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Author's Chapter Notes:
I know its been an age, but here is a really long chapter to make up for it...enjoy
The journey to their new estate was an easy one: the road was clearly marked and the trees to either side newly cut down and piled high. There were obvious camping sites in plain view, all close to clean water and the cut branches had been stacked neatly to provide burning wood for the travellers.

‘We could have booths built along the road for the convenience of the traders,’ Buffy pointed out from her place in the cart. Nordlys had been fractious all morning with a new tooth coming through, so Buffy had ridden there to allow the child to sleep in her mother's arms.

'Booths, Lady?’ asked one of the Saxons guarding the little convoy of travellers.

'They are roofless buildings that are available for any to use when they are travelling: you just throw a sail over the top and you have a shelter for the night.' Buffy explained as she looked around her from her high vantage point. Nordlys squirmed in her mother's arms, still fractious from the erupting tooth.

'Slight problem Buffy, your people might carry sails regularly but mine don't.’ William said with a smile from the back of the horse. He was trying not to show how anxious he was about his daughter's condition; he still couldn't quite believe that he had been given the gift of a family and he knew he would never take such a treasure for granted.

Buffy pouted; she was still trying to learn all the differences between the cultures. It would take a lifetime but she knew she would enjoy every moment of the learning. The look that William gave her promised long nights.

Nordlys started fussing again and took her mother's attention back to other duties. Buffy released the ties on her underdress and slipped the child inside, allowing her to feed to quieten her down a little. She really wished that Willow had been there to give Nordlys something to bring down the fever...Willow! That was the answer…

'William, could you look for a willow tree? We need some bark for Nordlys, it will ease her pain,' she explained, revelling in the quiet now her daughter was feeding. William nodded and started looking deeper in the forest, near the water where such plants grew.

It wasn't long before Godwin cantered up on his horse with a small rattle for the child. ‘This should keep her quiet. Made 'em for my sons when they were small. The willow will ease the discomfort and chewing it will keep her quiet for hours,' he looked embarrassed when Buffy smiled her thanks and rattled the toy in front of her little girl. A chubby fist reached out and made a grab for the toy, then peace reined again for a short while again. William smiled up at his friend.

'Never knew you had children,' he said quietly.

'Aye, three sons and a girl, all grown up now with family of their own to care for; don't need an old man like me around the place.'

They carried on until the early afternoon saw them turning up the pathway that led to their new home.

The hall was ...dreadful. Buffy looked at the ramshackle building and couldn't quite believe her eyes.

'Maggie of the welsh must have kept house before we arrived!' Faith joked as she looked at the decrepit walls and missing thatch. 'Come on B: we can do it, it’s nothing that a few coats of daub and a nice fire arrow wouldn't fix!'

Buffy smiled at her friend's levity. ‘Nothing that a fire arrow won't fix, and it will keep us warm tonight. Let's get the tents out, we'll be camping.'

William felt ashamed, he really should have checked the hall out more thoroughly before bringing his bride to this place. She was used to fine halls and warm beds not this… hovel. Buffy looked at his discomfort. 'Don't worry,' she said quickly, 'I was prepared for this; why else would our great Lords be so willing to send workmen to build us a fine new hall? They knew it was bad, but it’s a huge holding and will be worth a fortune in just a couple of years time,' she added as she climbed down from the wagon. 'We'll be fine, William,’ she added in the Norse tongue, 'we have each other and the Norns and Wyrd have been kind to us; everything else we can build ourselves.' William nodded at her, grateful for her support and love. He turned to his own duties and kept out of his beloved Buffy's way.

Nordlys was playing quietly in the back amongst the sheepskins. Buffy leaned in and secured the braid around her daughter’s waist, then she pulled her skirts up high around her calves and picked her way across the muddy yard to the door of the supposed hall. Peering in she could smell the musty flooring and rotten food. The fire was barely alight and she could barely make out the benches running along the sides in the gloom. It was worse than anything she had seen before… Faith was right, a fire was about the only thing that would fix this mess.

Buffy spent the rest of the evening organising the sleeping tents. She missed the huge tents they carried aboard ship but made do with the smaller Saxon accommodation. It didn't take her long to have the camp straight and the beds made up; thick sheepskins on the floor would keep them all warm and the leather horse skins were waterproof. Even Nordlys had her own area, between her mother and father, her and her doll Alvert both.

The hall roof, at least, was waterproof and sound. There was no evidence of leaks anywhere in the room, but the smell was awful. She spied a couple of women huddled at the back in the shadow, they were sitting doing nothing. From their dress they were either dependants of the hall or slaves, but either way they should not just sit when there was work to be done.

‘I’m Elizabeth, the new lady of this hall: who are you?’ she asked very officiously. She knew she needed to make her claim stick from the moment she started at the hall: start hard, finish off soft, it was the only way to control a household and not have it control you.

‘Hildelith, and this is Sara,’ the elder answered. They seemed respectful enough but Buffy was far from impressed at the state of their clothes and bodies. ‘Are there any other women here?’ She asked.

