The Right Hand Of The Father

chapter 4

He stared at the boy as they reached the end of the market. George hurried him into a small shop just outside of it. Heard the tinkle of the bell and shifted so that he was between Alexander and the door so he couldn’t bolt. 

The odds of the boy trying to run had tripled since he’d gotten him from the docks. An indentured servant who’s papers had been altered? George would have doubted the boy— assumed he was lying and hoped that George would be fool enough to believe him— but the boy had been too docile for a slave. Too certain of himself. He didn’t fear George like a slave would because there were rules about the treatment of bondservants. He couldn’t kill the boy. Couldn’t beat him to death. Couldn’t mistreat him. Starve him. Even rape was frowned upon. It happened of course. George knew plenty of men in Virginia who had kept hold of their female bondservants long after their indenture was over by foisting bastards off on them. The mother free after seven years but the child was still property of his father. 

George suspected that was what had happened to Alexander. His mother had taken an indenture and when Stevens had been flush he’d been content to let his bastard think that he’d eventually have his freedom. Might have even believed it himself. Then his business began to fail and his crops did not make up the losses and the son he would have freed was now valuable property to be sold on.

He should have told the boy, though. Not lied to him and told him that there was freedom waiting for him on the mainland. It was cruel to hold such things out in front of the boy.

“Can I help you, sir?” Hercules Mulligan asked as he came from the back of his store and took in George and the boy dressed in stained breeches with a tattered hem and a rope holding the waist closed, his shirt more holes and patches than original fabric.

“Mr. Mulligan.” George nodded. “Alexander is in need of something more…suitable.”

He saw the tailor’s eyes flick along the boy’s body and then he glanced back at George and nodded. “I see. I have a few things that are ready to wear that might fit him. Of course, more can be made when I have exact measurements. Perhaps when he’s clean?”

George saw Alexander’s neck redden in embarrassment and felt a twinge of sympathy of his own. He remembered being looked down on by the merchants in this city when he’d first arrived, nothing but a change of clothes and his name to recommend him. The way they’d sneered at him as if he was nothing more than river trash the first few years when he’d come to town for supplies.

Besides, the boy had been a clerk and George had a sneaking suspicion he was used to living finer than his accommodations had been in those last few months under Stevens when the man had shuttered his shipping company and prepared to sell the boy.

“I can’t walk the boy through the streets in nothing but his skin,” George retorted, his voice sharp. “So if you could provide us with what you do have I can send a message back to let you know if they’ll suit and you can take his measurements from that and make him two more suits, both in my livery Mulligan and I’ll arrange for Billy Lee to retrieve them when we next come to town.”

“Sir.” The tailor dipped his head and then turned to hurry back into his workshop.

He could see Alexander trembling as the boy kept his eyes fixed on the ground.

“It’s all right,” George said soothingly. Stepped forward and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “There’s a bathhouse nearby and plenty of hot water for you to use.”

“I’m sorry.” Alexander said quietly. “Sir, I’m so sorry. I should have kept cleaner on board and—”

“In the luxurious state room you were kept in?” George asked as he stepped closer, his front almost close enough to touch the boy’s back but not quite. “No, I imagine Morris didn’t keep much more than a basin to wash in and you got scant little of that water.”