The Thrall Queen
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 2: The Journey to Slavery
The wagon rolled for hours before stopping. When the Vikings finally pulled back the canvas covering, Saoirse’s eyes burned from smoke and tears. They were herded out like cattle—stumbling, crying, some too shocked to move.
Dublin.
Even in her terror, Saoirse recognized the city. She’d never been here, but the brothers had described it: the largest Norse settlement in Ireland, built on the bones of Irish resistance. A city of stone and wood where Norse and Irish lived in an uneasy tangle of commerce and conquest.
And slavery.
The Vikings pushed them through narrow streets reeking of fish and human waste. People stopped to stare—some Norse, some Irish, all calculating the value of the new merchandise. Saoirse kept her eyes down, her hand gripping the arm of the weaving girl beside her. The girl hadn’t stopped crying since they’d been taken.
“Quiet,” Saoirse whispered in Irish. “Save your strength.”
“They’re going to kill us,” the girl sobbed.
“No.” Saoirse forced certainty into her voice. “We’re worth more alive.”
It was what Brother Declan had once told her about Viking raids—they took captives for profit, not sport. At the time, it had been an abstract lesson in Norse culture. Now it was the only thread of hope she had.
They were driven to a large wooden building near the docks. Inside, the air was thick with unwashed bodies and fear. A massive Norse woman with arms like tree trunks separated them by age and sex, shoving the men to one side, the women and children to the other.
Saoirse was pushed into a pen with perhaps thirty other young women. Some were Irish like her, but others spoke languages she didn’t recognize. All wore the same expression of stunned disbelief.
“Strip,” the Norse woman barked in accented Irish.
No one moved.
The woman grabbed the nearest girl and tore her dress open. “Strip, or I strip you. Buyers want to see what they’re getting.”
Saoirse’s hands shook as she removed her simple monastery dress. Around her, other women did the same, some weeping, others silent and hollow-eyed. The Norse woman walked among them, examining them like horses, checking teeth, prodding muscles, noting any scars or deformities on a wax tablet.
When she reached Saoirse, she stopped. Tilted her head.
“Small,” she muttered. Then louder, to someone Saoirse couldn’t see: “Too small for field work. House service, maybe. Or...” She made a crude gesture that needed no translation.
Saoirse kept her eyes fixed on the wall, refusing to react. Inside, her mind was working with the cold clarity the monks had taught her. Assess. Analyze. Survive.
She was small. That was a fact. Too small for heavy labor meant she wouldn’t be sent to break her back in fields or forests. House service meant towns, cities, possibly educated owners. And if the alternative was being used as a ... she forced the thought away. One problem at a time.
The Norse woman moved on. They were given rough sack-cloth shifts to wear and bowls of thin gruel. Saoirse ate mechanically, knowing she needed strength, even as her stomach churned.
That night, huddled in the corner of the pen, the weaving girl finally whispered, “What’s your name?”
“Saoirse.”
“I’m Niamh.” The girl’s voice cracked. “I want to go home.”
“So do I.” Saoirse put an arm around the younger girl’s shoulders. “But we can’t. So we survive.”
“How?”
Saoirse thought of the Abbot’s face, the monastery burning, sixteen years of safety ending in an afternoon. She thought of Brother Declan lying motionless in the courtyard, of Sister Aoife stepping in front of her, of everything she’d ever known consumed by smoke and violence.
“We stay quiet. We obey. We make ourselves useful enough to keep but not valuable enough to fight over.” She met Niamh’s eyes. “And we wait.”
“Wait for what?”
Saoirse didn’t answer. She didn’t know. Rescue? Escape? Death? All she knew was that while she was breathing, there was possibility. The monks had taught her that God worked in mysterious ways.
She just hadn’t expected His ways to be quite this dark.
The auction was held three days later in an open market square. They were lined up on a wooden platform while Norse men and a few Norse women circulated, examining them like livestock. Hands grabbed at Saoirse’s hair, her arms, checking her like the horse trader had checked the monastery’s mule.
An older man with gray in his beard stopped in front of her. He spoke to the auctioneer in Norse, gestured at Saoirse’s small frame.
The auctioneer shrugged and called out something that made several men laugh.
The gray-bearded man didn’t laugh. He studied Saoirse’s face, then said something sharp. The auctioneer’s smirk faded. He nodded.
More Norse words, rapid negotiation. The gray-bearded man pulled out a leather purse, counted silver into the auctioneer’s hand.
Just like that, Saoirse had a new owner.
He gestured for her to follow. She climbed down from the platform on shaking legs. Behind her, Niamh was being bid on by a red-faced farmer. Their eyes met one last time before Saoirse was led away.
The gray-bearded man brought her to the docks where a longship waited. Its sail was furled, but she could see the dragon head carved at its prow. Other captives were already chained near the mast—five young men, three women, all looking as lost as she felt.
