Return to Thebes (8 page)
Authors: Allen Drury
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Genre Fiction, #Historical, #Mythology & Folk Tales, #Historical Fiction, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #fairy tales
My desperate desire for compassion and compromise runs away with me.
There is no easy way around this situation for any of us.
We gather in my daughter’s palace an hour from now, and there we decide how best to go straight through, hoping we may somehow come out safely on the other side.
***
Tiye
I am getting old. I find that I am thinking often now, with frequent tears and deepening sadness, of the old bright days before trouble came upon this House. We were happy then. All was laughter, gaiety and pleasure. Nothing clouded our sky, from which Ra smiled benignly on us all. The world was filled with life and love and brilliant colors everywhere. Contentment—real contentment—blessed the House of Thebes and the fortunate people of our dear Two Lands.
I see the contrast in far too many things today. To take one example: the temples. “Colors everywhere,” I said. Do you, too, remember how the great pylons looked, the giant figures of Pharaoh and the gods striding across the stone, painted in vivid reds and blues and yellows, with lovely gold and scarlet banners flying from every aperture? The palaces were lovely too, corridors, floors, doors, ceilings painted with a thousand scenes of gods, of Pharaoh, of comfortable domestic things and carefree hunting and fishing along the Nile. And on the river the bright sails going up and down, and in the streets the busy, happy bustle of our handsome people, the men dark and deeply tanned, the women fair, protected from the sun, gracefully languorous as they were carried by in litters and couches or, if assigned by the gods to a lower station in life, yet moving gracefully about their burdens with happy smiles, quick laughter, warm welcoming faces.
All, all has changed. A drabness has come upon the land. Since my son closed all the temples save those of his jealous Sole God, the work crews that once kept all bright and shining with their constant attentions have been dispersed. Care and love are gone from the world. The colors of the giant statues and paintings on all temples but the Aten’s have faded and become splotchy, the banners are long since taken down and destroyed, the palaces themselves have been allowed to fall into shabby disrepair save in a few places where the orders of myself and Nefertiti have been able to preserve some semblance of former beauty. (She built her own temple to the Aten at Karnak. He did not dare object. It stands alone, a single note of brightness in the ruined surround.) On the river there is less and less color as if the boatmen were afraid to show it, and in the streets few smiles, little laughter, no longer the constant happy chatter—mingled so often with the sound of music, which also has almost vanished from our world—that used to fill Kemet with good will and laughter from Memphis to Karoy.
A sullen sourness grips the land, a deep unease. Joy has fled from Kemet and with it the air of well-being that used to be the principal distinguishing feature of our divinely ordered life.
It is because there is no order that this is so. It is because order—
ma’at
—the eternal fitness of things—has been destroyed. It is because my son has remade our world in his own sad image and that of his hurtful, vengeful god.
Long ago when his father and I first decided that we would dedicate him to the Aten, we intended the Aten to be a counterweight to then overweening Amon. We never contemplated that out of Akhenaten’s illness would come his great hatred for Amon and the other gods, or that out of his worship of the Aten would come his final decision to overturn them all and make the Aten, alone, supreme.
Now the Aten is inescapable. His round, empty face and long spidery arms, ending in tiny hands conferring ankhs and gifts, look down upon us everywhere; and to him my son has given titles heretofore reserved for Pharaohs alone when they have celebrated jubilees of their reigns:
“Live, Ra, ruler of the Horizon, rejoicing in the Horizon, in his role of light coming from the Sun’s Disk, giving life forever and to all eternity, Aten the living, the Great, Lord of Jubilees, Master of all that encompasses the Sun’s Disk, Lord of the Heavens, Lord of the Earth, THE ATEN.”
So high has he raised him.
I know he still conceives the Aten to be a sunny, bright and loving god. But seeing what has been done in Aten’s name, it has been long since the Aten has appeared that way to our people. In Akhenaten’s eyes—for he has told me so on many occasions—his “Father Aten” still gleams happy and beneficent above us all. In the eyes of the people he is a dark and vindictive god whose jealousy and intolerance of all others make him forever impossible to love.
Such is the tragedy of my son Akhenaten. And such is the tragedy of our House, which now must deal with him, since the people cannot—and will not, so deeply instilled in them lies the fear and worship of Pharaoh, even when they know—
know
—what he is doing to the land. They would never dare rise against him; they would never dare risk the vengeance of centuries. In the land of Kemet,
this is not done.
