Amazon Magic

     Forty drunken Norsemen bellowed a song about mermaids and unknown lands -- and things that her mother would not have permitted her to hear -- so it really wasn’t all that surprising that no one heard young Princess Embla Gudrødsdotter scream.
     She was the only one who had seen it yet: something crawling up the intricately carved dragon’s head that marked the bow of their ship.
     Against gusts of spraying foam from the swift longboat crashing against booming waves, it was hard to tell what it was, other than something that should not be there. It must be a green eel. No, it was bigger than that. Embla held her breath. A green tentacle oozed up the dragon’s neck, wrapping itself around--
     No, the tentacle had a small claw -- no, it had fingers. Paralyzed with both fascination and fright, she watched them emerge from the green slime to grab hold.
     Embla let out another shriek even louder than the one before when the something attached to those fingers and tentacle heaved itself over the side of the ship. To her horror, she couldn’t move. Her mind shouted at her to run, run! Every muscle quivered but would not follow her commands except for the wail of terror that burst from her throat.
     The sea creature fell damply on the deck, a pile of undulating seaweed. It made a dreadful sound. Maybe it was a growl.
     Maybe it was hungry.
     “Huh, huh,” it said, and only she could hear it over the bawdy song from aft. Whatever it was, it was covered with smelly, dirty seaweed. It had four legs, the back ones longer than the front.
     Embla managed a half-step back but no more. Strands of her coppery hair whipped across her face in the wind, but she couldn’t raise a hand to brush them away. Her lungs released enough for her to take a breath and scream again.
     “Huff,” the seaweed monster said. “Ah -- hoo.”
     It reared up. Embla shrieked.
     Why couldn’t she move?
     From behind she heard the pounding of small feet across the deck. Her young brother Aske darted in front of her, his short wooden sword waving at the monster.
     “Stay back, pirate!” Aske shouted.
     How like him to run in without thinking of anything save making a big commotion! How like her to cower! Yet Embla found that she still had some control of her body. She grabbed Aske by the back of his tunic and pulled him out of harm’s reach, but he fought her.
     She should be able to handle him. At the very least, she outweighed him -- by a little too much.
     Aske caught one of her braided pigtails and yanked it with the ease of years of practice. A bad swing of his sword caught her on the side of the head. Embla’s grip loosened just long enough for him to escape.
     The rearing mass of monster stood just as high as Embla. It stretched out its forelegs. “Huff,” it threatened. A finger reached out of its mass and wiped at the seaweed on its head.
     Horrors! There was an eye there!
     Another swipe and more seaweed fell off. Two eyes! Two brown eyes!
     “Hello,” the monster said and huffed some more.
     Embla could only scream again.
     Aske swung. “Take that! And that!”
     A thin, bare arm emerged from under the seaweed and held him away with a palm on his forehead, pushing his face to a downward angle. He couldn’t see to aim his blows, but he swung anyway.
     Embla’s insides were raw from the effort of screaming, but she sucked in another gutfull of air and then paused when another hand appeared to smear more seaweed away from a girl’s face, leaving grimy brown trails in its wake.
     “Huh,” the seaweed girl gasped for breath again. “I -- huff -- I wish I had your lung power. I wouldn’t be so out of breath from swimming out here.”
     Embla opened her mouth, closed it, then opened and closed again. The monster was a girl, maybe her age, about twelve. With the arm that didn’t hold off Aske, she kept one-handedly sluicing more strands of seaweed off herself, depositing them in a slimy pile on deck.
     “Fight me like a man!” Aske growled, still swinging.
     “Seems to me that a girl can defeat you well enough,” the monster said. She had long dark hair, clotted with ocean scum and seaweed.
     “Hush,” Embla told her brother.
     Wonderingly she glanced at the Egyptian shoreline, quite far away by human standards if not those of boats. A lone, pale-rocked mountain jutted from the flat mainland. Just ahead on their course stood the distant walls of Alexandria.
      Embla asked, “You swam out here? All the way from shore? Who are you? Are you a mermaid? I thought they had fishtails. They do back home.”
     “I was so anxious to meet you,” the girl replied. Her eyes were wide but they slanted up at the ends in a way Embla had never seen before. “I couldn’t wait. You’re Princess Embla from Vestfold, right?”
     “Um, yes I am. Are you sure you swam all the way--”
     “I’m Aurora,” the girl interrupted. “You can call me Rory. I go to the Academy, too.”
