Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 353 of 619

The pale hides lay folded in the yard while the men gathered around them. Ajax spread the goods on the frost-hard ground for all to see. Two whole pelts, a pouch of teeth, the snow-packed glands, and the skulls. He asked the plain question that mattered most. How soon could these be worked into things worth selling when the ship came? Tarron knelt and pushed his fingers into the fur. The old woolwright had shepherded flocks before he ever touched a loom, and he read pelts the way other men read faces. He worked the staple between finger and thumb, then turned the hide over to check the flesh side. "Clean skin," he said. "No fear patches. This takes dye and thread better than wool." He looked up at Ajax. "Two coats from the big one. Gloves and trim from the smaller." "Aldric," Ajax said. "The teeth and the oil. Rowan, clean the skulls to sell.” Aldric crouched by the pouch and tipped a tooth into his palm. He turned it once in the gray light and set it back. "Needles," he said. "Same as the Verath. Healers will bleed for these." He nodded at the snow sack. "The glands hold. Cold kept them clean, like I said." He stood and brushed the frost from his knees. "Nothing here is spoiled." Tucker leaned against a post with his arms crossed, chains catching what little sun there was. He had a broker's ear for what a thing was worth before it was even made. "So we can fill the hold," he said. "But can we do it in time?" Ajax put the question straight to Tarron. "How long?" Tarron did not pause. "Start tonight. Cut and tan by morning. Sew through the day." He gathered the big hide across his arms. "By dawn it will all be ready.” Grayson stood at the gate with his arms folded, saying nothing until he had heard it all. "Dawn," he repeated. "Then the master gets his cargo whole." He looked to Ajax and gave one short nod. "That fills the ship. That builds the name." Ajax turned it over. The hunt had answered one need and made the next. He had the goods. Now he had a night to turn raw hide into things a master would pay silver for, and a house that could do it without him lifting a knife. That was the whole point of the walls, the men, the oaths. "Do it," Ajax said. "Tarron, take who you need. Aldric, pull the teeth and set the needle work. Wake me when the first coat is off the bench." Tarron carried the hide toward the shed. Aldric gathered the pouch and the glands. Rowan the skulls. The others moved to their tasks without waiting to be told twice. Ajax watched them scatter across the yard, each man to his craft, and followed Aldric toward his chambers to see the first tooth cut before he slept.