Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 467 of 619

Seven days of cutting left the underground hall dry and warm. Thirteen stone bedrooms lined the inner wall, one hearth in each, and the Council Hall sat at the center. Chalam finished the last chamber at dusk and set his staff against the wall. Ajax walked the round table and stopped at the empty chairs. Fine stone rooms. Warm hearths. But the chairs said nothing about the men who sat in them. "They are seats," he told Chalam. "Not a Council. A stranger would not know Grayson’s seat from that of a hired hand." He sent for Aldric. The scholar came with his ledger under his arm and did not open it. He walked the ring of chairs once, then stood at Ajax's carved seat above the rest. "You want them named," Aldric said. It was not a question. "Each man's name on his chair. So no one forgets who earned a seat." Aldric touched the back of the nearest chair. "A name cut in bare wood is a scar. It looks like a debt marked against a man." He was quiet a moment. "Give it a mark that belongs to the house. Not to the ledger." Ajax thought of the paw he had carved into stone at a crossroads when he had two men and no walls. The same paw Chalam pressed into every sworn sole. "The paw," he said. "Each name inside the paw." "And gold in the lines," Aldric said. "Not for show. So the letters catch the hearthlight and a man reads his own name across a dark room." He met Ajax's eye. "That is worth more than a tower." Chalam crouched and ran a thumb along the wood grain. "I can cut clean with the staff. Shallow. The paw, then the name inside it." "Then cut," Ajax said. They worked through the night. Chalam set the staff to each chair and burned the paw shallow into the back, then the letters within. Aldric read each name aloud before it was cut so no error stood in stone. Grayson. Marco. Tucker. Rowan. Down the ring, thirteen names, and Ajax's own above them all. At dawn the woolwright melted trade gold into thin wire. Aldric pressed it into the cut lines with a small iron tool, patient, filling each groove until the paw and the name shone. Ajax stood in the doorway when it was done. Firelight from the hearths ran along the gold. A man crossing the hall could find his chair from the door. "Now it is a Council," Aldric said. He closed his ledger. "But a named seat is a claim. Every man here can see exactly what he holds. And what the man beside him holds."