Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 480 of 619

The back hall was ready. Bran's men had set the benches and laid a fire in the great hearth. Ajax stood in the warm room and knew he held a town that could live. But a town needs more than beds and grain. It needs a place where men drink and talk. He found Aldric at the well with the ledger and told him. "We need a bar. Somewhere the crew gathers at night. Somewhere traders sit when the shops draw them in." Aldric closed the book. "The hall would serve," he said. "Hearth, benches, a roof that holds. It wants casks and cups. Not stone." He was the scholar who had counted every shop for Ajax, and he counted this the same way. "You already own the room. You lack the drink and the man to pour it." Ajax lifted the caller ring from his cord. "Bran. When the shops are done, tell me. Then set the hall for a bar." The ring warmed with Bran's answer. Ajax turned to Aldric. "And a keeper. Someone who works men for what they know." Aldric wrote a line. "You have one. He built your bar at home from a bathhouse and drew captains to spill their routes over wine." Ajax knew the man he meant. He turned the ring and spoke south, across eight days of sea. "Tucker. I need you here." He waited. The ring cooled, then warmed. Tucker's voice came thin but plain in his mind. "On the next tide. You building a tavern out there?" Even across the water the dry edge held. "Save me a corner and a cask, and I'll have your traders telling us everything by the second night." "Bring wine and a cooper's kit," Ajax said. "The town has grain. We'll brew our own once the trees take." Three days later the shops stood done. Doors hung. Roofs held. The gate-side row looked like a market that lived. Bran's masons moved to the hall and set the casks Tucker had sent ahead. Tucker came on the tide after, boots on the dock, chains catching the harbor light. He walked the empty hall once, ran a hand along a bench, and nodded. "It'll do. Give me a week and captains will dock just to drink here." Ajax gathered his leaders in the finished room. Fire in the hearth. Wine in the cups. Chalam raised his own and lit the tallow with a word from his staff, small and sure. "The hall is a bar," Ajax said. "The shops are mended. The town holds." He set his cup down. He looked around the fire. "Marco has a ring. Grayson has a ring. But half of you have none. I want a message ring for every man at in the Council who lacks one." The town was a settlement now, not a held line.