Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 483 of 619

The rooms were counted and the price was set, but Ajax still needed hands to keep them. He gathered his men in the great hall the next morning. Tucker had already sailed for the harbor tavern and come back with two clean keepers, sworn to silence with silver chains. Now the town needed the last of its bones set. Ajax laid it out plain. "We have keepers for the beds. We need masons for the stone, drink for the bar, and beauty on the gate so traders trust their eyes." Aldric opened his ledger and read the tally. "Bran's men closed the last five roofs yesterday. Eleven homes stand whole. The great hall is fit for the bar. The wall cracks are sealed." He looked up. "The town holds. But it looks poor. Bare stone and empty doors. A trader off a ship wants a place that seems to have money already." Ajax knew the truth of it. A town that looked broke drew no coin. He sent for the stone carver who had dressed the lodge walls at Black Oak, brought north on the last tide. "Cut the gate stone with a wolf paw and vines," Ajax told him. "Make the archway worth a second look. Same on the hall front." The carver bowed and set to work with chisel and mallet, and the first paw took shape by noon. Marco had crossed the sea from the Crossing at Ajax's call, his brother JD beside him. The two stood at the bar as Tucker rolled in the last cask. Marco read the new keepers with a glance and gave Ajax a single nod. "Both clean," he said. "No hidden debts. No loose tongues." JD tested the wine from the cask and set the cup down. "It'll draw captains," he said flat. "Same as home." He would hold the bar here as he held the one south, reading lies in every trader's face while Tucker poured. Ajax had brought both brothers to guard the room where men talked with drink in them. Tucker stocked the shelves with plum wine, dried meat, and the goods Aldric named. Both stores filled by dusk. The beds got wool mattresses hauled from the ship's hold, fires laid in every rented room. The keepers hauled water and swept the floors while the carver's chisel rang at the gate. By the third day the town wore a different face. The gate arch carried Ajax's mark cut deep in stone. The hall held a full bar and two sworn readers. Six rooms stood ready with fires banked and beds made. Aldric closed his ledger. "We're ready," he said. "Open when you choose." Ajax stood in the finished hall and looked at what he held. A walled town, manned and stocked, marked with his paw. His brotherhood now reached across eight days of sea. "We open at first light," he said. "Send word to the harbor. Black Oak trades here now."