Yet it must be done; and I, his mother, for many years Pharaoh in all but name of the Two Lands, must now perform a terrible service for my people. Nothing will be done unless I give the word: the Family waits upon me. So I must give the word, because there is no one else to give it, and nothing else left to do.
I see them both, in those early happy days: Akhenaten running and leaping down the sandy pathways of Malkata, ten years old, shortly before the illness struck; Smenkhkara the newborn, crooning in my arms, suckling at my breast, beaming upon all the world with happy smiles and welcoming gurgles. They were such happy children. All my children have been happy children, though Sitamon is on her way to becoming a soured and disappointed old woman because marriage to her no longer has a place in Horemheb’s ambitions … and Tut is aging rapidly before his time as the weight of the Double Crown comes ever closer … and Beketaten goes about a shy and frightened little girl because she, too, senses gathering storms … and Akhenaten and Smenkhkara are far, far now from the innocent and carefree days when we all laughed and loved one another in harmony and happiness in the Palace of Malkata.…
I envy my husband, sleeping peacefully in the Valley of the Kings beneath the Peak of the West, because he does not have to make the decision I must make. Were he alive, of course, he never would, because he was always weaker than I. He would flinch and smile and ease away from it, as he did from so many unpleasant things that, looking back, were clearly unmistakable warnings. We used to worry about these things, sometimes sharing our worries, sometimes not, but each sensing the other’s concerns. From time to time it would come into the open: I would urge upon him some course of action—insist upon it, finally, for the good of Kemet. Sometimes he would comply and sometimes not. When he did, things righted temporarily; when he did not, they continued their downward slide. Never could he control Akhenaten, and as his health failed so steadily in those later years, he lost even the desire to try.
So came the awful and disgraceful day of his entombment, the destruction of Amon and the other gods, the final ascendance of Akhenaten and the Aten, the putting aside of Nefertiti, the shameless enthronement of Smenkhkara in intimate co-regency with his brother, the full impact, at last, of all Akhenaten’s crazy dreams upon the Two Kingdoms. Because I think he
is
crazy—literally insane, and far gone now from any place where we who love him can reach him any more.
I blame myself for this, as I blame us all—but myself most of all, for I am his mother and it must have been my failure, somehow, that started it all: though I cannot honestly see how. I tried, I did my best. I have always thought to love and save him: but I failed.…
The hours I have wept for him, the Niles of tears I have shed! Even now, as I make ready to leave for the North Palace, I am shedding more. But something cold lies deep inside, at last. It is not my son—my sons—I weep for any more. It is for two alien beings, and for us who at last must regard and treat them as such if Kemet is to be saved from their infinite and awful folly.
I believe I have the support of my brother Aye, my nephew Horemheb and of Amonhotep, Son of Hapu. I am not so sure of my daughter-in-law, for I think her love still lives as it used to do, with something of the happy innocence of Malkata still alive beneath all the unhappy bitterness of these recent years. I think she also still believes in the Aten, which I have come to regard, I think realistically, as an experiment that failed.
Had Akhenaten been stronger, more insistent, had he moved from the beginning to impose his will as a Pharaoh should, instead of being so gentle, so cautious, so anxious to win the people to Aten through love instead of fear, then he might have achieved the religious revolution he sought and rid our House forever of Amon. But he wanted the people to come to the Aten of their own free will and he waited too long for them to do it. Then when he finally became enraged and decided to force them, it was too late and he went too far. And so the Aten’s temples stand empty save for fawning priests who flatter him, and the nobility and sycophants of the Court who must worship as Pharaoh directs if they would keep their positions, wealth and power. Among the people, Hatsuret and his spies tell us—we think accurately—the time is ripe for Amon and his fellows to return.
But before Amon can return my sons must go: the bargain of the gods is as simple and as ruthless as that.
Later tonight we will confront the two Kings, ostensibly to argue out the question of what is to be placed in the tombs of Huy and Meryra to depict the coronation durbar. On the surface it will be an argument decided before it is begun, for Akhenaten of course will have the final say as long as he is Pharaoh. If he wishes to depict the durbar in all its pathetic “living in truth” reality, instead of as a dignified and opulent ceremony designed to strengthen and preserve through all eternity the hitherto glorious image of the Eighteenth Dynasty, then he can order it done. But before we argue that we will have met at the North Palace and there other decisions will, I think, have been reached; and they may influence him far differently than he now dreams.
