Return to Thebes (11 page)
Authors: Allen Drury
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Historical, #Mythology & Folk Tales, #Historical Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #fairy tales
Tutankhaten
Criers are shouting something in the city. There is a frightened silence out there everywhere. When I look out of the windows I see hardly any moving in the streets but there is much running and whispering in the North Palace. My cousin Nefertiti is crying hysterically as though she has seen terrible things. They say my brother Smenkhkara and my cousin Merytaten are dead, struck down suddenly by some unknown disease. Now I come next to my brother Akhenaten in line for the throne. I do not want to be Pharaoh. It means terrible things. I am frightened.
I do not want to be Pharaoh.…
***
Akhenaten
life, health, prosperity!)
Ah!
They have killed my heart. Help me, Father Aten, help me or I shall die! Why can I not die?
I want to die!
Help me die, Father Aten, for my heart is dead, they have killed my heart! He wanted to do only good—I wanted to do only good—they have killed him, Father Aten, they have killed my heart. I shall go mad.
I shall go mad!
Help me, Father Aten!
Help me!
***
Book II
Death of a God
1361 B.C.
***
Horemheb
He never stirs from the Great House now: neither my father nor I see him once in a month, probably. Yet the governing of Kemet somehow goes on because it has to go on. It goes on because we
make
it go on … and because there is no one else to do it.
When Smenkhkara died (as he had to die, and I feel no regret for that: he was the willing fool of his brother, and deserved it), the heart seemed to die as well in Akhenaten. This of course was what we intended. For seventy days he did nothing but hover, weeping, over the embalmment and burial; I think even the precious Aten was forgotten during that time. He acted as one paralyzed, lost in grief, uncaring what went on anywhere around him, saving only that the tomb, the mummy and the coffin—those affronts to the gods and common decency!—must be exactly as he wanted them.
Therefore, of course, neither my father Aye nor myself was stripped of any honors or powers. We simply went right ahead, aided by my younger half brother Nakht-Min, whom we persuaded Akhenaten to appoint Vizier, doing what had to be done for the Two Lands, exercising our authority unchanged, giving our commands as though he had never removed us from office. Besides ourselves there were only three other witnesses to that. One died the next morning, and the loyalty and support of the Great Wife and Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, have never wavered. No one will ever know that Nefer-Kheperu-Ra cried “
Go!
”
to us in that frenzied, frantic, childish way, and banished us forever from power. And he is too disheartened and broken now ever to try it again.
This we have proved by putting it to the test. The first step, of course, was to order immediately that the coronation durbar be depicted in the tombs of Huya and Meryra exactly as the Great Wife and Nefertiti wished. Now in both tombs the scene is as it should be for all time: serene on their thrones, Akhenaten and Nefertiti, surrounded by their daughters, receive the Parade of Tribute from our dutiful allies and vassals. Around them are happy games and celebrations of his assumption of power.
It does not matter that this is not the truth.
Give it a few years and it will be.
When he made no objection to this, being still too bemused by grief to countermand us—we were very careful, mind you, to go to him and announce what we had done; he merely gave a long shuddering sigh and stared at us from those red-rimmed, unseeing eyes until we shivered, in something approaching fright, and went away—we felt that we had destroyed his will as we had intended, and that he would never recover sufficient strength to defy us. We knew that we could begin to proceed—still very cautiously and slowly, for he is still Pharaoh, of course, and there still might be some last flare of rage and defiance, though we think it very unlikely—to prepare for the end of his rule, the enthronement of Tut and the return of Amon.
“The end of his rule”: this we have yet to accomplish, and the means are not yet fully clear. We have broken his will and with it we have apparently broken his body, for we understand from Hatsuret, who still remains on regular duty in the Palace, that he takes little food or water, prays constantly to the Aten and to his dead brother, grows steadily thinner and weaker, and seems, in fact, to be fading away physically as well as mentally. He lives almost in a daze, Hatsuret says (fingering with satisfaction the beautiful carnelian and lapis scarab, long since cleansed of its impurities, which he hangs about his neck on a gold chain and loves to fondle as he talks), and his end cannot be too long delayed. But how long is “too long,” and how much longer can we afford to let Kemet suffer the indignities that everywhere beset her?
