Knight Aramburu gave a soft snort and ordered the servants to close the windows, letting the celebrating Creoles stream past outside the villa.
"Read it! Please read it again!" someone in the crowd shouted.
A short, stout lawyer was being carried on people's shoulders, yet he was still panting from exhaustion, as though he had just argued ten court cases in a row.
Still, he wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his voice, and began reading from the parchment in his hand:
"...Effective immediately, throughout the Viceroyalty of New Granada, no applicant for any civil or military office shall be required to provide proof of bloodline... All export restrictions on goods including coffee, cane sugar, canvas products, and others shall be lifted. Restrictions on the destinations of merchant ships shall also be lifted...
"The sources of imported goods shall no longer be limited to the Iberian Peninsula. External tariffs shall be set by the Trade Committee..."
Lights shone from the buildings lining the entire street, illuminating their path to the square—the City Hall had issued a special order suspending the curfew for ten days. Every pause the lawyer made brought a tidal-wave roar of cheers from the crowd. "To hell with bloodline certificates!"
"From now on, we can buy cheap cotton directly from the United States, haha! Do you know how big the price difference is? Forty percent—a full forty percent!" "From now on, my goods can be shipped directly from Caracas to New Orleans without having to go through Cadiz to declare taxes!"
"Long live His Majesty the King!"
"May God bless our King!"
In the square, someone had brought out several crates of wine—not the cheap local Venezuelan stuff, but fine wine produced in Iberia—and generously poured it for everyone present.
"To His Majesty the King!"
Everyone