Read Riverbreeze: Part 1 for Free Online

though there
was a statute on the books directly from King Charles stating not
to trade with any foreign ship, Jamie and Robert ignored it much to
the dismay of their adoptive father who, along with his business
and political allies, believed in trading exclusively with London
merchants in England. But even the Governor favored open trade with
Holland, realizing the benefits for the citizens of his colony. As
a young man in his early twenties Sir William Berkeley had traveled
to Holland and seen how Dutch merchants were expanding their trade
routes to faraway lands, making them substantial profits. He wanted
those same profits for his citizens and to increase Virginia’s
commerce.
    Robert and Jamie, with minds of their own and
a keen business sense and out from under Tyler’s strict hand, for
the past two years had aligned themselves with some very prominent
Councilors who had been trading with Holland for years. For the
past two years Robert’s and Jamie’s profits had been sufficient
enough to allow them to buy the horses and a few other luxuries,
and as long as they had the support of the Governor and as long as
the English government was more occupied with the problems of the
civil war than to monitor what was going on in a faraway colony,
the brothers would continue to trade with the Dutch and reap the
benefits.
    Jamie stopped for a moment to wave at their
new indentured servant who had just emerged from the original
wattle and daub cottage which had stood on this property for the
last fifteen years. John Connelly was a sixteen-year-old lad from
the town of Itchington in the county of Devon, the son of a poor
farmer, looking for adventure. He had arrived a fortnight ago, on
the same ship with the horses, also chosen by their agent, William
Clayton. (Despite the fact that Robert and Jamie traded with the
Dutch, they kept their associations with some English merchants
through Tyler and Clayton.)
    This morning Connelly was wearing an old,
course buckram nightshirt that reached down to his skinny knees and
nothing else, and he looked sleepy and disheveled with his long
stringy brown hair falling over his eyes. Normally he would have
been up hours ago, ready to work alongside either Jamie or Robert,
but last night Robert had told him he could sleep late this morning
and to come to the house for breakfast whenever he woke up.
Connelly wouldn’t be going with them to the gathering, and Jamie
didn’t know if that was a good idea or not.
    Connelly waved back, a lazy lifting of his
hand, then he turned his back on Jamie in order to take a piss
right outside the door. Jamie didn’t like that; it was all right to
do that sort of thing out in the woods or out in the field when
they were far from the house and yard, but they had a privy for
that, or at least he could’ve gone around to the back of the
hut.
    “Oy!” Jamie shouted, but Connelly ignored
him, taking his sweet time. When he was finished, he merely let his
shirt drop down and turned to Jamie, shrugging his bony shoulders
insolently and calling back, “Sorry!” But Jamie knew the boy didn’t
mean it.
    Nevertheless Jamie let it go; so far the boy
had been pretty good and thankfully not too sickly. This was due to
the fact that the trading ships’ captains and other officials had
finally learned that the best time to arrive in Virginia was in the
fall and not during the sweltering heat of the summer when disease
ran rampant.
    Presently Jamie watched the boy disappear
back inside the cottage presumably to dress, reminding himself to
speak to Robert about the little incident later.
    When he arrived at the stables, the servant
was quickly forgotten as he opened the large, crosshatched double
doors eager to greet his new acquisitions. The familiar smells he
loved so well wafted over him and he breathed in deeply of the
pungent scents of horses, hay and manure. The horses nickered and
pranced excitedly in their stalls causing him to smile. He knew how
restive and