A younger Norse warrior bound her wrists with rope—not chain, she noticed. Rope could be cut, if she ever had the chance. He pushed her down to sit with the others, then returned to loading cargo.
The gray-bearded man who’d bought her spoke to the ship’s captain, a tall Norse with elaborate braids and silver arm-rings. The captain glanced at the captives, nodded, and shouted orders.
The ship began to move.
Saoirse watched Ireland recede behind them. The green hills, the gray stone, the monastery somewhere beyond the horizon—all of it growing smaller and smaller until it was just a dark line against the sky.
Then even that disappeared.
One of the other captives, an Irish boy who couldn’t be more than fourteen, started to cry silently. The woman next to Saoirse—older, harder-faced—stared at nothing with dead eyes.
Saoirse closed her own eyes and did what the monks had taught her: she prayed.
God, if You have a plan in this, I cannot see it. If there is purpose in this suffering, I do not understand it. But I am still breathing. Still alive. So I will trust that You have not abandoned me, even here.
Even here.
The ship sailed north, toward Denmark, toward a future she couldn’t imagine.
Toward a fate even God might not have foreseen.
The voyage took four days.
Four days of rolling seas, salt spray, and the constant creak of wood. Saoirse’s stomach rebelled the first day, and she vomited over the side until there was nothing left. The Norse warriors laughed but didn’t stop her. The gray-bearded man who’d purchased her brought her water once, said something in Norse she didn’t understand, and walked away.
By the third day, her body had adjusted to the ship’s rhythm. She watched the Norse crew work—their efficiency, their easy camaraderie, the way they moved as one organism. These were men who’d spent their lives on the water. This ship was as much home to them as the monastery had been to her.
Had been.
The past tense felt like a blade between her ribs.
On the fourth morning, someone shouted. The captives looked up to see land—a coastline of green hills and scattered settlements, smoke rising from distant halls. Denmark.
The ship navigated into a harbor where dozens of other vessels crowded the docks. The town beyond was larger than Dublin—more organized, more permanent. Stone buildings mixed with wood, and the streets were planned rather than the chaotic tangle of the Irish city.
They were unloaded like cargo. The gray-bearded man checked each captive, ensuring none had died or sickened during the voyage, then gestured for them to follow. Saoirse’s legs trembled on solid ground after days at sea.
They walked through the town—Roskilde, she heard someone say—and she tried to absorb everything. The language everyone spoke, harsh and guttural. The way Norse women walked freely in the streets, some armed. The complete absence of churches or crosses. This was a pagan land, and she was Christian prey within it.
After what felt like hours, they reached a massive hall complex on a hill overlooking the town. Wooden palisades surrounded it, and armed guards stood at the gates. The gray-bearded man spoke to the guards, who waved them through.
The royal palace of King Harald Bluetooth.
Inside the compound, the gray-bearded man brought them to a low building where a sour-faced Norse woman awaited. She looked them over with the same calculating efficiency as the woman in Dublin, but with less cruelty and more practicality.
She spoke in rapid Norse, pointing at each captive in turn. The men were led away immediately—probably to the stables or fields, Saoirse thought. The women were kept.
The sour-faced woman—Saoirse would later learn her name was Helga, the palace housekeeper—walked slowly in front of them. When she reached Saoirse, she stopped.
She said something to the gray-bearded man. He responded. Helga nodded, made a note on a wax tablet, and moved on.
One of the other women, older and stronger-looking, was sent to the kitchens. Another to the laundry. When only Saoirse remained, Helga gestured for her to follow.
They walked through the palace complex. Saoirse’s eyes widened despite herself. The main hall was enormous, its walls carved with intricate designs and hung with tapestries showing battles and hunts. The wealth on display was staggering—silver, furs, weapons that gleamed like water.
Helga brought her to the women’s quarters—a long building separate from the main hall where female slaves and servants lived. Inside were perhaps twenty women of various ages, some Norse, some clearly foreign like herself. They looked up as Helga entered, eyes assessing the new arrival.
Helga spoke in Norse, gestured at Saoirse, then pointed to an empty sleeping bench along the wall. The message was clear enough: this is where you’ll sleep.
Then Helga did something unexpected. She spoke a few words of heavily accented Irish: “You. Work. Main hall. Serve. Clean. Obey.”
Saoirse’s heart leaped at hearing her own language, even mangled. “I understand,” she said in Irish.
Helga nodded, seemingly satisfied, and left.
An Irish voice spoke from across the room: “You’re lucky.”
Saoirse turned to see a woman perhaps ten years older, dark-haired and sharp-featured, sitting on one of the benches. She was mending a torn tunic with quick, practiced stitches.
“Lucky?” Saoirse’s voice came out bitter.
“You’re small, pretty, and Helga’s assigned you to hall service. That means you’ll be visible, which means you’ll be protected—at least from the worst of it.” The woman tied off her thread. “I’m Deirdre. Been here three years. Dublin?”
“Yes.”
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