Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 367 of 619

The cooper slept in the small room over the bar. But a bound man over the bar was a problem. Captains came at thaw. They drank and talked and looked at every door. A stranger in a room off the trade floor would draw their eyes. Ajax needed the cooper out of sight before the ships came. He found Aldric in the hall at first light with his ledger open. "The cooper can't stay over the bar," Ajax said. "Captains will wonder who he is." Aldric did not look up from the page. "The bunkhouse is full. The barracks is for brothers. He answers to no one yet." He set his pen down. “I’ve sworn him. He is a one of the brothers now. Ajax thought of the bunkhouse. One long room, one hearth, one door. "Then we double the size of the bunkhouse with a wall down the middle. Same number of bunks. Same hearths. Same furniture. He sleeps there. How soon can we do it? "Fast," Aldric said. "Thaw is close. Chalam can cut the stone. Bran leads the wall." He wrote a line in the ledger. "Two days, if the weather holds." Ajax found Grayson at the gate. Grayson had ridden with him from the first dawn, when no man in the tavern would follow. He answered to the gate, not to Ajax, and he said so often. He wore his father's silver chain and never spoke of it. "I need to double the bunkhouse," Ajax said. "Two days." Grayson looked at the bunkhouse, then back. Grayson said nothing for a moment. Then he nodded. "I'll hold the gate. Bran and Chalam build." He turned away. That was all. Chalam cut the stone with his staff. Blocks fell square and clean. Bran and the masons laid them fast, one course by noon, the walls chest-high by dusk. The next day they set the roof and hung a plain door with an iron latch. Ajax carried in the bunks and furniture. He set a table under the window with 4 chairs. The bunkhouse had doubled in size and beds. At dusk on the second day Ajax brought the cooper across the yard. The man carried his tools and staves dust still on his arms. "You sleep here with the other sworn.” Ajax said. “You work the vats. You still walk with Grayson's man on the shelf and train with him daily to defend.” The cooper entered and chose a bunk. The room over the bar was empty again. Two guest suites and now a third sat clean for the masters. The canal was safe. Come thaw the captains could drink at his bar and see nothing they should not. But the hull still had no keel.