My father and I, aided by clever Tutu the Foreign Minister, now handle Pharaoh’s correspondence with our allies and vassals—and a sorry correspondence it is. They used to beg for gold: now they beg for salvation. The Hittites, pushed back and held firmly in place by Tuthmose III and Amonhotep II (life, health, prosperity to them both, great builders and savers of the Two Lands!), are on the move again, raiding down under the leadership of their new King, Supp-i-lu-li-u-mas, into Mittani, Syria, Byblos and beyond. With them conspires Aziru of Amurru, playing a double game which is obvious to Aye and myself, though even now I do not quite dare send out armies on my own command: I am still paralyzed by the simple fact of Pharaoh. It is Pharaoh they want.
They want the Living Horus at the head of his troops
to save them, and they are right: nothing else can do it now. Things have reached such a pass of demoralization in our northern territories that only his actual presence could produce the necessary magic: and he is in no condition at all to go.
We do not feel guilty about this, nor do we take responsibility for it, since even when he had the strength he had no inclination. The Empire has been crumbling for a decade and he has done nothing about it even when he could. He would never have changed even had we left him in health. He has always been hopeless in this regard, as in so many others. He has had himself depicted in the friezes and statues smiting the enemies of Kemet like any other Pharaoh, but in his heart he has not had the will or the energy to lift a finger. It is only one in the long catalogue of his sins.
So the letters come in. They still address him as “the King, my Lord, my Sun, my God.” They still say, “I am thy servant, the dust of thy feet.…” They still tell him, “I look to the King my lord, and there is light.… I move not away from the King’s feet.… On my neck rests the yoke of my lord the King.…” They prate, “At the feet of the King my Lord seven times and again seven times I prostrate myself upon my back and upon my breast.” And they beg for help, poor dogs:
“Oh my Lord, if the trouble of this land lies upon the heart of my Lord, let my Lord send troops, and let him come.…
“Lord of the Two Lands, King of Kings, God-King on earth: lead your army to us in your own divine person, at the head of your vast army, with glittering chariots of gold, with warriors heavy with weapons as far as eye can see!”
And from Simyra and Tunip two months ago:
“Bring help, before it is too late!”
And from Tunip two weeks ago:
“Now we belong no more to our Lord the King of Kemet … when Aziru enters Simyra, Aziru will do with us as he pleases, in the territory of our Lord, the King.…”
And from Tunip yesterday:
“And now Tunip, thy city, weeps, and her tears are flowing, and there is no help for us.”
And here we sit paralyzed, while all falls!
We do not show him these letters and we do not answer them. What would be the use? He would do nothing anyway. All falls, all falls! The Two Lands dwindle and the Hittites advance. Would I were Pharaoh now, to rid us of this shame before it is too late to rebuild the Empire and make Kemet great again!
It is late, it is late!
All falls.…
My father counsels patience. He shrinks, I think, from further death, as does the Great Wife. From time to time Nefertiti still tries, in vain, to see her husband. Fortunately he always refuses, so we do not have to interpose force to keep her from him. If she were to see him she might be able to rally him for one last attempt to reassert his power. She is the only one who could. But he does not know this: he deliberately keeps her away. Poor Akhenaten, who has always cut himself off from everyone and everything that could help him! I might weep for him, in some other world—indeed, I have wept for him, in days past. But he receives no tears from me any more. It is all too late for that.
Almost a year has passed since the death of Ankh-Kheperu-Ra. Still he grieves, shut away in the Great House. When my father and I visit, the windows are shuttered, incense burns, priests of the Aten, by his order, still chant dirges in the corridors: all is dark and gloomy. He has stopped wearing his regalia to greet us. Now he wears only a shabby old linen shift like a woman’s, not even the pleated kilt of Pharaoh. He rarely bothers with a wig, his head looks dirty and scrofulous. His misshapen body is thinner, more elongated, more grotesque, if possible. I do not think he lets them bathe him very often. He is turning a little more each day into an old man, though he is barely thirty-two. Only the terrible eyes, haunted, unhappy, filled with pain, stare out at us, saying:
Leave me alone.
He curls upon his throne like an animal, wounded, resentful, dreadfully bereft. We never dare stay long. Conscience does not permit it: and it is all we can do to stand the sight and smell of him, even for a few moments.…
I wonder if we did the right thing.
My concern now is how best and quickest to finish the business: because if the gods did not mean for us to begin it, they should not have let us. And if they will not soon finish it for us, then we must do it ourselves.
Ramesses and Hatsuret have their orders to report to me instantly anything that will serve as excuse. Then I shall immediately confront the Great Wife and my father, and whether I receive their approval or not, it will be done.
