Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 448 of 619

The trade road ran steady now, and coin filled the vault faster than Ajax could spend it. But coin bought no loyalty. His council answered to him one man at a time, in the hall, over the same table where dryads and captains and squad leaders all sat when it suited them. That had to end. Ajax called Aldric and Chalam to the inner ward at first light and told them what he wanted. A hall for the Council alone. A round table, all chairs equal, and one great chair for him. Aldric set the ledger on his knee. He did not open it. "A round table for equals," he said. "And your chair the largest and most carved." He looked up. "Those two things fight each other, Ajax. Choose which lie you want the men to believe." "They're not lies," Ajax said. "They sit as equals. I sit above them. Both are true." Aldric held his eyes a moment, then dipped his head. "Then say so plainly and stop dressing it. Equal shares, equal voice, one master." He opened the book and began to write. "That, men can trust. A round table that hides a throne, they cannot." Chalam had walked the stone walls while they spoke. He set his palm flat against the inner face and closed his eyes. "Sound carries here," he said. "Talk in this room reaches the yard through the seams. Your fighters would hear you argue." He opened his satchel and drew out the powdered lodestone. "I can ward the walls. Words spoken inside stay inside. No man hears the Council but the Council." "How long?" Ajax asked. "Two days for the walls if I cut them fresh," Chalam said. "One more to lay the ward." He weighed the lodestone in his hand. "It will hold as long as the stone stands." Ajax gave the order. Bran and his masons cut the round hall into the inner ward against the cliff, one door, no window. Chalam sheared the blocks with his staff and set them square. On the third day the table came in whole, cut round from a single oak, thirteen plain chairs ringed around it. At the head Ajax set his own chair, tall and carved with the wolf paw, the largest in the room. Chalam laid the ward last. He rimmed the walls with lodestone dust and spoke the working low. When he struck the door frame with his staff, the sound of his own voice died flat against the stone. "Speak now," he said. Ajax shouted. Outside, Grayson stood at the door and heard nothing. Aldric wrote the last line in the ledger and closed it. "The Council has its own room," he said. "Sealed, and no lie carved into it that the men can't stomach." He looked at the great chair, then at Ajax. "Now they know who sits there." Ajax took the seat. For the first time his men would answer to him in a room built only for that.