     “The Alexandrian Academy?”
     The girl nodded and finally plucked the sword from Aske’s hand. She tossed it far down the deck, so he balled his hands into fists to take roundhouse swings at her. If he hadn’t been close enough before, his efforts fell even farther from her now. She still held him off with one hand.
     “Oh, Aske, stop that. Behave,” Embla ordered.
     Aske looked up sideways at Embla and then dropped his hands to his sides.
     “And don’t pout. Remember who you are.”
     Rory cautiously took back her hand. She and the little boy scowled, taking each other’s measure. Suddenly he turned and ran to retrieve his weapon. Embla’s wild young brother raised a fist and pointed his sword at Rory.
     “Keelhaul her!” his high voice shrieked amid the silence that Embla realized came from the rest of the ship. He glanced from man to man of the crew, who studiously ignored him and saw to sudden imperfections in their clothing or fingernails instead.
     Blond hair streaming behind him like a berserker, Aske ran up and down the narrow deck, not minding into whose way he got. Some of the crew gave him dark looks behind his back. He hadn’t made the trip easy for any of them.
     Embla had memorized Mother’s instructions: “Make sure Aske doesn’t run amuck. You are responsible for his good behavior. Remind him that he is crown prince and must maintain some dignity.”
     “Aske!” Embla barked. She made a Mother face at him. It stopped him in his tracks for only a moment, but when he began running around again, he did so without screaming.
     “Those darned merboys,” Rory muttered as she scraped some more dirty seaweed from her shoulders. “They ambushed me on the way over.” Suddenly her chin jerked up. “There it is!” she exclaimed and pointed.
     The ship had completely rounded the craggy peninsula that jutted out to sea. Only a few structures sat on the side of the low mountain, a complex of stately white buildings located a third of the way up.
     “The Alexandrian Academy,” Embla said softly. That would be her new home.
     “No,” Rory said. “That’s the great Library of Alexandria. That’s where all the knowledge of the world is kept, where all the scholars come to learn and teach.” She pointed up almost to the top of the mountain. Embla could barely see buildings peeping from above the forest. “That’s the Academy. They put it way up there so all the students would be safe. They’re all royalty, you know. Or heirs of high rank.”
     Rory peeled another strand of seaweed from her chin and gave a little spit that took care of something she’d almost swallowed. “You should see the view from the roof of the bell tower!”
     “Oh.” Embla decided that maybe it hadn’t been a spit. Ladies didn’t spit.
     “The entire mountain’s neutral territory. Enemies from warring nations can’t fight each other. Duels are forbidden there. It’s so the knowledge can pass to everyone equally, you see?”
     Aske stared upwards as they swept by the mountain. “I’ll pillage it tonight!” he cried and howled with all his might.
     “You will do no such thing,” Embla told him in a voice that sounded just like Mother’s. For a moment she even scared herself. “Settle down. Go make sure you’re all packed. We’ll dock soon enough.”
     “Look at me!” Aske cried instead. “I am the Viking king! I order you all to sack Alexandria, in Vestfold’s name!”
     Embla summoned a weak smile to barrier the last of her fraying nerves. Such a bother for age eight! Embla hoped he’d grow out of it, but Nurse had told her that very often self-important little boys grew up to be self-important little men. “Yes, Aske,” she said. “You’re very frightening.”
     “Victory!” Aske swiped at a rigging rope and one of the sailors hurriedly reached around him to readjust it. “Massacre them all! Loot the city! Pillage all the ships in harbor!”
     “And what about the Phoenicians?”
     Viking ships were unwelcome in many places, but the two white, triangular sails behind them assured that there’d be no raiding while they were in the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians policed this sea. All traffic upon it was done under their command. If the Norsemen hadn’t made solemn vows of peace (and hefty bribes) to the two ships, they would never have been allowed to enter between the Pillars of Hercules.
     Aske frowned at the sails of those who would usurp his power. Then he shook his sword at them and howled his defiance like a wild wolf.
     Embla shut her eyes and wondered, Why me?
     Then she peeked over the edge of the Dawn Strike. No small boat that could have brought a strange girl sat there. Embla turned back to Rory.
     The girl wore tight, once-white underlinen underneath the seaweed. She’d never seen anybody wearing anything like it, but maybe it was what people wore around here when they went swimming. Such a strange new world. “You’re sure you swam out to meet us? All that way?” she asked.