I am determined that it shall not continue like this.
***
Ramesses
I hear some gossip among the soldiers that Nefertiti has selected twelve from among her small contingent of household troops and had them assigned to her as personal bodyguards. Why does she need them, I wonder? No one is attacking her.
***
Hatsuret
Anser-Wossett has sought an audience with Pharaoh. To everyone’s amazement, he has agreed to receive her. They have already been closeted alone for almost an hour. Soldiers are posted at the door. They are Nefertiti’s and will tell me nothing. I loiter close as long as I dare, but say nothing. They begin to give me strange looks. I drop back into the crowd. Why would Anser-Wossett seek audience? Why would he receive her? When she departs I am waiting near the steps. Our eyes meet, I nod toward the market-place. She gives the slightest of nods in return. I think she will meet me. Something brews. I must find out what it is. The Heretic must not be allowed to escape the vengeance of Amon.
***
Anser-Wossett
I approach the South Palace, trembling, on the orders of the Queen. I send in my name with the humble request that he grant me audience. Hatsuret lurks about as I wait but I never glance in his direction. I fully expect to be ordered sternly away, if not worse. When the messenger returns with word that the Good God will see me, I am amazed. I glance then at Hatsuret. He is as amazed as I, everyone is amazed. But I keep my face composed and impassive as the Queen does, and walk past them all down the long corridors to his room. Incense is burning, priests of the Aten chant soft dirges for Smenkhkara. I am announced, the doors are flung open. I sink to my knees without looking up, bend low to touch my forehead to the floor. Behind me the doors close. I look up and cannot suppress an involuntary start of dismay: he looks so awful. Of course he sees it, he has always seen everything. A bitter and sarcastic smile touches his face.
“The Lady Anser-Wossett may rise,” he says, “before she falls over from astonishment at my sad appearance.”
“No, Your Majesty,” I stammer, “no—no—I only—”
“I know,” he says in a more kindly tone, something of the graciousness he always used to show me in the old days returning. “Here, take this seat beside me, and we will talk.”
“But, Your Majesty,” I stammer again, overcome with awe and hesitation, “the seat beside you is—is—”
“It is an empty throne,” he says bleakly. “I know. Please be seated and tell me why you come.”
Still hesitantly, for what he invites me to do is really sacrilege, I slowly mount the steps to the dais and seat myself, trembling inwardly with fright at the enormity of my presumption even though he has invited it.
“Don’t sit on the edge,” he commands with a trace of amusement. “Sit back and be comfortable.… Now”—when I have obeyed, very gingerly—“how do you find me?”
He is dressed in a simple but clean linen shift; he is not wearing the pleated kilt of Pharaoh. He has put on a wig, which is clean. He looks much thinner and older than when I saw him last, really quite emaciated. There are circles under those eyes that always seem to penetrate to the very limit of one’s innermost pretensions. I do not think he has bathed this day, or perhaps for several: a rank odor afflicts my nostrils. But I tell myself firmly that he is the Good God, the Living Horus, King and Pharaoh of the Two Lands, and I must do nothing that will destroy this intimacy which is greater than the Chief Wife and I had ever dared hope. So I give no sign—at least I think I give no sign. But again, with the heightened sensitivity to others’ reactions to his person that he has had ever since his illness so many years ago, he knows.
“Yes,” he says with a sad smile, “I am afraid I am not as cleanly as I used to be, and I am sorry if it offends you. But there is nothing now”—and again his face takes on that terrible bleak look—“there is nothing for which to keep myself in order … so more and more I find that I am letting myself become slovenly. Which I know I ought not to do, but”—he utters a heavy sigh—“somehow, I do not seem to care.… Here”—he reaches for a bottle of scented water that stands on a small table beside his throne—“let us scatter this about and see if it will make our talk more pleasant.… If you had given me advance warning you were coming,” he goes on when he has finished and I am breathing more easily, “I should have made myself completely presentable for you. But then you might have been afraid to talk honestly to the god.
Now you can talk to one who, as you see, is but an unclean man, tired and ill and not, I think, too long fated to stay on this earth.”
“Oh no, Your Majesty!” I protest. “Many, many years await you. Many good things still lie ahead, once this—this present time has passed.”
