Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 382 of 619

Ajax led the four unsworn men to an empty suite above the bar. The grower came first, then the woodman, then the two gate guards who worked wage alone. He had counted them the night before and found the gap. These four owed him nothing but a day's work. Any of them could sell the canal route to a captain at the docks. He would close that gap now. Tucker followed him in and shut the door. Tucker ran the bar and the port for Ajax, and he knew how to read a man's face. He leaned on the wall with his gold chains catching the lamplight. "Silver or memory," he said to the four. "Master's rule. You swear the chain, or you leave with no head for this place." The grower shifted his feet. "What does swearing cost me?" "Your silence," Ajax said. "Nothing more. You keep your wage. You keep your room. You never name the gate or the canal." Ajax laid four silver chains on the table. Beside them sat a bowl of oil. He told each man to strip to the waist. The grower pulled his shirt off first. Ajax stepped close and pressed a hand to the man's chest, then his arm. He needed to feel each one steady before he bound him. "Flex," he said. The grower tightened his arm under Ajax's palm. Ajax nodded and lifted a chain over his head. The woodman went next. His shoulders were thick from splitting logs all winter. Ajax gripped the bicep, felt it harden, and set the silver on him. "You cut wood and you say nothing," Ajax said. The woodman met his eyes and did not look away. The two gate guards came last. They already wore silver on rotation, but Ajax wanted them sworn plain and bound to him alone. Each bared his chest. Each flexed under Ajax's hand while Ajax weighed the strength there. He set a chain on the first, then the second. Tucker watched the four stand chained and shirtless. "They look better already," he said. "A chain does that." Ajax spoke the oath and each man repeated it. Silence on the gate. Silence on the canal. Silence on every ship that docked below. When the last word left the last mouth, the room held four bound men where four free ones had stood. "Marco won't need to wipe any heads tonight," Tucker said. "That's cleaner." Ajax gathered the empty shirts and handed them back. "Dress. Return to your work." He watched them file out. The gap was closed. Every soul behind his walls now owed him silence, by mark or by silver. His house could hold captains over the canal and no tongue would carry the route to the docks. He had bound the last four. Now nothing stood between his ships and the north but open sea.