Hildelith shook her head. 'Just us, and most of the menfolk have left the place as well, they were scared of the new lord.’

‘Well then we had better get to work, and it’s not the Lord they need to be scared of,’ she added with a smile. Buffy straightened her shoulders and pulled off her cloak. She hung it on a peg by the door. ‘Where are the brooms kept?’ She had a determined look on her face and the two serving women soon found themselves brushing out the hall and hanging all the woollens out on a rope to air. Faith grabbed hold of the mattresses from the benches and was last seen pulling them out to be aired over the wagons.

Buffy looked around the hall when the doors were opened wide. ‘All those benches need cleaning down,’ she ordered ‘and can we get the wattle repaired on the walls. When the new hall is built we can still use this one, after all this will be on a highway in just a few months time, and we will have guests in and out of this place most of the summer. It will be a kindness to offer them lodging in a guest hall then.’

William smiled as she flung her orders about in a mix of Saxon and Norse; he translated when there was need, but soon settled himself to his own work. The hall would learn who their mistress was quickly enough.

Just days later they had settled into a sweet and steady routine. The hall was finally considered clean enough for the tents to be taken down and stored in the only rainproof shed they had. The grubenhus had been cared for by someone until recently, and it made a useful store for all the things she wanted to keep away from the weather; the folk of the hall would all sleep together until the new place was built and the others repaired.

The animals had been taken to pasture and the old straw cleaned out and put onto the garden’s edge. The dyke wall was in need of repair like everything else Buffy had seen. Well, she’d built up a hall once and she could do it again. Buffy took a deep breath of the late spring air: it was warm and welcome. The earth beneath her feet was drying up nicely and she had suggested rather emphatically to William that it was time to start sowing the wheat. The kale yards had been cleared under her watchful eyes and the pigs let in to root out the weeds. She and Faith worked hard and long trying to pull the place up to the standards they would be proud of. But it would soon be time for her foster sister to leave and return to her own hearth and home. The month she had promised to stay with Buffy was over and the next ship north would carry her home to her own children, and to Robin who waited for her.

The second week had been spent examining every beast in the hall: cows, pigs, goats and chickens. Despite the promises of both Athelred and Ingimund the animals were old and more ready for the pot than for work. Neither of the two supposed milk cows was in calf and the pigs hadn’t been let into the forest to meet up with a boar at all. Luckily the sheep and the ram had been running together anyway, so the lambs had been born on time so at least there would be mutton later on in the year. Buffy pulled out her wax tablet and noted down that she would have to have a word with Athelflaed, she had promised them whatever animals were needed, in fact whatever supplies were needed to get them through the first year - not that she couldn’t afford to buy them herself. Ingimund had also offered any help that was needed: the shopping list would be huge. She would also have to get Connor to fetch some slaves from Ireland, they would be needed to get the work done.

Buffy looked around the livestock in the yard in disgust; if they were to feed themselves this winter they would have to see about getting the animals sorted out. She pulled out her wax tablet again, taking more notes to remind herself of what needed doing and what they would need.

William had been away from the hall all day overseeing the major part of the manor. There were more than ten families who looked to him as their Lord now and he had to see each and every holder, check each hall and farm and see what needed doing to them all. This home was his, and he had brought his bride to it and she would not disappoint him, he knew that; she would make this hall something he was proud of. Fresh bread had been made everyday, the quick flat loaves that filled the stomach but didn’t take half a day to prepare. And the food coming from the hall was starting to be the sort that William recognised from his stay in Buffy’s old hall, wholesome and filling and full of fat and flavour. Not that Buffy cooked: she had brought servants with her from her own hall. Helga soon had the place in order: she had taken over the fire and just started in on the supplies.

Buffy had been glad to find that the garden at least had been cared for. She found a simple lad by the name of Andrew looking after it: he tended each plant so carefully and didn’t seem to notice she was there when she walked around.

‘His old master beat him ‘til his head bled,’ one of the serfs had told her, ‘he’d been unconscious for days. When he came to he was simple like you see, but good with plants.’ Buffy had watched the lad for a while and made note to ensure that he was cared for, he had earned his bread this day.


It was way past time for the fleece to be plucked, or maybe they sheared it here? What had been happening here? She thought to herself as she bustled around the hall trying not to disturb Helga, who was overseeing the stoking up of the fire.

‘The place has had no mistress for a number of years,’ Helga told her, ‘all the things a woman would do to keep hearth and home together have been missed.’

‘I noticed,’ Buffy answered dryly.

‘It won’t take us long lady Buffy, in a year you won’t recognise the place and on the main road it will gain a lot of trade.'



‘Helga,’ Buffy asked quietly, ‘any chance you could have Nordlys in your bed tonight? William and I…’ she didn’t need to finish the sentence, her blush did it for her.

‘Yes lass, I will, but make the most of your time together, when the children come along there is precious little of it.’