     “I’m an Amazon.” Rory straightened her shoulders even as she kicked more seaweed out of her way. “Well, not really. Not yet. But I’m going to be one soon, you just watch me. Mama says in a few years if I keep up my studies and do well I’ll get my Mark and everything.” She looked anxiously at Embla. “You’ll be my friend, won’t you? I told everyone you would.”
     “An Amazon?” Embla hoped she didn’t sound too stupid. Amazons weren’t real. They were like Valkyries only alive. But they were only legends, weren’t they?
     Amazons were supposed to be fierce horsewomen who hated all men and lived on the windy Russian steppes. They carried double-headed axes and slaughtered whoever displeased them. They certainly weren’t ladies. At least, that’s what she’d been told.
     This dirty girl with the hopeful eyes didn’t look much like an Amazon to Embla. But she didn’t look like a lady, either.
     “An Amazon!” Aske yelled. He brandished his sword in Rory’s direction. “I’m telling Mom you were talking to an Amazon, Embla. She won’t like that!”
     More than the future facing her, this Amazon girl scared Embla. She was everything that Mother had warned her about.
     Inside Embla’s kirtle in a hidden pocket lay Mother’s final letter to her before she set off on this voyage. Mother had laid out the duties and manners she was expected to maintain here. She was supposed to be a lady at all times and prove herself worthy of her parents and her future husband, whoever he might be.
     Mother would never approve of this girl.
     A series of lumbering waves sent the boat rocking hard back and forth. Guts of spray blanketed the deck with sea water. Embla automatically shifted to ride the motion, but Rory lurched to the side. She grabbed the railing.
     “Quite a ride in this, isn’t it?” Her eyes sparkled with excitement. “Mama says that Norsemen hang their war shields on the sides of their boats. Are these really shields?” She peered around one large, circular shield to study the colorful identifying design painted on the outside.
     “My Aunt Rith would love this,” Rory went on without pause. “Your people couldn’t stay around until she visits, could they? You never know when Aunt Rith will drop by.”
     Embla blinked at the rapid-fire delivery and managed to say that the crew would take on supplies in Alexandria and depart immediately.
     Rory nodded. “Places to be, towns to pillage. I understand,” she said. “I’ve heard all about the exploits of the Vikings. Speaking of which--” she nodded in Aske’s general direction. “You want to keep him away from Tom-Ruk. He’ll get too many bad ideas as it is from some of the boys here.”
     A ball of water -- round as an egg -- hit Rory on the back of the head from beyond the shields. She gasped at the suddenness of it and then leaned over the scalloped deck wall.
     “Mako, you jerk! I’ll get you for that!” Rory hurled a wad of the deck-muck towards whatever was out there and then ducked back as a volley of water-balls pelted over the deck. Embla stepped back quickly. She peeked between the shields.
     Merboys! Heads and shoulders bobbing above the waves, sun glinting on greenish-brown tails --
     They jeered at the ship. Some picked up handfuls of water, which began to curve about themselves into balls.
     Rory ducked back and forth from shield to shield. “You can’t moon me!” she shrieked at the ones who’d turned their backs. “You don’t have butts!”
     Raucous laugher from the ocean answered her. Some of the boys shrilled like screaming gulls, but on a lower pitch. The sound made Embla’s lips curl in revulsion.
     “I hear roasted merfolk taste like oily pig!” a deeper male voice bellowed.
     Captain Olaf propped his leg onto the railing to brace his arm. A solid warrior with Viking muscle, he held a long, wickedly-sharp fishing spear pointed at the leader of the merboys.
     “Scatter, brats! Get away from my ship!” He added a suggestion or two about them that Embla would have never dreamed of saying, plus another that she didn’t know the meaning of.
     She filed it in her memory in case she’d ever need it. It sounded deadly, and it had quite an effect on the merboys. They disappeared beneath the waves. A white wake showed their path far out to sea.
     “Thank you, Captain,” Rory said. She curtsied as prettily as anyone Embla had ever seen (even without a dress) and then pressed her hand to her mouth as if she’d just realized something horrible. “Oh dear, I’m sorry for coming aboard without permission. But I was just so anxious to meet Embla here, you see.” Her words began to blur together in their haste to get out. “Terribly sorry about making all the mess. It wasn’t my fault, really, but I should have cleaned up before coming aboard.” Hastily she stooped to scoop up some of the muck she’d left on the deck, plopping it overboard.
