Missing Susan by Sharyn McCrumb Page B

leaned forward in her seat, her pretty face the picture of bewilderment. “But, Rowan, if it isn’t a new forest, then what is
the
New Forest?”
    “For one thing, it’s a thousand years old. In this country, I suppose that millennium-old things can be considered relatively new. It was the hunting preserve of William the Conqueror.”
    “Him again!” snapped Alice MacKenzie. “I suppose he destroyed a few villages to make this wilderness?”
    “There are rumors to that effect,” Rowan agreed. “And the preserve isn’t a forest in the usual sense of the word. It is simply a wilderness area, comprised of heath, bog, and woodland that was not to be farmed or built upon. It was a game preserve for the noblemen—and only for the noblemen.Poachers were hanged. In fact, a commoner could have his eyes put out just for disturbing the huntsmen at their sport.”
    “Then how pleasant that the king should have been murdered there,” said Elizabeth, with a republican glint in her eye.
    Rowan Rover beamed. “Yes, I thought you colonials would feel that way. It was not, alas, William the Conqueror who met with this poetic justice. It was his son and successor William the Red, or William Rufus, as they called him, in lieu, perhaps, of
Junior.”
    “Was he killed by a rebellious peasant?” asked Alice hopefully.
    “No, it’s much more sinister than that. Are you at all familiar with the case?” They all shook their heads.
    “We saw his grave in the cathedral this morning,” said Frances Coles.
    “Interesting the way he ended up there,” said Rowan with a knowing smile. “Here’s what happened. On the evening of August second, in the year 1100, the red-haired King William II was finishing up a day’s hunting with his seven fellow sportsmen. Incidentally, the way the Normans hunted game is absurd.”
    “Bow and arrow?” guessed Charles Warren.
    “Yes, but they were complete idiots about it. For a stag hunt the band of archers would hide behind trees surrounding a clearing. When the beaters drove the deer forward into the clearing, all seven hunters would shoot wildly in the general direction of the other six.”
    “That sounds more like Russian roulette than deer hunting,” said Charles Warren, shaking his head.
    “It was madly dangerous. The wonder isn’t that the king was shot, but that
anybody
ever came out of such a hunting party alive.”
    The group digested this information. Finally Martha Tabram said thoughtfully, “I suppose that such a system mightbe useful if you were interested in arranging a number of plausible accidents.”
    “Yes, I thought of that,” said Rowan. “If the king was angry with any of his henchmen, he could arrange a hunting party and tell the other six not to aim at the deer. Anyhow, on that August evening, the stag got away, and it was the king who took an arrow in the heart.”
    Kate Conway, the nurse, looked shocked. “Was he shot deliberately?”
    “I’m rather fond of the official story,” Rowan said with a grin. “According to the other five hunters, the king’s companion Walter Tyrrel shot an arrow at the stag; it
ricocheted off the animal’s back
—and struck the king in the heart.”
    Charles Warren burst out laughing. “What a line! Did anybody actually believe it?”
    “I myself consider it on a par with Woody Allen’s joke about the man who committed suicide by shooting himself from a passing car. Walter Tyrrel was not charged with regicide. That does not, of course, mean that he wasn’t guilty. It may simply mean that influential people were glad it happened. The fascinating element about the accident is that as soon as Tyrrel had killed the king, the entire hunting party fled the New Forest without a backward glance.”
    “What did they do with the king?” asked Kate, frowning at this medieval example of hit-and-run. “He would have gone into shock almost immediately.”
    Rowan chuckled. “So did they, I expect. They left him right where he had