Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 320 of 619

The bathhouse drew ships, and the ships brought silver. But the bar itself was raw rock. Traders soaked in plain stone rooms and left praising the heat, not the house. Ajax wanted them to feel they'd walked into something rich. A rich house asked higher prices. Last night he counted the empty rooms upstairs at the barracks and saw the gap. He called Tucker, Marco, Aldric, and Chalam to the hall table. "The bar looks like a cave," Ajax said. "We hire a stone carver. He cuts the walls fancy. Men pay more to soak in a fine room than a hole in the cliff." He set his hand flat on the table. "And we build stairs above the bar. Three lodging rooms one side. Room for three more later. A master can stay the night instead of sailing off with his coin." Tucker thumbed a gold chain. He had run rooms for years and knew what a night's stay was worth. "A man who sleeps here drinks twice," he said. "He talks more the second bottle than the first." He grinned. "Carve the walls and I'll charge him double for the same water." Aldric was not sold. "A carver takes weeks," he said. "You want fine work fast, and fine work is never fast." He looked at Chalam. "Unless you mean to cut it with a staff. Staff-cut stone is flat. It won't fool a merchant's eye." Chalam spoke plain. "I open the rock. I don't carve it." He opened his satchel and touched a numbered vial, then closed it. "A carver needs hands and time. I give him the wall smooth and square. He does the rest." Marco leaned back. "Then we hire the carver." He held Ajax's eye. "I'll read him at the gate before he comes in. A stranger with a chisel is a stranger who sees the canal. If he lies about who sent him, he doesn't pass." That settled it. Tucker rode to the port and returned with a lean man who carried his own chisels wrapped in oilcloth. Marco met them at the gate first. "Clean," he told Ajax. "He wants steady work and a warm bed. Nothing more." Chalam struck the cliff and squared the wall. The carver worked six days. He cut leaves and running vines into the stone above the tubs, then a wolf paw over the bar door. Bran raised the stairs beside it. Three rooms took shape on the near side. The far side stood empty and rough, framed for three more. A hull docked before the last room dried. The master soaked, drank, and asked for a bed instead of his ship. He paid double and stayed two nights. He spilled a rival captain's route both evenings. Ajax stood at the carved door and counted the empty frames on the far wall. He had built a bar men praised. Now he had beds that held them, and a house rich enough to charge for the holding.