“Once this present horror has passed?” he echoes with a smile so infinitely sad that it seems to turn my heart inside out for him. “Oh no, Anser-Wossett: it is not going to pass. It is going to stay with me until I die. Which, as I say, will not be long, I think. And do you know something?” He swings himself to face me fully, bracing himself with an arm against the arm of his throne. “I do not care. I simply do not care. I pray only to Father Aten that he may take me quickly, so that I may leave this ungrateful people who do not understand or appreciate me and go to rejoin the one who does.”
“Your Majesty,” I venture then, a terrible fear and trembling returning to my heart, for I do not know what his reaction will be: but the Queen has told me that if I am brave he will respect it and I will receive no harm. “Your Majesty, there is still one who understands and appreciates you, here on this earth. Why can you not, even now, return to her who still loves you?”
For several moments he is silent, sitting frozen as he is. I glanced away when I spoke, not daring to meet his eyes, and so I, too, sit frozen. I expect one of the sudden rages with which Her Majesty and I were once so familiar: such a rage as killed his uncle Aanen, for instance, or Amon’s old High Priest Maya. May it not now kill Anser-Wossett? But when he finally speaks it is not in rage but a genuine puzzlement.
“Why did she send you to me?” he asks. “We have had no reason to speak to one another for three years. There is no reason now. She is dead to me—dead! Does she not understand that?”
“No, Your Majesty,” I say, emboldened by his evident willingness to remain calm, “she does not understand that because she still loves you.”
“What cause have I given her to do that?” he asks bluntly, and this time I do turn to him and face him as squarely as he faces me.
“No cause whatever, Your Majesty,” I say, as bluntly as he. “In fact, much cause to the contrary. But we women are like that: it is the only explanation. She has been committed to you from a child.
She
,
at least, remains true.…” And then, because he still does not rage but continues to look at me curiously from those strange, hooded eyes we will never get used to, I venture still further. “Is there nothing in you that remains true to her, Your Majesty?”
“Why did she send you here?” he asks, ignoring my question. “It was not to tell me of old love, surely.”
“No,” I say very quietly. “It was to offer you a plan to escape.”
“Escape?” he asks blankly. “Are you telling me, then, that the Living Horus is a prisoner?”
“You would not be if you would still go about among the people,” I say. “But Your Majesty stays always here, always secluded, always alone.”
“I am alone!” he says sharply.
“They take advantage of it,” I say, wondering at my own courage but feeling now that I have gone too far to stop.
“
Who?
”
“Many.”
“Name them!”
“They are as numerous as the sands, Your Majesty,” I say, trembling again inside for fear my evasion will provoke his wrath, but determined not to be diverted from the Chief Wife’s purpose. “They are in your house, they are throughout Kemet, they are north in Naharin, they are south in wretched Kush, they are everywhere along your borders—everywhere. And as long as you remain here in the South Palace and do not break out, as long as you do not take the government back in your own hands—”
“Are you saying my uncle Aye and cousin Horemheb are betraying me?” he interrupts sharply.
“I say they are ruling Kemet because Your Majesty will not,” I retort, and truly then I do not expect to live, for at last his face clouds and a furious expression comes into his eyes.
“You go too far, Lady,” he says, his voice suddenly choked with emotion.
“I humbly beg Your Majesty’s pardon,” I say, and lower my head and draw my veil across my eyes, which I close in both fright and resignation, for I fully expect the next step to be calling of the guards, followed by prison or death for me.
Instead, nothing happens. I am aware of his heavy, angry breathing, I am sharply aware that the effect of the perfumed water is wearing off and the odor is returning; I am aware that I am but a humble subject daring to speak to the Good God as only the Family, I am sure, has ever spoken to him. I am aware that I am sitting, incongruously, on the throne of Kemet, a thought that almost makes me burst into hysterical laughter. I am aware of many things, but the principal one I am aware of is that he is not going to kill me, or even let his rage continue much longer.
“You speak treasonous things,” he says at last, quietly, “but no doubt you believe you have good cause. Exactly what is the reason my wife sent you here?”
At this I am greatly encouraged, for I believe it has been a very long time since he has acknowledged the fact that Her Majesty is still his wife.
“She has prepared your escape,” I repeat. This time he studies me intently.
“Tell me,” he says, half mocking, “where does Pharaoh ‘escape’ to?”