     Captain Olaf scowled at her and then glanced at Embla as if to make sure she wasn’t a part of the insubordination. “Get it all before you leave,” he told Rory. “I run a clean ship here.” Streams of foam, dirt and small ocean flotsam ran this way and that between his boots as the boat lurched.
     “Yes sir!” Rory obediently began to scoop and plop, scoop and plop, leaving a trail of finger tracks in the puddle of mud that had oozed from the seaweed. As she did so, she began to tell Embla about the other students at the Academy.
     Despite her misgivings about the Amazon girl, Embla listened carefully. Some of these students would be ladies Embla could associate with. Some, of course, were boys.
     The question suddenly struck her more vividly than ever before: Would someone there be her future husband?
     Embla didn’t want to think about that, not yet.
     Names flew past: Watch out for Rhad, but not as much as Tom-Ruk, who seemed to be the school bully. Stay in Master Ahmose’s good graces. Don’t gossip with Midori because you never knew how she would use the information.
     And above all, be very careful around Meany.
     “Meany?” Embla asked despite herself.
     Rory rolled her eyes. “Sorry,” she said. “Force of habit. Her real name’s Menes, short for Menesris. She’s the pharaoh’s oldest daughter. Usually the pharaohs don’t pay that much attention to their daughters, but she got to come to the Academy somehow. She’s got a younger brother -- he’s the one in line for the crown -- who’s supposed to start soon. Don’t think he’ll be in our class. We’re the Lionhorns. Oh, you’ve just got to be a Lionhorn! We’re the best class ever, you’ll see.”
     Embla didn’t even know that lions had horns, though it was true enough that she’d never seen a lion.
     Rory laughed as she finished with the glop. Only a smear of mud remained on the deck, but a goodly amount still coated parts of the Amazon. “The original Lionhorn was Alexander,” she said. “Alexander the Great. You’ll see lionhorn pictures all over the city. Alexandria is Alexander’s city, after all. He left a bunch of them about, but this is the Alexandria.
     “Mama says that it shows how wise Alexander was, in addition to him being the greatest conqueror in history and all--” Rory picked at a dried piece of seaweed on her arm that she’d missed -- “that he let the local people remain in charge while his people became advisors. Mama says that he showed respect for other cultures by personal example, and that’s the best way.”
     She frowned at Embla. “Mama says that I should keep that in mind, but I don’t see myself conquering any nations, do you? I’m not a good warrior.” Again she picked at her arm, at the mud that had been put there by merboy ambush. “As you can tell. Mama says that violence is the last recourse. Darn it, I shouldn’t have thrown that stuff at Mako. Even if he deserved it.”
     Something ping-pinged. Embla looked around. Had a bird landed on deck?
     Ping-ping!
     “Oh,” Rory said. For some reason she looked at her forearm. Was more seaweed stuck there above the band around her wrist? “I’ve got to get back for class. I used up all lunchbreak to come here.”
     “What was that noise?” Embla asked. Had it really come from that band?
     Rory held up her arm and twisted it, as if trying to decide herself what it had been.
     “Amazon magic,” she finally said. “It’s just a spell to remind me of time.”
     “Magic?” Embla tried to peer closer at the thing to see what it did, but Rory grabbed the railing and hauled herself up on it.
     “It’ll probably take the rest of the day to get you settled in,” she told Embla. “Guess I’ll see you sometime tomorrow? Oh, I’m so glad you’ve come. I’d hug you if I weren’t such a mess. If you have any problems, just ask one of the servants to fetch me. Bye!”
     With that, she threw herself overboard in a fair dive, gave a wave from the water, and proceeded to swim at good speed towards where the straight shore butted against the mountain.
     Captain Olaf leaned over two shields and watched. He let out a low whistle. “By Odin’s --” and he named something he shouldn’t talk about in front of a princess -- “I think she’s going to make it. Are all the students like that?” he asked.
     “I certainly hope not!” Embla said. She pressed her mother’s letter deeper into her kirtle’s pocket, hoping that Mother hadn’t somehow sensed the Amazon’s presence through it.
     “You shouldn’t encourage girls like that,” Captain Olaf told her sternly. “Amazons.” He shook his head, a terrible grimace on his face. “Very bad. And your parents wouldn’t approve.”
     From behind her came Aske’s accusing voice: “I’m telling Mom!”