The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn by Robin Maxwell Read Free Book Online

past.
    Elizabeth felt as though she had suddenly found entrance into a secret chamber long sealed — as a tomb — in which hidden were mysteries dreadful as they were fascinating, dangerous as they were important. She searched her heart, but found nothing that might be called love for the shadowy personage who had been her father’s mistress for six years, his wife and queen for three. Elizabeth had, since childhood, built up around her heart thick walls to protect it against Anne’s shameful memory. Her bitterness at the traitoress’s death and its tainting of her own life was the mortar.
    The crown had been Elizabeth’s for so short a time. And she was beset by the gravest of decisions every day which affected not simply her life but all of England, all of her subjects. If indeed the fates had chosen to bestow the diary upon her at this crucial moment, she thought, she would be foolish to accord it anything less than the utmost attention.
    A sharp knock at the Presence Chamber door starded the Queen. “A moment more, Kat!”
    Her mind raced. Against all odds her mother had kept secret the diary throughout her life. Now no one but herself and Lady Sommerville knew of its existence. Elizabeth determined in that moment that no one else should ever know. She would lie to Kat about the reason for Lady Sommerville’s mysterious visit. And she would hide the diary away under lock and key. In the most public of lives, it would be her most private secret. Elizabeth concealed the claret volume in a pile of state documents before calling her waiting ladies back into the Presence Chamber.
    “With whom is my next audience?” she inquired mildly of Kat.
    “Lord Braxton and his son. After that is your morning consultation with Lord Cecil. And then a sitting for your portrait, Madame.”
    “Very good. I’m going to my apartments for a moment,” said Elizabeth, scooping up the documents and moving toward a concealed door, the back way to her rooms.
    “Now?” cried Kat. “Lord Braxton has been waiting. And Lord
    Cecil…”
    “Let them wait,” said Elizabeth, clutching the diary to her breast and disappearing through the door.

    Kat Ashley hummed absently as she poked at the fire in the Queen’s bedchamber. Elizabeth was irritated with her own nervous pacing and clammy hands which now worried a silk tassel at her waist.
    “What gown will Her Majesty wear for the evening’s entertainment?” asked her waiting lady.
    Elizabeth knew that her answer would elicit a flurry of unwanted questioning. Still she said, “I won’t be joining in, Kat. I want to be alone this night.”
    “Very good. I’ll have them bring our supper up. We’ll eat it by the fire.”
    “No, Kat, I mean to be quite alone.”
    The lady blinked, not yet comprehending Elizabeth’s words. The Queen was never unattended. Kat herself slept on a pallet at the foot of Elizabeth’s bed. She, at the very least, should stay and —
    “Just bring some candles now, all you can find. Light them round my chair.”
    “Candles?”
    “Make it bright as you are able.”
    “I don’t know what’s got into you, Elizabeth.”
    “Please.”
    There was no sense in arguing with the Queen when she had made up her mind, decided Kat. No sense at all.

    Elizabeth sat in her highbacked chair, flickering candles creating a halo of golden light around her head. The only sounds were the wind in the chimney and the crackle of burning wax. After Kat and her ladies had gone, leaving the Queen in blessed silence, Elizabeth had removed a small key hidden in the lining of a silver box and opened the heavily carved Italian chest that sat under the window. From amongst the delicate folds of her own christening robes she then pulled her mother’s diary. It had taken almost a week for her to find this moment of privacy, though the thought of the secret book had played at the edges of her mind every hour of every day since old Lady Sommerville had brought its mystery into her