Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 369 of 619

The shipwright had seen the water. He had cut the keel and raised the ribs on the south wharf. Now the hull sat finished in a shed at the port, and it could not walk to Black Oak's dock. Ajax called Aldric and Tucker to the hall. "The ship is built," he said. "It can't sail itself home. We need a captain and a crew who won't ask where they're going." Aldric spread his map on the table. He had ridden with Ajax since the port, a scholar with grey in his hair who kept every trade in a line. "A captain is not a hunter," he said. "He knows harbors. He knows tides. He will learn the canal the moment he steers into it." He tapped the shelf on the map. "Whoever crews that ship sees the dock, the gate, all of it." Tucker leaned on the table. He worked every captain who drank at Ajax's bar, and he wore his two flat chains where they caught the light. "I know a master," he said. "Steady hands. Owes money at three ports and can't clear it." He grinned. "A man in debt keeps his mouth shut when you buy the debt." "And the crew?" Ajax asked. "Four men," Tucker said. "Green ones. Hire them off the docks who've never sailed this coast. They won't know one cove from another." Grayson's warning was not in the room, but Ajax heard it anyway. Every new man past the canal was a new tongue. He looked at Aldric. "Can we bind them like the cooper?" "The captain, yes," Aldric said. "Silver chain and the silence oath. The crew sail the ship north and back, then leave. Marco wipes what they saw at the gate." Ajax weighed it. A captain sworn. Four crewmen who would forget. It held. "Tucker, ride to the port. Bring the captain to the bar first. I want Marco to read him before he touches my ship. If he’s good, buy his debt in exchange for his work. Tucker pushed off the table. "Two days." He left at dawn and returned on the second night with the captain beside him.