The King I also avoided, and only saw from a distance until the day he sent for me; once, far off, his scarlet satin cloak and heavy furs showing like a giant poppy with the brown capsule half pushed off; once sunning himself in a narrow court, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, his shoulders hunched to his ears, decrepit, shrunken, every muscle in collapse; and once, not an hour later, on the parapet of the outer wall, bowing a gracious acknowledgment to a group of the good folk of Tours who saluted him from a discreet and safe distance; the half-dead man was then very much alive, and so rumour was justified of her children! Tied though he was to the King's girdle, it was Monsieur de Commines' custom to steal an hour nightly, and listen to my rehearsal of the day's lessons. "What strikes me most," said I, as my week drew to an end, "is the confusion of tongues within the walls. There is the liquid music of Provence, the iron rasp of Normandy, the clipped French of Paris, the uncouth burr of Gascony; I even heard a Flanders oath or two to-day." "Eh?" said Monseigneur, looking up at me; "Flanders? Did you say Flanders?" "Yes, Jehan Flemalle the bearward. The brute clawed at him as he fed it, and he drew back swearing; I know a Flanders curse when I hear it, and so, I think, should you," I added, laughing. But, so far from breaking up, the gravity on his face deepened, and for a full minute he sat with pursed mouth and narrowed eyes, staring into vacancy out of window. When I would have spoken he shook his head and snarled an incoherence, warning me into silence with a little impatient twist of his hand. But suddenly his face lit up, and he turned upon me, his eyes shining. "Jehan Flemalle--Jan Flemael! By the splendour of God, I begin to understand!" then he checked himself, and sat watching me, as he had sat that night in the Louvre, when I knew to my discomfort that the keenest brain in France was reckoning up not my strength, but my weakness. "Do you know," he went on at last, his voice suave and smooth, with all trace of excitement gone from it, "I distrust this Jehan Flemalle. What if he starves the King's beasts to his own profit? He is an Angevin, and--Yes, here is your chance to do the King a service. From time to time these wild creatures have cost immense sums. I hate them myself, but the King loves them, and visits them almost daily. Watch this Jehan Flemalle; watch him when alone with the beasts, note whom he consorts with, and if they meet in secret try and catch them in talk." "What, Monseigneur? Play spy upon a butcher?"