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hours at da Vinci’s Mona Lisa brought by that fine Italian gentleman to grace the King’s own hall. Ah, the time, the place, they linger in my mind. I have a memory — a moment in a perfect day within a life a world away. I will tell it full and let you see, my Diary, what life had been not long ago for Mistress Anne Boleyn.
    … I hurried down the sunny palace corridor to meet Josette where at our fitting she had promised me to tell a tasty bit of gossip. But then I saw King Francis approaching like a torch carried thro the black night, his own loud and bawdy presence outshining his many jewels. The men of his French Court glittered in his reflected brilliance, strutted with certainty and impudent grace embracing his every word, flattering his every elegant move, quenching his every whim.
    They drew nearer. I boldly met the French King’s eye and held his blatant gaze before dropping the lowest of seductive bows. I arose and knew that all the courtiers were admiring me, caressing me, undressing me. The’ King, his men and I exchanged some words —a compliment on His Majesty’s latest Italian plunder, a jest at another lady’s expense, a greeting to my Father the Ambassador, an invitation to play at cards. I tilted my head, flashed my eyes, smiled a teasing smile. Years of cultured coquettry worked a spell, for I knew that they were thinking, “This is Anna de Boullans, sister to Marie the infamous English mare. This one is young, still unsullied. Here stands a pretty world of possibilities and potential seductions. Let me smile the most handsomely, pose the most brazenly, cause with my wit the brightest laugh. Let me be her lover first and win from my King, if indeed he does not bed her before, his deep and salacious admiration. Let me be the one to share with His Majesty — for it is his greatest pleasure — the titillating details of our passionate liaison, the very words spoken in heated embrace.”
    So with sly innuendo before I took my leave I pretended to yield to thoughts of lasciviousness and goad them on to fantasy, with me at its delicious center. They knew not as they sauntered on to their next small amusement that I was whole as ever in body and maidenly resolve. Virginity was mine for I was well taught in this matter.
    I saw my sister and the names she was called. Mary was a true beauty, but she was dull minded, led only by the reins of desire and that day’s aggrandizement. She thought of nothing past the one night’s conquest.
    I learned, too, from the Queen we served, Claude — dowdy and chaste. All Claude’s ladies scorned her ways and flaunted her husband’s escapades. To most she was of no account. But not to me. For what I saw was that she was
Queen
. She wore the Crown, held the King of France between her thighs and passed thro them Royal Princes who bore his name. The gilt and witty ladies of Court in silken gowns, ablaze with jewels and hotly pursued … had nothing. Neither love nor name nor lasting glory. I played their game. Laughed and flirted, pretended to debauchery, drank from a goblet etched inside with salacious scenes… and did not blush. I kept my counsel. I was but fifteen.
    The sunny French corridor filled with sparkling music and a scent of rich parfum drifted to me and by. I touched the colored marble of a naked god upon a pedestal. I gazed upon his stony sheath of maleness, and thought of flesh. His thigh was cool, my hand upon it warm, nay burning hot. I deep inhaled.
    Rude shouts and the scream of a dying dog in the courtyard. My sweet reverie shattered, brittle ice upon the window glass. I am in England. But I am sick in my heart and lonely for that golden life. I wish I were in France.
    Yours faithfully,
    Anne

E LIZABETH SAT MOTIONLESS
, stunned by the revelations of the diary. What strange and singular fortune had placed this document in her hands, that she should now be made privy to her mother’s most intimate thoughts, and a world almost forty years