My tears are drying as I prepare to go. They may never flow again for my sons or for their mother, who will perform her last service for her beloved land of Kemet though it kills her heart forever in the breast that nourished them.
***
Anser-Wossett
I have been first lady in waiting to Queen Nefertiti since we both were girls, and steadily in these past three years my heart has been wrung with pity for her, as hers has been wrung with sadness for her husband and the happy times they once knew together.
I have watched her age, something I never thought could happen when we were younger; and at the same time seen her become more beautiful, as maturity and suffering have eroded the youthful roundness and arrogant prettiness and transformed her into a stately, grave and truly beautiful woman.
Bek’s rising young assistant Tuthmose has captured this best, I think, in the portrait bust he has just completed. Wearing her blue conoidal crown, looking out upon the world with a subtle sadness, a knowing but indomitable serenity, she gazes quietly into the eyes of the beholder as I have often seen her gaze in these past three troubled years. Only once have I caught that gaze direct, and then it was to look into such depths of sorrow that I quickly found a pretext to excuse myself and went away to weep in private for the beautiful woman who has come, only to find that all has crumbled and turned hopeless in her hands.
For this I can never blame the Queen, for it is only Pharaoh who must bear the responsibility. Her fault, if any, has been in loving him too much, and continuing to do so long after all evidence and common sense said such devotion was foolish and fated to end in emptiness. She has refused to believe it—refuses, I think, even now. Of all the Court—perhaps in all Kemet—she is the only one who still clings to the hope that someday, somehow, they may be reunited.
But suppose they were, what would it profit her? Nefer-Kheperu-Ra has not much longer to live, I think, and it is better that she be far from his side when the vengeance of the gods falls at last upon his head.
This I believe it will, for I do not believe that even the Good God can so long and so outrageously challenge the gods and the very
ka
and
ba
,
the very soul and essence, of the Two Lands, without coming eventually to judgment. In my opinion, though I know the Queen has always supported him in his heretical ideas (something it took me long to forgive her, and only my deep love for her gentle person and my ever growing admiration for her indomitable character finally persuaded me to do so), judgment is long overdue. Vengeance will come, and it will destroy both Pharaohs. So are we told who still believe in Amon: and our number is as the sands of the Red Land, however much the Good God may have tried to discourage us and force us to worship his way during the strange unhappy time he has been on the throne.
Fifteen years—fifteen years! To think we have had to suffer him for fifteen years! They have flown so fast it seems impossible to believe it has been so long—were it not that the weary sorrow of my lady is as nothing to the weary sorrow of the land. We carry a constant depression in our hearts because of him. Laughter and joy are gone from Kemet. It has been long, too long, and retribution for it has been long, too long, in coming.
I speak occasionally with him who is known in Akhenaten’s Southern Palace as Peneptah, meeting him casually at an appointed place in the market, appearing to the unnoticing passers-by to be chatting easily of ordinary domestic things. Secretly we exchange gossip and information as we seem to stand innocuously talking in the sun. I do not reveal to Hatsuret any of the private affairs of the Queen, for my loyalty is first to her, which he respects; but he knows me as a loyal follower of Amon, and so he tells me something of the whispers that are running through Kemet. We talk also of hidden things within the Family, which both of us are in position to overhear and to know. Vengeance is coming, he says; and he told me only yesterday that it will come “from those closest to Pharaoh, whom he does not suspect.” He also told me that when I receive the sign from him—“which before long I think you will”—I should be prepared at once to disguise myself and the Queen—as if one could disguise that classic face!—and flee to hiding in one of the villages south, toward Aswan.
“Our quarrel is not with Her Majesty,” he said, “though Amon knows she has abetted and encouraged the Heretic enough, through all these years. But Amon will forgive her if she will go quietly and nevermore appear upon the public scene. A modest house and a quiet living will be prepared for her and for you, and for three or four suitable servants to attend you. There you may live out your days unknown and unmolested. But she must not hesitate. When I tell you, and you tell her—
go.
Do not look back, either of you. Else will she, too, feel the vengeance of Amon, which is terrible and will devastate the land.”
“Must there be more devastation?” I asked, embittered. “Have we not had devastation enough? Must Amon compound Aten, and bloody us all in the process? Why will you not be content, Hatsuret—Peneptah”—correcting myself as he gave me a hasty glare of warning—“to simply reclaim the temples and the Two Lands from the Heretic? Must you run the risk of ruining everything as he has, in the bargain?”
