Sigrid raised her sword high, blonde hair flying and muscles rippling, her warrior's battle cry loud and clear before her sword crashed upon the battered shield protecting the feisty farmer. The sword arced through the air again, viscous and lethal, aiming for unprotected legs. Staggering under the force of the first blow, Helga fell, canny enough to tuck her legs under the shell of the shield before the next blow landed. Nimble and lithe, the farmer rolled away from the advancing onslaught, finding her feet and glaring with steely green eyes.

"Faen! I'll have you on the field at Valhalla," the warrior gloated, before chuckling.

"Beiskaldi," grumpily muttered the farmer, readily accepting the offered hand.

"Shit!" Judith exclaimed at the screen. "I have no idea what she'd say. FUUUCK!"

Judith pushed her laptop away from her in frustration, knowing she didn't quite have the characters in her head yet.

"Stubborn bitch," she muttered, plotting vengeance on the main character for causing her such consternation, and on Caroline in real life for being so bloody evasive. She'd been asking for months to have dinner with the head teacher, after the life-changing realisation she'd had during their talk at the school. Watching how easily Caroline commanded a room of a thousand people, how comfortably power sat on her shoulders, had been a captivating revelation. The juxtaposition between that woman and the one who'd been quietly devastated by accusations of impropriety just moments before was fascinating. It had pushed the idea of a hard and bitter control freak painted by John forever into the distant past, replaced by someone much more complex and infinitely more compelling.

At an intellectual level she could understand Caroline's reluctance to become involved with her, but at a visceral level, she knew Caroline turning down the opportunity of dating someone with millions in the bank only made her more attractive. In light of this, her fascination with Caroline had grown, although she was careful to hide the full extent of it and limited herself to sporadic phone calls.

She reluctantly abandoned her campaign to win Caroline over when she learned about Gillian. Instead, she perched like a steely Siamese cat, sleek and tightly wound, waiting to pounce on her prey when Gillian reverted to her old habits. She wanted to be there to help Caroline pick up the pieces, like Kate had done years before. She was so jealous of Caroline's strength and devotion to Kate that she surreptitiously wrote it into her Robin Hood saga, taking succor from the vicarious thrill of her characters sharing a deep a connection with one another that she hadn't found in real life.

Her little obsession had changed when she'd realised the original adult book she'd planned to write about Caroline's family had morphed into a book about Vikings, with Caroline playing the lead role as a Viking warrior. The layered complexity of an adult woman like Caroline, a natural leader and yet a little broken, was precisely what she needed to bust out of the ranks of the much-maligned Young Adult category into the Adult market. The awards would flow, she just knew it.

"Fuck you, Hilary Mantel. I am going to wipe the floor with you with a character from the 9th Century," she huffed.

Judith stood up, brushed her hands on her hips to shake off the mood and picked up her phone. She paced around the room, waiting for the call to connect.

"Caroline. Hi," she began, chirpy and bright. All the better to catch the wary worm.

"Judith," was the flat reply.

"If you won't do dinner, will you do lunch?"

"Judith, I don't want to be unkind, but we've had this conversation before."

"The thing is, I have a proposition for you." The background noise at the other end of the line didn't manage to cover the tired sigh.

"You are unrelenting, Judith. I know you mean well—"

"Not about us. I've given up on that. My attention span isn't that long and you're not that interesting," she fudged. "It's for the kids. The school. You know, the gym."

"Oh!"

Clearly that was a different story, because Judith could almost hear Caroline having to think about it, if the pause was any indication.

"What, sort of proposition are we talking about?"

The worm was hooked. Judith grinned for the first time in days, a sense of possibility lightening the air.

"I'll tell you over lunch. Next Friday? I'll send a car for you at 12pm." Judith paused briefly before sealing the deal. Knowing the only way to guarantee Caroline would show up would be to give her no option, she continued cheerfully, "See you then. Bye," and hung up.

Caroline stared at the phone in her hand, not quite believing the conversation she'd just had, and not at all sure she hadn't been bested in the odd little game of hide and seek she and Judith had been playing for months.

"Christ!"

Caroline closed her eyes and sighed, checked her diary and sent an email to Helen to move her Friday afternoon meeting with the Head of History. Once that was out of the way, she checked the meeting with the new architect was before Friday so she had a better idea of what the cost might be. If Judith was going to come up with a solution, the Headteacher better have a plan for what the school needed.

