16th August 2016
Today I've been travelling from Edinburgh through the borders into England, and have had the most wonderful news – Three Sisters, Three Queens is Number One on The Times bestseller list in the UK. Thank you so much to all of you, I'm so thrilled.
I was planning on posting about how I couldn't help but think of Margaret Tudor's arduous journey south in 1515, but am now somewhat distracted, and have hijacked my own post! I should be telling you that Margaret fled from Linlithgow after the Scots rebelled against her. She was heading for Morpeth Castle, but, eight months pregnant and suffering from chronic sciatica, she only made it to Harbottle where she gave birth to her daughter Margaret Douglas. Here's a moment from her journey in my new bestseller (!):
There is no road, there is no lane. There is a track wide enough for a single man riding alone from village to village; but little more than that, and some of the way we ride across fields, the crop standing in stooks. We know the direction only by keeping the sea cliffs on our left and our faces to the south. The skies arch above us, it is enormous countryside, and when I look up I can see the fields rolling away to the distant horizon, to the distant hills. Archibald knows the land for miles all around his castle and after that we take up a lad from every village we pass to guide us to the next. I go into a daze of tiredness and pain, and I fall asleep against my husband’s back, clinging to him and moaning a little at a new ominous pain in my hip, like something grinding into the very bone.
Read more at http://tinyurl.com/jahn9do.
