'You are slightly mad,' he replied, 'but I begin to love you.'

Just then they came to the top of a low ridge. The sunset was in all its glory now, ahead of them, a vast red glow on the horizon over the Avon valley. And then Adela turned round to look back and saw all the purple heather of the heath suddenly transformed into a vast, magnificent, crimson fire, so that it seemed as if the whole Forest floor were molten, like the mouth of a secret volcano.

Then she and Tyrrell continued on their way, and when they could see the darkening river and the broad meadows by the cattle ford, she turned northwards and left him to take his flight towards the west.

A single arrow from a bow had killed Rufus. The red-headed monarch had died instantly. His companions had gathered and taken counsel quickly. It was his silent, thoughtful younger brother Henry who, after only moments of persuading, had announced: 'We must go to Winchester at once.' The treasury was there.

It was fortunate indeed that, no doubt thanks to the efficiency of Cola, Puckle and his cart should have been near at hand. They wrapped the body of the king, put it in Puckle's cart and all set out for the ancient capital. All, that is, save Cola who, his work done, returned slowly home.

He reached his manor some time after dark, at just the same time as, in another, larger manor further west, they woke the Lady Maud, sleeping after her ride, to tell her that her husband, out riding in the Forest, had fallen from his horse, broken his neck on a pile of wood and was dead. She slept no more that night.

Another mother and child, deep in the Forest, did rest quietly that warm summer night: the pale doe and her fawn were at peace with the world, as they had been during most of the day. For, having briefly heard riders nearby and thought they were hunters, the pale deer had heard no more and settled down with her fawn once again. She lived in a part of the forest far distant from that in which King Rufus fatally hunted that day. So that whether Adela had seen another pale deer as she came across the heath, or whether the deer's colour was only a trick of the light, or whether there was some other cause of her mistake, it was impossible to say.

Nor have men ever been able to say with certainty what really passed in the Forest that strange and magical day. The hunting companions of the king were known. Tyrrell, it was said, had taken aim at a stag, missed and struck the king. No one, or very few, asserted that he had done it deliberately, nor was there any clear reason why he should.