"She hung up on you?" Gillian couldn't believe the nerve of the woman who'd chased Caroline for months. Gillian leant against the kitchen bench and turned to face the beautiful blonde standing next to her, the woman who was apparently Judith's cup of tea again.

Caroline nodded. "Yep."

Gillian laughed, poking Caroline gently in the ribs. "Bet you loved that!" she said, enjoying watching Caroline's mouth screw up into a pout.

"She's, uh, oh for fuck's..."

Gillian laughed even harder, wrapping her arms around her lover. "Come on, she's too much fun. What are you going to say if she propositions you?"

Caroline leaned back, looking warily at her lover, wondering if there was something else going on. "What are you...you're not concerned, are you? I mean, I'm not...it's just lunch."

"God no! You're not like that. Judith's clearly into you though, and it's a bit hilarious watching you squirm," she noted with a grin, watching eyebrows rise under the blonde fringe, "or not," she added, trying not to laugh again.

Caroline sulked. "I'm glad my discomfort is so entertaining."

Smirking, Gillian replied, "It's a laugh because she pushes your buttons, and I love seeing how you're so polite while tap dancing out of trouble." She planted a kiss on Caroline's nose. "You're very good at it."

"Hmmph" was the response.

Caroline patted Gillian's bottom gently, signalling the end of the discussion. "Clear off. I need to start dinner, and you need to check on those new sheep of yours before it's too dark."

"Dinner was good," Gillian said loudly enough for Caroline to hear over the running water in the ensuite.

"Is it something to make again, even though it was without meat? I hated to do that to you but we promised Flora." Caroline turned the water off and dried her face with the hand towel before reaching for her moisturiser.

"Yup," Gillian said smiling, thinking even Caroline's vegetarian meals were posh. "Imagine her eating red beet bourginon, complete with lentils and mushrooms. What was in those yummy mashed spuds?"

"Buttermilk. I knew she'd at least eat the carrots in it but she did alright." She poked her head around the doorway, blue eyes twinkling, hoping for a reaction. "I did think you played to the room when you mentioned about the possible side-effect of eating red beets."

Gillian laughed gleefully. "I know! What four year old doesn't want to experiment with having red poo?"

Caroline's face broke into a cheeky grin. "Keeping it...real. Typical!"

Gillian gasped in mock horror before planting her hands on her hips. "Snotty cow...that's what happens when you go out with a sheep farmer; we spend all day mucking after animals..." She sauntered towards Caroline, landed a kiss on the presented cheek and tantalisingly patted a bottom before turning back to the bed.

Caroline was momentarily speechless as she watched Gillian change into a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms. Shaking her head, she turned back into the bathroom, calling out. "Do you want to be blue or green this month?"

"Blue! It's not easy being green," the tired farmer briefly sang in response, enjoying the chuckle she could hear from her partner.

Gillian never failed to be amused by Caroline's insistence on swapping their old toothbrushes for new ones on the first of every month. She wondered if all posh bitches did that or just the one she loved. She didn't care for the Italian toothpaste Caroline had recently brought home but she had to admit that she preferred the overpriced and overpromising moisturiser; her weather-beaten skin was responding to it better than the stuff she used to buy off the clearance rack at Greenhoff's.

For a brief second, Gillian wondered what posh toothpaste Judith used. She imagined the vampiric Judith biting Caroline's neck with glistening white fangs as a prelude to completely pulling Caroline under her spell. Even though she knew deep down that Caroline wasn't interested in Judith, she was jealous of the wealthy author who could afford to give Caroline anything she wanted.

"For breakfast I'll make some of those pancakes you love with the leftover buttermilk," Caroline promised as she reentered their bedroom.

Lying in bed, Gillian's jealously faded when she saw Caroline ready for slumber in her pjs and pearls, talking about how they'd start their weekend. The thought of Judith chipping a fang on Caroline's pearls gave her an evil grin, but Gillian found comfort in Caroline's perfectly freckled skin that was hers alone to touch and taste. She watched Caroline slip under the covers and soundly kissed her, eventually spooning in front of Caroline, their preferred way to enter dreamland. As her mind decanted into sleep, her final thought was at least vampires don't go out in daylight. It was one lunch, and her lover would return home safely.

The concept for Judith's story is based on a real Viking woman. For more information, search for Viking warrior woman Birka.