Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 463 of 619

The fire had burned down to coals when JD came. Ajax stood alone by it, waiting. Marco's brother crossed the yard with his shirt already open, the way a man walks when he has decided not to hesitate. "Take it off," Ajax said. "All of them swear bare." JD pulled the green shirt from his shoulders and dropped it on the stones. His chest was broad and hairy, his arms thick. The gold bracelet caught the coal-light, twin to the one on Marco's wrist. He stood straight and let Ajax look. Ajax stepped close. He set his hand flat on JD's chest, over the heart, and felt the muscle under it, hard as a wall. This was the oath—every sworn man of Black Oak had felt this hand. JD did not flinch. His skin was warm. His breath stayed even. "You're a good-looking man," Ajax said. It was true, and he said what was true. Marco was the smoother one, but this one had a jaw cut like stone and a build that would make captains talk. Men would notice him at the bar. That was worth as much as the lie-sense in his head. "So I've been told," JD said. Nothing more. He did not soften it or add to it. Ajax pressed harder, testing. "Say the words. You hold the bar. You mark any man who lies about my gate or my sea path. You answer to me and this wall." "I hold the bar. I answer to you and the wall." JD's voice did not waver once. "I swear it." Ajax lifted the silver chain from his belt and laid it over JD's neck. The metal settled against his skin. It was done. JD was his now, bound like the others, sworn by dark. "You're mine," Ajax said, and clasped his shoulder hard. JD picked up his shirt. He did not put it on yet. "Marco stays on the road?" "Marco holds the road." JD nodded once. He turned the bracelet on his wrist, the same small motion his brother made. "Then we hold both. Him east. Me here." He said it flat, like a fact he had already decided to live with. Ajax watched him walk to the bunkhouse, chest bare, chain swinging. Two brothers now, two roads, one gift split in two. At dawn Ajax sent for Marco Valentino before he rode back to the Crossing. "Show him the work before you go," Ajax said. "How you read a captain in his cups. How you hold a face without letting him see it." Marco found JD at the bar. He set a cup between them and began. He named the tells—the shift of the eyes, the pause before a false price. JD listened, still and hard, drinking it in. By the time the sun cleared the wall, JD could name a lie across a room. Ajax had one reader before. Now he had two.