Rebels and Traitors by Lindsey Davis

privacy. Hardship already afflicted them. They received neither food nor water on the march or at battle stations. Armies fended for themselves. At least on this occasion Parliament had sent surgeons out to Hammersmith; those who had fought at Edgehill were saying that the wounded there had had to lie all night among the dead, without medical attention. Only the pity of local people had produced any succour.
    Then as he stood in line of battle with nothing else to do, Gideon mused, if I die here today, what will my life have been?
I shall never have known a woman
… A strange panic gripped him. He determined to do something about it — if he lived.
    He returned to the critical question of whether he should be bearded, and if so, in what style?

    Causing muted catcalls, Lambert Jukes appeared and picked his way amongst their regiment. Lambert was always regarded as a good trooper, though known for his frisky attitude to discipline. He thought rules were for everyone else. Now, as the troops grew weary of waiting, Lambert had sneaked off from his own regiment. To Gideon’s annoyance, he saw that his brother was sporting a full set of jawline whiskers coming to a jaunty point, with a neat chin stripe and a curled blond moustache.
    That settled it. Gideon would shave.
    Lambert lowered his pike casually. Pikes were supposed to be fifteen or even eighteen feet long, their main purpose being to nudge cavalry riders from their horses. Many soldiers trimmed the length, to make the unwieldy staves easier to manage. Lambert was no exception and had shortened his pike to little more than twelve feet. Gideon told him it was barely long enough to shove a milkmaid off a pony.
    Lambert guffawed. ‘What greeting is that, brother?’
    ‘Should you not be at your station, soldier?’ Robert Allibone resented association with this wandering fly-by-night.
    Lambert soothed him: ‘I’ll be there when the shots fly. I see you brought your babe-in-arms?’
    The big-eared, bandy-legged youngster Amyas raised his eyes to the heavens. He was grinning. This was all a big joke to him.
    ‘He would not be left,’ answered Gideon tersely. He and Robert thought their apprentice was too young, but it was out of their hands; Amyas had come anyway. Parliament had issued an order that all apprentices who joined up would be relieved of their obligations to complete their indentures. When this war ended, the commercial trades would be awash with half-trained young men who thought they owned the world — assuming they had not been killed first.
    Gideon gazed at his brother, all wide shoulders and wise-boy jests, and he marvelled, not just that Lambert had bothered to come and make friendly contact at such a moment, but at his self-confidence. The Green Regiment’s colonel, Alderman John Warner, was giving them a filthy look, but Lambert saluted the colonel as jauntily as if
he
were the officer, graciously noticing some junior.
    A man had been following Lambert. It was unclear whether they knew one another and had arrived together, but while Lambert gossiped, the man spoke quietly to Colonel Warner, and he stayed when Lambert left. He wore black and behaved as if he were freely allowed to saunter among the troops. Perhaps he was a preacher. If so, he did not preach. Someone suggested he was a scoutmaster, in charge of intelligence agents and terrain scouts.
    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