Buffy was grateful for the work, she missed Faith and her quick wits, but her home was here, at least for now. She loved the evenings when she and William would sit and talk about the day's work with Nordlys often falling asleep in her father's arms.

The nights were very sweet to William. Buffy was responsive to his every touch; they shared a bed surrounded by their own people, strangers mostly, with Nordlys holding Alvert close to her, sleeping peacefully between them. William loved the way she sucked her two fingers and took up most of the room; if he positioned himself correctly he could hold both of his girls in his arms. He didn't think he could be happier.

That night when Nordlys finally let sleep overcome her, Helga took her into her own sleeping area. William started to sulk but the way Buffy's hand rubbed the outside of his arm stopped him.

‘Perhaps I wanted you all to myself,’ she whispered in his ear before kissing and licking his neck. William could feel himself harden against her; he had no defence against this sort of invasion.

'What about the hall?' he asked as he started to nibble down from her jaw to her neck. He licked the pulse point there, causing Buffy to shudder against him.
‘We can cover the fire now and take to our blankets, they will just have to close their ears to the noise.’

William grinned as he stood up from his place between the high beams of his chair and picking his lady up threw her onto the bed they had erected at the end of the hall. He pulled the door closed, leaving the hall the other side of the barrier. The small dish of oil burned with a dim flame, leaving the shadows dancing around them. The noise of the chatter actually grew louder as they settled into their blankets, the men laughing raucously and poking fun at the way their new lord was treating his new wife.

‘He’s got her where all the North people should be, screaming impaled under a Saxon sword!’ one of them said loudly enough for Buffy to hear. She tried not to laugh, biting onto William’s shirt to keep the merriment in.
‘How does it feel to have won this fight?’ she asked William, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

‘Wonderful, but I wonder what they would think if they knew I had been your willing slave in your hall?’ He nipped at her neck, ‘and you know full well I always will be.’

The noise beyond the wall grew louder again, and the comments weren’t so polite. Buffy froze as one particularly loud voice called her a wench; William quietened her with a gentle finger to her lips. ‘Let’s recognise the speaker before we shut them up,’ he whispered.

‘It’s Col, one of the supposed workers from the fields.’ Buffy said quietly.

‘Well him I will deal with in the morning, but right now I have better things to do with my time.’ William leant down and started kissing her again.

Buffy could hardly wait to slip off her over dress leaving just the under-dress covering her body. William leaned forward and suckled on her breast: he could taste the milk as it seeped from her hardened nipple. No Saxon lady would allow herself to be touched when she was still feeding a child, but Buffy was no Saxon: she wove her fingers into his hair and pulled him closer to her.

'Harder,' she whispered to him; whimpering in need, she pulled him onto her breast, forcing his mouth onto her erect nipple, her lips kissing his head, the only part she could reach. She arched her body into his ministrations, delighting in the fire he was lighting in every inch of her skin; she could feel it tracking down her body, making a pathway to the centre of her womanhood. Her juices were beginning to flow thickly, soaking the sheet beneath her; William ran his fingers down her ribs and across the small mound of her stomach. He caressed the skin there, kissing her gently as he did so, remembering the joy at finding out that she had carried his child within her body. He continued downwards until he felt her hips and thighs covered by the linen of her under dress. He bunched the material in his hand, pulling it up and over her hips, freeing the lower part of her body from its restrictions. He was still kissing every inch of flesh he could find but grabbed the dress, and breaking off from the kiss for one moment, pulled the garment over her head, leaving her naked before him. He could feel bare flesh under his questing fingers and he started to stroke Buffy's hip and thigh. He was still sucking on her breast; she could feel every pull at her nipple shoot flames down to her womb. Buffy arched her back against his hip as the first of her orgasms tore her body to pieces, shredding her nerves completely; William slowed his stroking, allowing her to come down slowly from the heights of bliss, before tracing his fingers towards that secret place that brought him such heaven.

William felt the folds of skin that protected her womanhood were wet beneath his touch, swollen from Buffy’s need of him. He undid the braid that held up his trous and pushed them down over his slim hips. He could feel Buffy’s feet pushing them down further; he shrugged off his tunic and laid himself in the cradle of her hips, his hard member weeping at the sight of her, pushing its way into her body. They didn’t stop kissing and nipping at one another, desperately trying to taste each other, the sweat making their skins damp and slick against one another as they moved against one another seeking the ultimate release.

William’s hard shaft found the entrance to her sheath and slipped inside; he moaned as the tightness of her body started squeezing him to distraction. He bit the inside of his busy mouth to stop from shooting his seed inside her; Buffy arched her back again, drawing him deeper and deeper into her body. He could feel the fluttering of her walls as her passion pulled her into oblivion as her climax hit her, and it carried him over as well: he could feel himself pumping his seed into her for what seemed an age before he could pull his member from her body. Buffy recovered enough to snuggle into his side, and before sleep claimed him, he blew out the light before wrapping her in his arms and drawing the blankets over the both of them.


Chapter End Notes:
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