“Twelve of her household troops are trained and ready,” I say. “Prepare yourself. They will come tonight at midnight while all the Palace is asleep. Her Majesty will come with them. She will announce to the guards that she is coming to see you. You, meanwhile, will have told your guards that you expect her, very late, and that she is to be admitted. They will not dare challenge her if you have given the order. She will remain but a very brief while. You will then see her to the outer door, accompanied by her soldiers. Hidden around the corner in the next street will be a litter for you. You will proceed together, not in haste but without slowness either, to the litter. No one will dare challenge you. You will go to the North Palace, take up residence and tomorrow a new day will begin for the Two Lands when you go together to the Window of Appearances to announce to Kemet that you are reunited and that henceforth you are resuming active control of all Your Majesty’s affairs, removing Aye and Horemheb from their offices and appointing others loyal to you.”
I pause, a little out of breath from this lengthy recital. I can see that he is, for the moment at least, interested and perhaps even excited: his face shows more animation than I have seen it show since the death of Smenkhkara. For a moment this lingers, I can see him thinking about it almost as though he believed it possible. Then as abruptly as his face has begun to glow with life, the glow fades. He seems to shrink, to withdraw, to hide away into himself again; he actually seems to grow smaller and more wasted even as I watch. It is a very odd sensation I have, and it tells me before he speaks that we may have lost him. But he is courteous about it: His Majesty has always been courteous to me. And I do not intend to give up without an argument, having gone so far.
“Lady,” he says, “tell your mistress I appreciate her care for me, but tell her that what she proposes is impossible. I could not leave this house where I have been happy to return to one where I was unhappy—even though I am no longer happy here. But it is here I belong. It is here I can best worship the Aten and the memory of—of him who strengthened me in all I did. I could not abandon them to return to the Chief Wife.”
“I do not believe she wishes you to abandon them, Your Majesty,” I say. “She worships the Aten as you do. Together you can give him new life in the Two Lands, where few now favor him. And as for His late Majesty Smenkhkara”—he flinches at the name, but I go bravely on as Her Majesty would wish—“I believe Her Majesty fully respects your grief for him, and would not resent your expression of it. Her Majesty,” I conclude quietly, “has suffered much, and learned much, in these last three years. I think she will be happy only to have you returned to her side, and well again.”
“Yes,” he says gloomily, distracted and as if to himself, “I am not well.…”
“Then come to the North Palace, Your Majesty!” I urge. “Come back to those who will love and care for you! Do not remain here where you are so unhappy and alone. They do not really care for you here—no one does. I think Your Majesty knows this, in his heart.”
Again I have dared greatly in saying such candid things: but I feel I must. And it appears that I have been right, for now he turns finally, draws himself back in his throne and again looks me full in the face.
“It would be nice,” he says, so forlornly that it wrenches my heart, “to be where someone cared for me again.”
“Then return to the North Palace tonight!” I exclaim. “Give the orders! Receive Her Majesty! Leave here with her! And restore yourself tomorrow to the power that grief has driven from your hands!”
He looks at me thoughtfully for a very long time, during which I hardly dare breathe for fear I will wrongly affect his decision.
“Well—” he says at last.
“Return to those who love you, Majesty!” I dare exclaim, encouraged by his hesitation.
“Aye and Horemheb would be much upset,” he says in a faraway tone, and I can see him considering—rejecting—accepting—rejecting—accepting again—“but if it were done swiftly and without warning—if they did not know until I appear tomorrow at the Window of Appearances what my intentions are—if I perform wonders again for Kemet, my people—”
“Then Your Majesty will do it!” I cry joyfully.
He reaches out a long, thin hand and clutches mine with a desperate grasp like one drowning in the arms of Hapi.
“Go and tell my wife,” he says in a hurried, almost frightened voice, “that I will receive her at midnight tonight and we will go to the North Palace!”
“Majesty!” I cry, and leaving the throne of Kemet, where I had never expected to sit in all my life and of course never will again, I kneel at his feet, lift the hem of his garment and press it to my lips.
He places a hand gently on my head.
“Go, now!” he says with an excited urgency. “The Lady Anser-Wossett has served the Two Lands well this day!”
“Thank you, Majesty,” I say humbly, backing out of his presence. The last I see of him is the misshapen figure leaning forward intently on the throne, the long, narrow eyes wide with thought, the mind far away—but alive again now, no longer dull, no longer dead, as he contemplates with an evident excitement what will happen this night and tomorrow.
I have succeeded beyond the wildest hopes of Her Majesty and myself. Acting entirely on Her Majesty’s intuition, we have caught him at that exact moment at which even the deepest mourning becomes boring and it is time for life to resume.