As soon as Dyve decamped, his Parliamentarian neighbour, Sir Samuel Luke, nipped in. Any Royalist plan to invade the Eastern Association was abandoned, permanently, as it turned out. Parliamentary cavalry, under Oliver Cromwell, was quartered around Newport that winter, for security. By the time Gideon arrived they had moved off, but connections with Cromwell persisted and he heard the name regularly.
Newport proved valuable, just beyond the King's reach from Oxford yet close enough for informants to report whatever the King was up to. From here, Sir Samuel Luke tenaciously kept watch on the enemy. His activities ranged over a fifty-mile radius in all directions and sometimes his contacts went further.
Gideon rarely had direct conversation with his colonel, but came to know him well by sight: a short man, broad of beam and bulbous-bellied, with a full jaw, fleshy face, long straggling hair and a brocaded neckerchief, who busied himself continuously. 'He knows who you are,' people said. Anyone who rode back to the garrison with information could feel confident that his debriefing, whether taken by Samuel Butler or by one of the officers, would be passed to the colonel himself; if relevant, it would be relayed by letter from him to the field generals or even to Parliament, probably the same day.
Luke was educated, energetic and obstinate. Like his father, Sir Oliver Luke, who was still active at Westminster, Samuel was a traditional English country squire. Hardly a day went by without his sending conies to his father or giving presents of deer or game pies to other gentlemen whose goodwill might be useful. To Gideon, this country life of sport and vigorous ingratiation came as a shock. He did not expect to see hunting hounds bustling through the garrison, or to make way for Sir Oliver Luke's falconer, bearing his hawk upon his arm as he went from wood to park. Gideon had always known there were favours done in the City, and although he only mildly disapproved of the weekly rabbits sent up to London for Sir Oliver Luke, he had much stronger feelings about the regular handouts to other landowners: the does, the red deer pies, the braces of partridge or pheasant, the teal and snipe. All the local estates were carefully protected by orders from Sir Samuel, whether owned by Parliamentarians or Royalists. It made the war, in which honest working men were dying, seem a mere game to the gentry.
There was more congenial bustle at Newport: the visits of Sir Samuel's agent, Mr Love, who brought funds from the Eastern Association counties — or with more frequency took anguished letters from Luke, trying to wring out arrears in order to feed and equip the garrison soldiers; the arrival of carts from Sir Samuel's quartermaster in London, carts bearing military equipment of all kinds — together with Sir Samuel's wine supply; and the constant flow in and out of cavalry.
The regime was unique. When other garrisons took prisoners — known Royalists or suspected spies — they sent them to Newport for examination. From Newport itself, regular parties of horsemen rode out to find and beat up Royalist soldiers, whom they cheerfully killed or took prisoner, then they carried off provisions and horses. They roamed through villages near Oxford — Burford, Bicester, Woodstock — harrying the King's main field army. Then individual scouts, colleagues Gideon came to know, travelled even longer distances — Banbury, Chard, even Salisbury — to discover information about enemy troop movements.
One of the first questions Gideon had been asked was 'Do you ride, Jukes?'
'I have sat on a horse.'
'Do you ride?'
'Not as a cavalryman would.'
'Then learn.'
The next time new horses were brought up from Smithfield, one was allocated to him. He would never be a safe infantry musketeer again; the complicated manoeuvres with bullets and powder were now too cumbersome for his poor fingers. So he happily became a dragoon, armed with a musket and a long sword, neither of which he used frequently, while he struggled to lure good service from his lacklustre nag. Mostly, as part of Luke's team, he had to master questioning and listening. Once he had learned his way around the districts, he became a valued independent scout.
Luke's scouts diligently watched Royalist regiments. They counted groups of the enemy, noted their arms and the quality of their horses, and tried to discover where they were going. They picked up Royalist news-sheets. They questioned people in local villages after the enemy had been there to demand taxes, weapons, food, or quarters. They knew all the inns. They stopped and searched travellers. They developed relationships with tradesmen and pedlars. A horse losing a shoe would give a good excuse to gossip with a farrier. Market days were good cover.
Sometimes they organised real spies who went in disguise into Royalist towns and garrisons. This included Oxford. Gideon volunteered himself but was too tall and too flaxen-haired. The task called for men who could pass inconspicuously — and women; they had a she-intelligencer called Parliament Jane in Oxford. The task was dangerous. Parliament Jane's husband was hanged by the King at Carfax. Undercover scouts had a short life.
Riding around by himself gave Gideon time to brood.
It was symptomatic of his failing relationship with his wife, that he wrote to tell his parents and Robert Allibone he had joined the Newport Pagnell regiment, but not Lacy. A month after his arrival, a letter from his father informed him sadly that both Lacy and the baby, Harriet, had been ill and had died.
Gideon tried to ignore his relief. His problems did not end. Now he felt guilty for leaving them.
Joining up at Newport Pagnell in order to forget his troubles now seemed pointless — even though Gideon knew he had an aptitude and a liking for his new work. At fifty miles' distance from London it could have been easy to put his bereavement from his mind. Yet as he rode around, often solitary, he had time and opportunity to wrestle all the more fiercely with his doubts.
Had Lacy Keevil been already with child — and had she known it — when he married her? Had he been singled out as a fool? Who was the child's father? What was the Bevans' involvement? Remembering how eagerly they had pressed for the union, they must have known the situation. So were Bevan and Elizabeth simply Lacy's keepers at the time of her disgrace, adults forced to scurry round to find a solution when a young girl in their household had behaved foolishly? Or was there a darker motive in their rush to find her a husband?
Gideon was not entirely pitiless. He saw that perhaps Lacy herself had been cruelly used. All of their lives had been soured by whatever his wife had done — or had had done to her. Now Lacy was dead, along with her four- month-old baby, and she left Gideon damaged. He might never really find the answers to his suspicions, but he had lost all faith in women.
He threw himself into scouting as if to court danger and seek oblivion. He went forwards, but he rode in a grim mood.
Chapter Twenty-Nine — Newport Pagnell and Stony Stratford: 1644
Gideon came to recognise many of the people who lived and worked in the districts through which he regularly rode. Some he knew well. Clergymen, innkeepers, market women and beggars were useful sources of information; after a season he recognised regular faces and exchanged greetings with many. He also took keen notice of strangers. Occasionally, he reported criminal activities to the authorities.
His remit covered the area towards Northampton. While looking out for Royalist fugitives after the battle of Marston Moor, he spotted a ragged young woman, lurking in a church porch. It was a medieval chapel-of-ease that lay alongside Watling Street on the west side of Stony Stratford. The waif was slightly built, her face hidden in a grubby shawl. Gideon watched her enter the ancient door to the square tower. A bundle in her arms aroused his immediate suspicions. He waited. As he had feared, when she emerged a few minutes later, she was carrying nothing.
She set off fast, heading away from the historic town. After a moment's consideration, Gideon urged his horse forward and overtook her. Dismounting, he stopped her.
'What are you doing?'
'Looking for horse mushrooms.'
'Too early! Don't lie or you'll be taken up for spying.' It was August. Gideon had been intently watching the hedgerows to which she clung, since that was where ambushes were laid; they were still overgrown and green. Nuts and berries had yet to ripen; spiders' webs did not yet glisten between the twigs; autumn mists had yet to bring up mushrooms, puffballs or fairy rings in wet fields and cowpats. Soldiers and scouts were still abroad. Battles yet lay ahead in the calendar.
