Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 385 of 619

Ajax stayed at the workhouse table long after Aldric finished the count. The spring behind the hill blocked one cellar. It would not block a second. He called Aldric back the next morning and pointed at the flat ground below the trees. "Build a new cellar there," Ajax said. "Away from the spring. Cut a hallway between the two so we move casks without going outside." Aldric studied the ground. He set his boot on it and pressed. "Dry. No water under this." He looked up. "A hallway means both cellars share one guarded door. Fewer mouths know the way in." That was as close to approval as Aldric gave. Bran cut the new pit in three days. Chalam's staff sped the stone. They dug down where the soil stayed dry and lined the walls with squared block. The hallway ran straight between the hills, low and covered, with a single iron door at the workhouse end. Ajax walked it end to end. Two cellars now, joined, and no wet stone to spoil the wine. The trees were slower. Ajax had the grower plant a second row of the dryad's roots along the west wall. Chalam pressed his charm into the soil and burned dried leaf over each one. In ten days the young trees stood as tall as the first, heavy with plum before the frost. Aldric watched the fruit ripen and did his count again. He brought the ledger to Ajax at dusk. "Twelve vats now. Both cellars full at the next pressing. Enough to fill a hold and hold back a store." He closed the book. "You have doubled the wine." Ajax should have felt the win clean. He did not. "And the risk you named?" Aldric did not soften it. "Doubled with it. The new cellar took the cooper and two hands to build. Three more men who walked the hallway and saw the door." He tapped the ledger's edge. "You bound the last cooper at midnight to keep him quiet. Now three more mouths know the way to your wine and your dock." Ajax looked at the joined cellars, the full vats, the hallway that hid his stores from any ship. He had the cargo to fill a hold and make Black Oak stand tall before the merchant houses. He had also brought three more strangers inside his walls. "Then we swear them," Ajax said. "Silver, at midnight, before any captain docks." Aldric nodded once. "The three read steady to Marco." Bring them to the courtyard fire at midnight and I’ll swear them.