Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 500 of 619

The charmed keeper sat bound in the storeroom off the gatehouse. Ajax had caught the traitor, but a caught spy was no fix. The island still needed a keeper who would hold. Ajax stood over the bound man while Marco read the last of him and JD watched the door. "He's empty now," Marco said. He crouched by the keeper, gold bracelet catching the lamplight. "Merchant house paid him at the harbor. He knows the canal route. He knows we send men through Silvermoor." Marco stood. "He can't carry that back." Ajax looked at Marco. Since the Crossing, the two men had grown close, and Ajax trusted his plain word over any oath. "Wipe him," Ajax said. "Take the canal, the route, our faces. Leave him enough to walk south and beg passage home." Marco set two fingers to the keeper's brow. Chalam knelt beside them, chalk in hand, and drew a line across the stone floor. The keeper's eyes went slack. When Marco lifted his hand, the man blinked at the wall like a stranger in his own skull. "Done," Marco said. "He'll wake thinking he lost a season to drink." Ajax had Marcus carry the wiped man far south and set him ashore where no ship of Ajax's ever docked. That closed the leak. But it left the island without a keeper, and the tide north would not wait. "I need a man clean enough to hold the grain store," Ajax said. "Sworn, chained, read twice before he sails." JD spoke from the door. "Tucker sent one up from the harbor. Fit, no debts. He's on the path now." JD half-buttoned his green shirt over his hairy chest and stepped out to meet the boat, silver chain ready in his fist. The replacement came up at dusk. Chalam met him first and pressed lodestone to his bare throat, stripping any charm the silver might hide. The chain dulled. Nothing burned. Then JD took the man's hand and held it long. "Clean," JD said, flat. Marco laid his own hand on the man's shoulder and listened a breath longer. "Clean," he agreed. "No merchant behind him. He wants a bed and a wall." Ajax lifted the silver chain over the man's head. "Swear to the island. Swear silence on the canal, the gate, the ships." The man knelt and swore. Ajax set the chain on his neck and pulled it snug. "You hold the grain store," Ajax said. "You sail past this gate every run. Both readers clear you before you go and when you come back." The new keeper bowed and went to eat. Ajax watched him cross the yard, chained and sworn and read twice over. The fifth post was filled again, and by clean hands this time. But the brotherhood he wanted under one roof was still scattered wide, and each town he held pulled a sworn man from his side.