Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 401 of 619

The gold sold well. The trader weighed the bars at the ship come morning and counted out northern silver, crate by crate. Ajax watched every coin. By noon the deal was closed and the hold held silver where the gold had been. Now Ajax faced the last question of the voyage. He held the bars home in his vault already, and more silver besides. But bars did not feed men. They did not arm a house. He had to decide what the metal would become. Marco stood by the rail with the salt wind in his face. He had come north because a god once stole something from his blood. He listened to men for a living now, and he had learned to speak plain. "You want to melt them," Marco said. It was not a question. He read the thought before Ajax spoke it. Ajax nodded. "Goblets. Chains. Rings. Fine things for the hall." He kept his voice low. "Wealth a man can see." Tucker leaned against a crate, chains bright at his chest. He had spent his life learning what men wanted and what they would pay for it. He heard Ajax and shook his head slow. "Melt them and you've got pretty cups," Tucker said. "Cups sit on a shelf. They don't buy steel. They don't buy grain." He let that sit, then went on. "The trader here takes bars. No names, no questions. Melt them and you throw that away." Ajax turned the idea over. Goblets would shine in his hall. Captains would see them and talk. But talk drew eyes, and eyes drew the wrong ships to his gate. He had built Black Oak in secret. Melting gold into show would undo that work. "You're right," Ajax said. "No goblets." He watched the wharf below, the boy still weighing the last crate. "We take the silver home whole. We send bars back north with every ship. The trader turns them to coin and goods, no names. That's the route." Marco tapped the rail once. Truth. He had heard Ajax settle it in his own mind. "Steel and grain," Marco said. "Not cups." Tucker grinned. "Now you're thinking like a house, not a king." Ajax gave the order. The silver stayed crated for the vault. The gold that remained at home would ride north on the next voyage, bar by bar, sold quiet to the red quay house. No metal would be melted for show. Every bar would become steel to arm his men and grain to feed them through winter. The ship would sail home at dawn. Ajax stood on the deck and felt the shape of it settle. He had come north to fill his vault. Now he had a route that turned dead metal into a fed and armed brotherhood. The last piece of his trade was set. What remained was to build the men who would wear the steel it bought.