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S ir Etienne stood in the clearing with a dozen grousing fools surrounding him and cursed many things.

Aliénore, that she hadn’t lined his purse.

Berkhamshire, that he’d left his face a bloody mess and his form a bruised and limping wreck.

And lastly, and given his current straits, he cursed most thoroughly Marie of Solonge, for leaving him with a dozen men who were now looking at him as if he held their futures in his hands.

Or at least their hopes of a meal in the near future.

He ground his teeth in frustration. Who would have guessed that he would find himself liberated from the dungeon only to come to this pass?

It was Marie’s fault. Damn the woman to hell, he hadn’t even had a chance to enjoy her.

Somehow the vermin in the dungeon had put her off the idea of any kind of amusement.

He’d been willing, despite his own abused form.

It wasn’t as if she’d had the freedom to be choosy about the location for their encounter!

He supposed he had to thank her for getting him out of the pit and out the gate.

They’d ridden as if demons from Hell were after them for several hours, then Marie had called a halt to see to some womanly nonsense of relieving herself in private.

Sir Etienne had wondered why she’d needed her horse with her, but that was a woman for you—illogical and frivolous.

Of course, she’d been gone so long that he’d begun to wonder if something had befallen her.

And what had befallen her was a fine bit of riding that had left her nowhere to be found.

Which had left him with a dozen men to feed, house, and placate before they left him dead on the side of the road.

Things would not go well for Marie, did he ever but manage to lay his hands on her again.

The lads were growing restive. Sir Etienne put his shoulders back and searched frantically through his scattered thoughts for something to calm them down. Then he struck upon it.

“Riches,” he said. Such was what soothed him to sleep at night. Surely these men were interested in the same thing.

“Gold?” one asked doubtfully.

“Aye,” Sir Etienne said. “Gold, silver, all manner of things that would bring a man comfort and ease.”

“Where?” demanded another. “We just left our only chance of a steady meal.”

“Aye,” said another. “Not as if we could go back there.”

“Riches are not behind us,” Sir Etienne said, looking off into the forest as if he could see something the men could not. “They lie before us. On a different shore. In the keep of a man who has such wealth, even he cannot count it.”

He listened to himself speak and marveled at his own cleverness. Berkhamshire was rich, that was true. And ’twas another certainty that he wouldn’t be forthcoming with any of his gold here in France.

Perhaps Aliénore would yet serve him.

“A different shore?” asked one man doubtfully. “Which different shore?”

“England,” Sir Etienne said enthusiastically.

He was met with blank stares, then a babble of curses that could likely be heard for leagues.

“Silence,” Sir Etienne commanded. “Will you have all learn of our plans?”

“What plans?” a man said scornfully. “Sounds to me as if you haven’t got a plan.”

Damnation, but would these louts never stop thinking and merely follow?

He longed for the time when he would have men about him who would serve him with no argument.

He had little patience for peasants pretending to be knights who couldn’t manage coherent thoughts if they were handed them on a fine silver dish.

“I have a plan,” Sir Etienne assured them. “We will go to England, wait for the lord of Berkham, and then sell him something he wants very badly. It will cost him dearly,” he continued. “Perhaps all he owns.”

“Sell ’im what?” asked a man who was currently picking his teeth with his blade. “And when will we eat next? I’m hungry.”

“We’ll sell him back his bride,” Sir Etienne said impatiently, “and that’s all you need to know now. We’re for England as quickly as possible.”

“Dinner first,” said the man with the knife in his teeth. “I can’t go to England on an empty belly.”

By the saints, was he going to have to do everything for these fools?

“We’ll go north,” he said, irritated. “We’ll forage inside people’s larders and take what we want. And if you’re too squeamish to do that, you can leave now.”

There was low rumbling, and then many shrugs and loosening of daggers in sheaths.

Sir Etienne had a brief moment of panic, which he tramped down immediately and credited to no breakfast, then realized that the lads were for him and merely ready to wreak havoc in the next village they came across—not looking at him as if he might have been quite tasty roasted over a hearty fire.

“To England, then,” he said, then resheathed his sword and mounted his horse. He turned it north.

Or what he hoped was north.

The lads grumbled, but tromped after him readily enough.

To England.

His fortune awaited.