The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn (30 page)

“I have in front of me an interesting document, Robin,” said Elizabeth.

“What is it, my love?” he asked absently.

“‘Tis the patent for an earldom… for one Robert Dudley,” she answered, subduing a smile. For on hearing her words, Robin’s ears, nay his entire face and body, had pricked up to battle readiness. Raising Dudley to the peerage, they both well knew, was a certain prerequisite to their marriage.

“I did not know you had had it drawn up,” he said, coming to his feet. He stretched languidly and tried to maintain a studied nonchalance. But she knew his heart was racing, and he longed to see the document with his own eyes, feel the parchment between his fingers. Though in love with her Master of the Horse and believing he loved her most ardently, Elizabeth had no illusions about him. Robert Dudley was as ambitious a man as she had ever known, and had come to welcome every gift or property or tide she had bestowed upon him.

He made his way across the chamber with the gait she loved — at once so graceful and so manly — and leaned over her shoulder to kiss her bare neck, lingering there with his lips. She wondered briefly if his eyes were on herself or on the patent for his earldom that she held in her hands.

“When will Her Majesty sign it?” he asked with restraint.

“When it suits us,” she replied with eminent hauteur, using the royal plural he so despised.

Stung but unwilling to show it, Dudley lifted a lock of her crimped hair off the luminous white shoulder and kissed her there. She turned to him, her small breasts rising from the low square cut of her bodice. He moved his warm lips across their roundness and all the breath seemed to leave her body in a great sigh. Elizabeth’s fingers threaded through the waves of his thick brown hair and her eyes closed. She was suddenly lost, lost, and the parchment creating Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester slowly fluttered to the floor.

Elizabeth hurried through the lush gardens of Richmond Palace toward the stables to meet Robin. He had promised her a brisk ride on the new grey jennet he’d dubbed Speedwell. So eager to see her love, she barely noticed the masses of flowers or smelt the great clusters of pungent herbs that lined the brick walks. She was therefore taken by surprise to be confronted by her Chief Secretary William Cecil standing in the path in front of her.

“My Lord Cecil! You startled me.” She motioned for him to come forward to greet her, which he did with all due courtesy but little of his natural friendliness. Elizabeth had learned of Cecil’s steely stubbornness the year before when she had hesitated to send the English army to Scodand to support the Protestant rebels. She had given in to his judgment and he had proven correct. Today, besides appearing weary from his journey back from Edinburgh, the stern, angry expression on his face bespoke matters even more serious. And she knew without asking what had prompted his ire. He began to speak without her leave, his voice quivering in the battle between rage and diplomatic restraint.

“I am confounded, Your Majesty. At a loss to understand how things could have deteriorated so badly in my absence,” he said.

But Elizabeth was not inclined to make this scolding easy for him. “Things? What things, William?”

“Affairs of state, Madame… and what is left of your reputation.”

“I have been seeing to the affairs of state, Lord Cecil, as have you in Scodand. I’m delighted with the treaty. We need no longer worry about the Franco-Scottish alliance or invading armies from the north, and have established Protestantism once and for all on the British Isles. As for my reputation —”

“It is said that you have been shut up and scarce seen these last months, so engrossed have you been with Lord Robert.”

“‘Tis true, I have spent some good time with Robin.”

Cecil was quickly losing his composure. “Do you not see how severely your good repute is crumbling? How your chances of making a good marriage abroad are disappearing? Your Scots cousin Mary believes you are poised to marry your horsemaster. The Archduke’s father is looking into the rumors of your scandalous behavior. Ambassador de Quandra’s slander is even more damaging. He’s reported to King Philip that you are a woman ruled entirely by your lusts, a woman of neither brains nor conscience, with a hundred thousand devils in your body!”

“The Spanish ambassador has never approved of me, and believes I am simply a worthless woman until I’m married.”

Cecil’s silence on the last point instandy inflamed Elizabeth.

“You agree with him, don’t you!” She turned and strode away so that he could not see the angry tears that had sprung unbidden to her eyes.

“That you must marry, there is no doubt, Your Majesty,” Cecil replied more gently, following behind her. “But that I think you worthless under
any
circumstances you must know is entirely untrue. Your conduct with Lord Robert,” — he chose his words carefully — “even if it has only the
appearance
of misconduct, is more serious than you apprehend. And it has badly undermined my position —”

“That is not true,” said Elizabeth emphatically.

But Cecil was determined to be heard and continued as if the Queen had not spoken. “— to such a degree that if you insist on retaining the man as your chief advisor, and continue to entertain the idea of marrying him —”

“How do you suppose I should marry Lord Robert, Secretary Cecil?” interrupted Elizabeth. “He already has a wife.”

“A wife who is ill, as all at court are aware.”

“Do you dare suggest Robin and I are waiting for Amy Dudley to die!”

“Do you deny it, Madame?” he replied quiedy.

Elizabeth’s neck burned with fury that Cecil had given voice to her own terrible and unspoken desire.

“As I was saying, Your Majesty, if you are determined to pursue this dangerous course, I will be unable to continue in your service as secretary.”

“William!” She turned to see Cecil, a miserable expression on his face, his arms hanging impotently at his sides. Elizabeth suddenly felt her senses numb, as though a heavy quilt had been thrown over her head. Cecil’s words as he went on seemed dull and muffled.

“I will gladly serve you in any other capacity, Majesty. In your kitchen, your garden … I know it is folly to ask you to choose between myself and Lord Robert, and I will not press you for your answer immediately. But if it please Your Majesty, give it some thought in the coming weeks. And advise me of your decision.”

