widened bunkhouse at dusk. Twelve beds now, and warm. He had room for every man the thaw would bring. "It's ready," Ajax told the two of them. "Beds for the hunters. Rooms for the dock men." He set his hand on the new bunk frame. "Now they have no excuse. A man with a warm bed swears the Code or he leaves it empty." Aldric closed the ledger. "You've built the seat. The oath still has to be spoken." "At thaw," Ajax said. "Every man in these beds takes the Code or rides out." Grayson looked at the twelve bunks, then the road beyond the gate. "Then we'll know fast who came for coin and who came to stay." Ajax had the room. Come thaw, he would learn which strangers would fill it as brothers.