The Weaver and the Witch Queen

by Genevieve Gornichec

It sat just under the wooden statues of the gods Odin, Thor, and Frey, which loomed beneath the jutting lintel above the entrance to the antechamber where Gunnhild’s family slept.

Moonlight glimmered on the dark water of the strait, and beyond it, the northern lights danced against the jagged mountain peaks of the mainland.

“You are not a bad child. You are not a burden. I’m sorry that you’ve been made to feel that way.”

Nothing in this life worth having comes easily.

“I don’t think you did,” Oddny said. “I think it was kinder of you to disabuse her of her fantasy than to indulge it.” Yrsa put a hand to Oddny’s cheek. “Sometimes I think I’ve made you too much like me, dear one. Often the stories we tell ourselves are all we have to hold on to. Perhaps I should’ve let her go on dreaming.”

“You’re sisters. When two people know each other as well as you girls do, you know the exact things to say that will cause each other the most pain.”

“You’ll get used to being afraid. If you don’t feel fear, why would you need to be brave?”

“But it’s all right to feel weak, Oddny. Sometimes our bodies give us more pain than we can bear.

“But the bigger question is, when the battle is over, how do we carry on? How do we put the horror behind us and go on living? It eats away at a person, little by little.” There was undeniable pain in his voice as he added, “Sometimes I fear that by the time the valkyries come for Eirik, there’ll be nothing left of him.”

“He certainly loves a bit of drama, doesn’t he?” Gunnhild drawled. Arinbjorn, who had positioned himself against the fence on Thorolf’s other side, leaned forward and looked around him at Gunnhild. “I watched you literally stab yourself the other day just to prove a point.”

“No. You see, I learned some things today.” “Oh yes? Congratulations. How many things? One, two? That makes, what, four things total that you know?”

It was clear to Gunnhild now that no good would come of this conversation; it was time to end it before she lost her composure. She could relay each memory to her mother one by one in extensive detail, and the woman would tell her she was wrong—that she was only a child; she was misremembering.

There was nothing more a healer on her own could do for Solveig. But Gunnhild could easily add her own power to the spell. Flip the stick over, carve some runes of her own. It would take only a moment. It could even save the woman’s life. Or.

“Eirik,” she said. He turned back to her. “Thank you,” she said, straightening. “For not saying you’re sorry for my loss. For not saying ‘but she’s your mother.’ For not—for not making me feel like a monster. If you would continue to treat with me as though nothing has changed, I’d be glad of it.”

He looked at her approvingly, as if this were a good omen. Gunnhild resisted the urge to gloat—He likes the ducks!—but King Harald had already returned his attention to his chosen heir.

And he said, “When I was born, my father gave me a daughter’s name. And when he died, I took my own.”

and the guilt reared up again like a wave, so high that it blocked out all the light that Halldor had brought into her life tonight.

But you have challenged me. You have complicated me. And I think, eventually, I’ll be better for it—and better to you, if you’d only grant me the same courtesy.”

Their oath had been the strike of flint against a fire steel, the spark. And she had decided that she would fan the flames.

As the men got up to leave, Oddny stayed frozen in her seat and squeezed Gunnhild’s hand so hard she thought her bones would shatter. Gunnhild put a hand atop Oddny’s and bade her relax, but it was hard to contain her own excitement. This was the moment they’d been waiting for ever since they’d first reunited. “It’s time, Oddny,” she whispered. “We’re going to find her.”

It was Oddny’s turn to take her friend’s arm. “Come. You need to lie down.” “Oddny, we’re trapped in a mysterious fog, being pushed toward an unknown destination,” Gunnhild snapped. “I’m not going to lie down.”

“How will you ever master your fear if you won’t admit to feeling it in the first place?

If there’s one thing I know, it’s that the worst rumors travel the fastest, and they’re the most readily believed.

People seldom listen to reason when they’d rather be angry,” Svein had replied heavily.

There’s more to being a man than doing the things men are supposed to do.

I don’t think the dead want us to die for them. I think a better way to honor them is to live.”

Something in her words made Signy bristle. “What’s there to tell? I was enslaved for nearly a year. I was beaten. I was violated. Why would I want to talk about it?” When Oddny started to cry, Signy only looked disgusted. “Stop that. Don’t make this about you. You’re not the one it happened to.”

Thorbjorg, hands still fisted in her hair, gave a nervous little laugh. She said, a bit hysterically, “Why don’t you just draw her a picture of our plan?”

“That a woman need not be defined by her men. That she can stand for herself and make her own way.”

Just because she’d been rescued didn’t mean she’d healed. She had a long journey ahead of her, and Gunnhild intended to be there for her every step of the way.

Finally, although separate gender roles are likely to have existed in the Viking Age, this isn’t to say that people never crossed or blurred the boundaries between these spheres. Queerness is not a new phenomenon, and Halldor’s experience as depicted in this novel is just one way that someone we would interpret as transgender could have lived. We’ll never know how many people we’d recognize today as LGBTQIA+ have been omitted from history, but we have always been here, and we always will be.