Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 366 of 619

The cooper had filled his last vat and gone quiet in the workhouse. Ajax watched the man scrape his tools clean and knew the trouble was not the barrels. It was the man. He now knew the canal, the dock, the way in. A stranger with that knowledge could sell it at the port for good silver. Ajax had two choices. Wipe him and send him out. Or bind him. He watched the cooper's hands work the wood and made the harder choice. He found Aldric in the hall with his ledger. "The cooper stays," Ajax said. "I want him sworn." Aldric set down his pen. "He is not a fighter but Grayson can teach him. He is not a brother. The chain oath fits him. Silence for wages, nothing more." He tapped the page. "You have hired men on that oath already. Marco holds the ones who refuse. It works." "Then a silver chain," Ajax said. "Tonight. Alone. No fire, no crowd. I do not want the other workers seeing me swear one man in the dark and wondering what he knows." Tucker leaned against the doorframe, his gold chains catching the lamp. He had been listening, the way he always listened. "Alone at midnight," he said. "That'll spook him. Man thinks a quiet oath means a quiet grave." He grinned. "But you're right to keep it small. Fewer eyes, fewer mouths." He rubbed his mustache. "Where do you put him after? Bunkhouse is full up with sworn workers. He can't sleep among men he doesn't answer to yet." Ajax stopped. It was the true question. He turned to Aldric. "How many rooms sit empty at the lodge?" Aldric did not reach for the ledger. He knew it cold. "Three," he said. "Two guest suites the captains left this morning. One small room over the bar. The rest are held for masters coming at thaw." "The small room," Ajax said. "Off the trade rooms, off the barracks. He sleeps where no captain will speak to him." At midnight Ajax brought the cooper up alone. The man was shirtless from his work, sweat still on his chest, staves dust on his arms. Ajax set the silver chain around his neck and named the oath. Silence about the gate, the canal, the house. Food and a bed in trade. The cooper swore it in a low voice, his eyes on the dark stair below. "You sleep here," Ajax said, and opened the small room over the bar. A bed, a lamp, four walls. "You do not walk the shelf without Grayson's man beside you." The cooper nodded and went in. Ajax closed the door. Two empty rooms remained for the masters, one filled with a bound stranger. The canal was safe again. But the ship still had no keel, and thaw was coming.