The Giantess in waiting.

I heard that Ethelfleda built here first.
Mercian Princess.
Daughter of a king.
Bookish.  Learned.
A craving to leave her mark in something other than flesh*.

A wall, a ditch, a fortified town,
and then this piece of ground.
Hard,
Rounded now.
Enceinte.
Waiting in readiness
for Norman wood and Norman stone.

*After the birth of her daughter, Elfwyn, 'she declined incurring the the risk of again becoming a mother, declaring that the bringing forth of children didn't become a king's daughter'