“Vengeance will not be complete until he is dead and all his doings laid waste as he has laid waste Amon and the other gods,” he said in a harsh and unforgiving tone.
“You men love vengeance too much,” I said. “Why must there be more weeping in the Two Lands?”
“So that the Sole God will die forever,” he said in the same cold way. “Forever and ever, for millions and millions of years—so that no man hereafter will ever again dare to blaspheme and say that there is a single universal god supreme above all others. This is the reason we will destroy the Aten, and the Aten’s worshipers, and the sick cripple who has conceived blasphemy, and all his works of all kinds, forever.”
“You cannot destroy what is in men’s minds, Peneptah,” I said, “and though many condemn what he has planted there, not all will be able to forget it. It may outlive us all, for all your vengeance.”
“First we will have the vengeance,” he said with a grim assurance, “and then we will see.”
“I shall try to persuade Her Majesty as you suggest,” I said, dropping the subject because I could see that he could not and would not accept my prediction, which I think to be, unhappily, more likely to be true than his. “But I do not know that she will listen to me. It is not in her nature to flee.”
“Then she will die with him,” he said with a cold indifference. “And you, too, unless you abandon her and return to Amon in time.”
“I shall never abandon Her Majesty!” I exclaimed, shocked into a loudness of tone that brought his hand instantly clamped upon my arm.
“You will have the chance,” he said softly, “because you have been a loyal daughter of Amon. But it will not be offered twice. At the moment you receive word from me, in that moment you must decide. And so must she. There will be no second chance.”
“You do not frighten me, Hatsuret,” I said in a whisper that trembled despite my attempt to keep it steady.
“Amon is not interested in whether or not anyone is frightened,” he said. “Amon is interested in justice.”
“Vengeance!” I snapped. “Vengeance only, not justice!”
“The two are the same,” he said with an indifferent shrug, and turned away to leave me staring after him with too much dismay on my face, for I soon became aware that several were giving me curious looks. I quickly gathered up the two earthen pots with their characteristic blue-striped design which were my excuse for being in the market, went to my waiting litter and was carried home to the North Palace through the city’s bustling streets.
As we passed the King’s House there was a sudden stir, a blare of trumpets, a hurried falling away of crowds before the entrance. Out
they
came, arms about one another’s waists, no doubt on their way to worship at the House of the Aten. Pharaoh Akhenaten seemed sicklier than when I glimpsed him last, a month ago; it seemed to me that he leaned more heavily than usual upon Pharaoh Smenkhkara. Their chariot dashed past, the crowds instantly resumed their chatter and bustle, we all went swiftly on about our business. Oddly, it was almost as though the two Kings had never passed, so quickly did life resume its pattern and close over them like the Nile over a handful of sand.
I returned to Her Majesty much troubled, both by Hatsuret’s warnings and by this new sign that the Good God and the young Pharaoh really have no support at all among the people to sustain them: for I do not really wish them ill, knowing how terribly Her Majesty would be hurt if harm came to her husband. Knowing me so well, she of course perceived my mood and demanded to know what had disturbed me in the city. But I had neither the heart nor the courage to tell her of either thing. I passed it off with some story of seeing a child slip and fall fatally beneath the wheels of a passing donkey cart, but I do not think she believed me. In fact I know she did not, for she responded with a searching look from the lovely thoughtful eyes and remarked only:
“It is a time when many things trouble us. Let us pray to the Aten—or you to Amon, if you like—that all will come well for the Two Lands.”
“And for you, Majesty,” I said fervently. “Particularly for you, who have endured so much.”
“And with yet more to come, I think,” she said in a faraway tone, as if to herself, “… with yet more to come.”
Since then she has been lost in thought, withdrawn, remote, not participating as she usually does in the games and prattle of her daughters and of Tut and Beketaten. Now as we prepare for the arrival within the hour of the Great Wife, Her Majesty’s father Aye, her half brother Horemheb and Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, she remains silent, unresponsive, almost listless under my skilled hands as I assist her once again with the unguents and oils, the kohl for her eyes, the ocher for her cheeks, the sweet perfumes, all the familiar beautifications with which I have helped her prepare for appearances so many, many thousands of times.
She will rise to this occasion as to all others, of that I am certain; and I know even more certainly than I did when I spoke with Hatsuret that she will never flinch or flee from the vengeance of Amon, which now seems to be coming very close and surely will not be long delayed.
***