Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 390 of 619

Chalam's water showed the ship one day out. That answer only sharpened the next problem. Ajax stood in the empty suite where captains slept and thought it through. A ship coming home meant silver in the hold. It also meant crates of northern coin crossing his dock in daylight, where any lodging captain could see. He called Tucker and Aldric up from the bar. Tucker came first, cups still in hand. He set them down and leaned against the doorframe. "You look like a man about to make more work for me." "The ship lands tomorrow," Ajax said. "How do we unload it with no one watching?" Tucker's grin faded. "Bad timing. I filled every room last night. Ten captains sleeping off wine, and their crews down on the sand at first light." He rubbed his jaw. “Then we talk later about adding more rooms if men are sleeping on the sand.” Ajax said to Tucker and Aldric. "They'll see the canal gate open and a hull come through it. Then they'll talk." Aldric arrived behind him, ledger under his arm. He did not sit. He looked at the problem the way he looked at old maps, all at once. "The canal runs hidden to the sea gate," he said. "That part holds. The danger is the hour. Bring the ship in by daylight and captains count your crates from their windows." "So we land at night," Ajax said. "No moon tomorrow," Aldric said. "Dark water and a full hold. Your sailors miss the canal mouth and hole the hull on the breakwater." Ajax paced the small room. Two bad choices pressed on him. Then he saw the third. "Then we empty the rooms first." Tucker straightened. "Empty a full inn? That's a season of good talk on the docks, gone." "Not gone," Ajax said. "Given. You told me captains come back for what they can't get elsewhere." He turned to Tucker. "Tomorrow you close the baths for cleaning. Free casks of the plum wine, loaded on their own boats, a gift from the house. Send every captain off happy by midday. Dock stands empty by dusk." Tucker thought it over. He was slow to spend goodwill, quick to see profit in it. "They leave grateful and thirsty," he said. "They come back with friends." He nodded once. "I can do that." "Aldric," Ajax said. "The ship holds off past the breakwater until my signal. Kael and Torren watch the sea road. When the last sail is gone, we bring her in and unload by lamp in the canal." "Marco erases the four sailors after," Aldric said. "They never see the walls." "They never do." By the next dusk the plan held. Tucker's captains sailed off with casks on their decks, calling promises to return. The dock stood bare. Kael's whistle came down from the blind, one long note. Ajax opened the sea gate himself. The ship slid through the canal, dark and heavy with northern silver, and no eye on the coast marked its coming.