I could bear it {the shame} because I knew the truth, child," I say. "There was...

I could bear it {the shame} because I knew the truth, child," I say. "There was one of us in that marriage who was old, fat, and smelly, and it wasn't me."
"The King was cruel to speak thus," Alice says, but in a low voice. As if Henry, dead these past ten years, might somehow hear her.
"He was, yes," I say. "But I think mostly he was afraid."
Alice is sceptical. "Kings are afraid of nothing," she says.
"This King was afraid. I know it, for I'm the one who made him so. I made a mistake, child, a grave one."
"What was it?"
"I made my face a mirror when it should've been a mask, and what the King saw there terrified him. He hated me for it, and never, ever forgave me."
{Anna of Cleves}