Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 485 of 619

Silvermoor had a name now, but names did not collect coin. Ajax stood in the great hall the morning after the council named the town. Traders filled the rooms. Ships crowded the harbor. And Ajax saw the problem plain: he was one man across eight days of sea from Black Oak. Someone had to hold Silvermoor and take its cut. Someone had to hold the harbor lodge below its walls. He could not do both, and he could not stay forever. He called Aldric, Tucker, and Chalam to the bar. Aldric set his ledger down first, as he always did. "The town takes a tenth of every sale," he said. "Someone must count it, or the traders will cheat us within a week." "And the lodge needs a keeper," Tucker added. He filled a cup without asking. "Rooms, baths, the bar. It runs on charm and a sharp eye. Leave it to a stranger and the coin walks out the back." Ajax weighed his men. Chalam turned his staff in his hand and stayed quiet. Ajax knew why. The wizard was needed at Black Oak, not here. "You'll sail home," Ajax told him. "Grayson can't hold the wall without your stone-cutting if trouble comes." That left two seats and two men. Ajax looked at Aldric. "You know the count. Every shop, every home, every trader through the gate. Hold Silvermoor. Take the commission. Send the numbers to me by the caller ring." Aldric closed his ledger slowly. "I'm a scholar, not a lord." "You've kept the vault clean for a year," Ajax said. "No man cheats a ledger you hold." Aldric was quiet a moment. Then he said, "I'll do it. But I stay separate from the trade dock. If the two houses cross, the whole route falls." It was the same warning he gave when they named the town. Ajax respected that he never softened it. Ajax turned to Tucker. "The harbor lodge and bar is yours. You know how to make a captain talk over wine. Run the bar, hold the rooms, keep the men in silk." Tucker grinned and lifted his cup. "I've run worse rooms in worse towns. Give me a month and captains will fight for the beds." Ajax gripped each man's forearm in turn. "Aldric keeps Silvermoor. Tucker keeps the lodge. Chalam sails home to Grayson." The decision was made and the town would hold. But Ajax saw the cost as he said it. Two of his sworn brothers now lived eight days from his gate. His council was scattering, one man at a time, across the sea. He had built a house to answer only to him. Now that house stretched thin across cold water. He needed the whole brotherhood under one roof again.