Robert muttered under his breath that the prowling visitor looked like a grocer. Gideon dismissed him as a Stepney innkeeper's pudding-featured bung-puller. The middle-aged man was overweight, or gave that impression as he leaned back on his boot-heels slightly. He had dark jowls and intent black eyes, but otherwise cut a figure anyone might pass in an alley without glancing back. It was hard to know why he fascinated the two printers, except that they were both observant by nature, and found his presence odd.
Gideon was startled when this personage suddenly approached him. 'You are Gideon Jukes?'
Gideon altered his grip on his musket. 'I am Gideon Jukes, and I have work to do here, sir.'
'I am Mr Blakeby'
'And what is your business?' demanded Robert, becoming defensive of Gideon.
Mr Blakeby kept up his peculiar scrutiny, 'I am told you are steadfast and have good judgement. Also that you have experience as an actor?' He barely lowered his voice, so heads turned. Gideon cringed.
'I once donned feathers in an entertainment, sir. I was a boy. It was a trifle. I was misguided.'
'But were you any good?' Mr Blakeby asked with a smile, keeping his gaze fixed upon him.
Gideon wondered with annoyance if his brother Lambert had given him this unwelcome character-reference, and whether his brother had brought the man here on purpose — perhaps to escape Blakeby's attentions himself. Lambert tended to attract notice because he was seen as a 'hearty lad', yet he was conservative. He would not want to be singled out. 'I am recruiting trusted men for special tasks,' offered Blakeby.
'Then please trouble yourself elsewhere.'
Though Gideon had answered back in such a forthright manner, Mr Blakeby was certain now that the scowling young man had a dark side that would suit his purposes. Jukes was too tall and his fair hair worked against him, but his intelligence and spirit showed.
The place was too public for argument. Mr Blakeby accepted the refusal, merely saying as he left, 'I should like to meet and talk again, Master Jukes.'
'What did that man want with you?' Amyas whispered.
"Whatever it was, Blakeby has slipped up with it,' muttered Robert. Slipping up was when lines of type shifted in the form and went askew.
The afternoon drew into evening, which came early as it was November. The men slowly realised there was unlikely to be an engagement. The Parliamentary regiments continued their stand, drums beating and colours flying. There were twenty-four thousand. It was a brave show, and the King had only half their numbers.
The Royalists havered in anguish, but the odds against them were too great. This was the King's one chance of taking London, and he had been out-faced. After hours of stand-off and hurried war councils, the Royalists accepted the situation. They withdrew, without a shot fired.
Essex's army and the Trained Bands heard the trumpeters' recall and watched the King's troops leaving. The Parliamentarians breathed and relaxed, but stayed fast. That night they remained at Turnham Green, where they spent their victory evening tucking into a great feast that the women of London sent out on carts for them. Holding a pie in one hand and bottled beer in the other, Gideon found himself reminiscing about that other feast he had once attended, after The Triumph of Peace. With a sense of rightness and victory, he was enjoying this far more.
A young woman approached, carrying a basket of bread and a board on which she cut slices from a huge hard cheese. She had contrived to hold the board against her apron-clad hip so her skirt was caught up to reveal a slim ankle in a pale knitted stocking. Her eye lighted on Gideon and she smiled at him. Robert and Amyas watched them frankly; Gideon felt his fair skin blush. A big slice of cheese for you, brave boy?'
'I'll have one!' Amyas reached for it annoyingly. She glanced at him: big teeth, big ears, about fourteen. Almost without seeming to do so, she summed up Robert Allibone too, sensing the widower's reticence with women, judging him to be beyond her reach. Her gaze returned to Gideon, who put down his beer carefully against a grass tussock, and quietly accepted her offering. The young woman looked willing to be detained for conversation.
Unluckily for Gideon, that was when his brother reappeared. 'Here's to a bloodless victory — and to a beautiful maiden, bearing bounty!' Cheese was immediately lavished upon Lambert, who received it as his birthright. He winked conspiratorially in Gideon's direction. 'Watch that one! He's a heart-breaker.'
'The quiet ones are the worst!' The young woman, who was not quite as young as Gideon had first supposed, looked unfazed by the warning. 'And you are another pretty hero,' she simpered at Lambert shamelessly.
'Oh, I am handy at push of pike!' he replied, with open innuendo, twirling the blond moustache against which Gideon had taken so badly.
'Your wife will hate to hear you have been flirting, Lambert!' As soon as Gideon spoke, he felt that this was mean-spirited. He noticed that Lambert hardly reacted. Nor did the cheese-bearer.
'Lambert!' she noted.
And Gideon! said Lambert, who had always been more generous than his brother deserved.
Lambert had left her free to choose between them, but the dynamics had changed. Two men in play was more than the woman wanted; she lost interest in both. The elder brother now seemed too cocky to tolerate, the younger too shy to educate. There were twenty-four thousand troops here and she let herself believe that her role was congratulating them. She moved off.
Lambert seemed disinclined to follow, though Gideon spotted that his brother watched which way she went. Had Gideon been older, more experienced, less inhibited by his companions, he might have gone along with her: offered to carry her basket, engaged in harmless conversation, waited to see what might happen. Inexperienced though he was, he felt it would have worked to his advantage.
He did not know how to manage this. He was not even sure that such an encounter was what he wanted. Gideon favoured what the Grand Remonstrance had called 'comfort and conversation' between men and women — even though his loins told him 'comfort' could have a wide meaning. With his partner, his apprentice and his brother all gawping like costermongers, it was easiest to remember he had been brought up in decent morality.
The pie in his hand was not as good as those his mother baked. He knew Parthenope would have sent provisions to the troops. Some other lucky bastard must be munching those. Like a true soldier already, he enjoyed the moment of repose and did not allow regret to linger.
The bloodless encounter at Turnham Green had saved London, though it solved nothing. The civil war had barely started yet.
Chapter Six — Oxford: September, 1642
When Edmund Treves was nearly killed by the head of the Virgin Mary, he took his first step towards marriage.
In truth his first step was very shaky. The soldiers' pot-shots had cracked into the stone Virgin, shearing off her veiled head. That smashed down on to the pavement, narrowly missing him. Oxford townspeople shouted with delight at the decapitation; their applause mingled with mutters of horror from robed university men. Treves saw in confusion that a stone shard from the statue had sliced across his wrist, causing blood to flow. Another shot rang out. It was his first time under fire. The familiar wide main street called the High, with its ancient university buildings, suddenly became a place of terror. As Treves realised the danger, his knees buckled and he nearly fainted.
Among the noisy onlookers, one man watched in silence. Orlando Lovell weighed up how the old feuds between town and gown festered with new complications. Freshly returned from the Continent after some years away, he saw with astonishment that tradesmen were openly jeering at frightened dons. Buff-coated troops had clustered in the gateway of Oriel College, threatening to manhandle gawping college servants and then firing at the University Church.