He sent for Perkin and told him gleefully that soon he would be crowned at Westminster, so Perkin could do nothing but feign an eagerness, while there was nothing he longed for so much as to be left to live in peace with his wife and his newly arrived daughter.

But this was what he had come for. This was the price he had to pay for all the grand living, all the splendor, all the adulation he had enjoyed for so many years and now he had become accustomed to it. But just at that time he would have given a great deal to be living with Katharine in a small house in Flanders—two humble people of whom no one outside their immediate circle had ever heard.

Katharine knew of his feelings. She shared them. She did not want a throne any more than he did and would have been perfectly content with that humble home in Flanders.

He could have wished that all this had never happened to him, that he had never gone into Lady Frampton’s service and attracted her by his good looks—but for the fact that through it he had met Katharine. More and more he was remembering those early days and there were times when he was on the point of making a confession to Katharine. He did not though; he could not bring himself to do it, even to her, and now the time had come when he must leave her and go marching into England.

“I shall send for you as soon as I am settled,” he told her.

“I know. I know.”

“What I don’t know is how I shall bear the separation.”

“You will be too busy to miss me,” she told him, “whereas I shall have to wait . . . and pray.”

“I shall need your prayers, Katharine. Pray I beg you that it shall not be long before you are beside me.”

“That is what I shall pray for.”

“I would give up everything I ever hoped to have not to leave you now.”

She nodded. She understood. Perhaps deep in her heart she knew that he had never been that little boy in the Tower of London.

James reviewed his troops and at Holyrood he made offerings to the saints and ordered that masses be sung for him and when Perkin joined him there he greeted him with pleasure.

“Now,” he said, “we shall see men flock to your banner. They have had their fill of the Tudor impostor. We will harry the Border towns and carry off spoils and see what effect this has on the Tudor. Meanwhile we will issue a proclamation in the name of Richard the Fourth, King of England and when you have thousands welcoming you . . . that will be the time to march south.”

Meanwhile they went to Haddington and across the Lammermuir to Ellem Kirk. They crossed the Border and raided several towns, but there was no response at all to the proclamation and it was very soon clear that the Englishmen of the Border were not interested in driving Henry Tudor from the throne and setting Richard of York up in his place.

James and Perkin laid siege to one or two towns. The expedition was taking on the nature of one of the Border forays of which there had been hundreds over the years, and James was getting bored. Moreover to march south without the support of the people of England for the new King would be folly.

He began to think that Perkin was not exactly a great leader of men and he would need a very big army if he were going to gain the crown. James had no intention of providing that, even though Perkin had promised him a good many concessions when and if he were successful.

James was wanting to be back in Edinburgh. He was making good progress with Janet Kennedy in spite of Archibald Douglas. It was true that he was tiring of Marion Boyd, although she had been a good mistress to him, but if she would understand his need to wander far afield, he would not mind keeping her on and visiting her occasionally. But it seemed to him that Janet would be the sort of woman who might absorb all his interest in which case it would have to be good-bye to Marion.

Who wanted a rough camp bed when he could be in a luxurious four poster with a glorious red-headed woman to comfort him? It was true Perkin had made great promises. It was very easy to make promises when one still had to gain a victory before he could redeem them; afterward the promises could be forgotten for they might not be so easy to carry out.

He went to Perkin’s camp. The young man was sunk in melancholy.

“You do not look happy, my friend,” said James. “Are you missing your warm marital bed?”

“’Tis so, my lord.”

“Ah, I miss my own bed. I tell you that.”

“I am troubled because the blood we are shedding is that of Englishmen . . . my own subjects,” said Perkin. “I cannot sleep at night for thinking of it.”

He cannot sleep at night because he wants his Katharine! thought James. He cannot sleep at night because he knows that Englishmen do not want King Richard the Fourth, and they will stay with Henry Tudor rather than fight. Well, it is a pleasant and human excuse and it will help to get me back to Edinburgh.

James nodded. “That is no mood in which to go to war, my friend.”

“I agree,” Perkin answered eagerly.

“Well, we have done our little foray. Perhaps we should think of returning to Edinburgh.”

Perkin felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

He was going home to Katharine and the baby.

There was murmuring throughout the country because Dudley and Empson were endeavoring to raise money for the Scottish war. The people were being asked to pay heavy taxes because a certain Perkin Warbeck was attempting to wrest the throne from Henry Tudor.