Cecil begged her with his eyes for leave to go. With a nod she gave it, and he silendy disappeared from the brick walk.

Elizabeth stood straight and motionless as one of the stone pillars in her garden, and she found herself arguing silendy with her absent secretary.

Do not make me choose, Cecil, I beg you! I have been so happy. Dudley is a man I trust and adore. Do you not see I have no wish to take to my bed and body a stranger, a rude foreigner? I wish to marry my friend, my countryman, my love. I may do as I please. I am not some helpless girl, some father’s chattel to bargain with and sell as he wishes. I am the Queen of England and by God I will have my way!

Suddenly, as if moving out of a dense river fog, Elizabeth could feel the late morning sun beating down on her uncovered head, smell the riot of fragrances wafting up from the low garden, hear a trio of gossiping ladies as they made their way through the pear orchard. And then a great pain, like a dozen sharp needles piercing her skull, struck her with a terrible force. She reeled from it, sought support with her hand but found none, and almost fell.

“Kat, help me,” she whispered almost as a prayer. She knew that the palace grounds were alive with courtiers, yeomen, ministers, and gardeners, but she was terrified of anyone seeing her in a weakened condition. And so by the force of will alone she pulled herself erect. Each foot she placed carefully in front of the other and, fighting for composure as she nodded regally to this gendeman or that lady, made her way into the palace and back to her apartments.

Elizabeth’s distress must in fact have been transparent to all, for by the time she arrived pale as a corpse, Kat had the royal bed already turned down. The Queen collapsed gratefully into her mistress’s waiting arms and allowed herself to be gently laid down. To all of Elizabeth’s confused mutterings, her lady simply murmured, “Rest, sweet girl, rest.”

Three days passed in which the Queen lay abed racked with a fire in her head that seemed to drain all heat from her limbs and belly. She was delirious with pain and cried even as she slept. She called alternately for Robin Dudley and for Cecil and even, Kat was baffled to hear, her mother Anne. The royal physicians were summoned and the portly trio stood, heads together, murmuring their worthless remedies over Elizabeth’s prostrate form. Her pulse was taken and pronounced strong. She suffered neither fever nor flux nor pox, but she remained so very ill that in those three days Kat never slept for fear that her dear charge would die with no one who loved her by her side.

Elizabeth opened her eyes in the evening of the third day to find her mistress lighting candles in the stuffy bedchamber to illuminate her night’s vigil. She could see how slowly her old companion moved, how heavy lay her eyelids over the tired eyes.

“Kat.” Elizabeth’s first word after so long a silence was surprisingly strong and clear. Her lady turned with the sound of her name to see the Queen pulling herself up to sitting, alert and clear eyed.

She cried out, “Elizabeth!” and fell on her charge with embraces and copious tears. Kat pushed the damp frizzled hair back from the younger woman’s brow and searched her eyes for an answer.

“I’m all right, Kat. I feel well. A litde weak perhaps, but nothing that some light food will not cure.”

“Lady Sidney!” called Kat, and the closed door opened in-standy, for the waiting lady had been sitting just outside it. Mary Sidney entered the bedchamber to find Kat fluffing pillows behind the Queen’s back.

“Majesty, I’m so happy to see you improved.” Lady Sidney approached the bed. She knelt and taking Elizabeth’s hand, kissed it. “Tell me, what is your pleasure?”

“Some rich broth. Make it salty. Sliced pears. And a wet cloth. I stink like a goat.”

“Yes, Madame,” said Lady Sidney with a smile. The Queen had returned to them with her temper quite intact. She curtsied and hurried to the door.

“One more thing, Mary. When you return, see to it that Kat is put to bed immediately.”

“It shall be as you wish,” she said and left the room.

“Your Majesty …” Kat objected.

But now that the danger to herself was passed, Elizabeth could see exhaustion overtake her friend and engulf her.

“Katherine Champernowne Ashley,” she said with a playfully stern expression, “your Queen is deeply indebted to you for your sweet ministrations and utter devotion, but she has given you a royal command, to rest now, and she will tolerate no disobedience in this regard.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Kat inclined her head compliantly and in that moment relinquished control over the Queen’s body and gave it back to Elizabeth.

“Now, fetch me the Turkish jar from my table.” Kat handed her the tiny container from which she removed a key. “Unlock the chest at the foot of the bed and bring me the claret leather book. Then pull the candles closer to my head.”

Kat moved very slowly, her normally sharp mind dulled by sleeplessness. When she placed Anne’s diary in Elizabeth’s hands she was far too tired to wonder what book it might be that was kept under lock and key at the foot of the Queen’s bed.

As she took the leather volume from Kat, Elizabeth murmured sofdy, “I dreamt of my mother.”

“Ah, you called for her whilst you slept.”

“Did I?” Elizabeth smiled gently and drifted inward, remembering.

“What was it you dreamt?”

“She was in the high tower at Nonsuch Palace, or I believed it to be her, though I could not see her face as she was illuminated by so bright a light. She was calling out to me, calling my name. ‘Come closer, Elizabeth,’ she said, ‘I have something to tell you.’”

“And what did she tell you?”

“Nothing,” said Elizabeth, pulling the diary to her breast. “She had no time, for the casde began crumbling around her, all in chunks of stone and masonry, till she was sitting on a tall stool with the casde walls in a great pile around her.” Elizabeth took Kat’s hand, its papery skin dotted with flecks of brown. “Go on, let Lady Sidney lay you down. Get some rest. For I shall be back on my feet tomorrow and will need you refreshed by then.”