Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 331 of 619

The carver's chisel rang in the dining hall while Ajax stood at the bar and counted his stock. Three hides. Grove sap. Bleed-root. Leafcloth. Enough to fill the next ship's hold, but not enough to answer the real question. The dryad's gift bought him a season. It did not tell him what came after. Ajax called Grayson, Tucker, and Aldric to the bar. He set a cup before each man. "We keep selling hides," he said. "But beasts run out. I want more. Do we grow the trade, or hold it small and safe?" Aldric set down a folded page. On it he had drawn the dock, the canal, the bathhouse, the guest rooms. "You built a house that feeds men, houses ships, and hides a gate," he said. "The trade is not the hides. The trade is the place. Merchants come here now. They stay. They talk." He tapped the page. "Expand the lodging. Charge for beds, baths, and news. That coin comes every thaw. Beasts do not." Grayson crossed his arms. "More rooms means more strangers," he said. "More men to feed and watch. We open too wide, we lose the gate." He looked at Ajax. "Small holds. Big spills." Tucker leaned against the bar, chains catching the lamp. He turned his cup and said nothing for a moment. "Grayson's right about the risk," he said. "But we already run the risk. Ships know us. Masters talk in the baths. We can pretend we're small, or we can charge like we're not." He drank. "A crowded house pays better than an empty vault. And a bored fighter costs you either way." Ajax weighed them. Grayson wanted walls he could hold. Tucker wanted silver flowing. Aldric wanted a source that never dried. All three were right, and Ajax had one gate to defend. He pressed his thumb to the bar and made his choice. "We expand," he said. "Not the port. Here." He looked at Grayson. "But the gate stays locked. No guest walks past the canal. They see the dock, the bath, the bed. Nothing more." Grayson held his eyes, then nodded once. "Then I set two men on the sea path," he said. "Full watch, both tides." "Do it," Ajax said. He turned to Tucker. "You raise the rates. Double for the sea-view beds. Coin up front." He turned to Aldric. “You draw new rooms. Another balcony suite, 6 more rooms, 3 more baths, a larger bar for men to eat and drink.” Aldric was already drawing. Tucker smiled and finished his cup. The carver's chisel struck the hall wall, and a new leaf opened in the stone. Ajax looked at his men and knew the lodge was no longer a warhouse pretending to trade. It was a trading house that could still hold a wall. But new beds meant new strangers to vet, and the thaw was close.