The Twelfth Transforming (58 page)

“Not quite. Your half brother continues to grow under the protection of Queen Nefertiti. If the succession was a matter of blood alone, his claim would be stronger than yours.”

Smenkhara’s eyes narrowed. “Are you daring to tell me,” he said quietly, “that unless I do what you want, you will transfer your allegiance to the bastard son of an illegal coupling? My father was Amunhotep III, the greatest pharaoh Egypt has ever seen. No claim is greater than mine.”

“Highness, I do not think that the claims of blood will have much validity when Pharaoh dies. The Treasury is empty, the administration atrophied through disuse and the corruption of too much bribery, the country as a whole almost irremediably impoverished. Power will go to the fittest, not to the man whose blood is purest. You must be seen to be strong enough to deserve the throne. I loved and admired your father, and your mother was my goddess. Help me to help you.”

Smenkhara studied his face. “Your eyes are lying,” he said. His fingers went to the bruise on his neck, and he rubbed it absently. “If you want to help me, kill my brother.”

“That is not necessary. I am convinced he is dying. We can issue what edicts we like, and he will not interfere. His days are a murky succession of dreams and nightmares. He has lost touch with the world.”

“You would not be so sure of that if it was you he kissed and fondled with such monumental lust.” Smenkhara’s voice shook. “I thought you were his friend. I cannot trust you.”

“That does not matter. I do not trust you, either.”

“You speak blasphemy. What of Ay?”

Horemheb smiled. “The fanbearer is very old.”

“Gods, you are disgusting.” Smenkhara jerked away. There was wine by the couch, and he poured for himself and drank deeply, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Give me the scroll. Mobilization?”

“And war.” Horemheb stepped from the window and, handing the document to Smenkhara, spoke urgently into the young man’s face. “I have been proud of my country, Prince. When I was a young boy growing up in Hnes, my father taught me to serve the gods, honor Pharaoh, and give thanks every day for the privilege of being born an Egyptian. All men envy us, he told me, because Egypt is prosperous, and her laws are just. I did not need to take his word alone.” He drew back and, going to the window, leaned wearily against the casing. “He worked hard, but our life was good. Our land produced well, and even after paying our portion each year to Pharaoh’s tax collectors there was usually enough grain for my father to barter in exchange for a trinket or two for my mother. Hnes was a happy place. Even the poorest peasants did not need to beg. I wish Your Highness could see my natal town now.” He turned his gaze toward the garden. “It is destitute. I send gold to the local priest to be distributed, but the people have become coarsened by privation, and though gold will fill their bellies, it will not buy them back their dignity.” He had begun to speak too loudly and now paused, softening his voice. “As a child I was not aware that Hnes lies very close to the border. No one thought much about it. But now Hnes is full of fear. How terrible are those words! Egyptian citizens on Egyptian soil, never knowing when they might wake to find their village full of foreign soldiers! The shame of it!” Suddenly he swung to regard Smenkhara again. “I was never like the other boys in Hnes,” he said. “I always knew fate had great things in store for me. I was clever and full of ambition, but above all I burned to serve my country and the god upon the Horus Throne whose benevolent omnipotence enabled me and my family to go to our pallets each night without hunger and sleep without anxiety.”

“This is a pretty story,” Smenkhara interjected, “but my patience is wearing thin. Everyone knows you are a commoner and rose through the ranks. Get to the point.”

Horemheb stiffened. “The point is this,” he replied evenly. “I still love Egypt and revere the dignity of her god ruler. I desire above all to see both restored to the place Ma’at has decreed for them. I have watched the disintegration of all that every true Egyptian holds dear. There is still time, a little, to reverse the tide of misfortune that swept over us when your brother ascended the throne, if you, Prince, will only support me. The immediate stabilization of Syria is imperative as a first move. I intend to march the army into our erstwhile dependency and begin a war of recovery.”

Smenkhara watched him with a half-smile of speculation. “The clever and ambitious little boy has become a clever and ambitious man,” he said coolly. “I have no doubt that your protestations of selfless love for your country have some truth to them, but I would also wager all the gold I have that you will not go into Syria with the army yourself.” He went to the lighted candle by the couch and held sealing wax over it. “If you did, you might return to find more shifts in the balance of power at court than you could control. Eh, Commander?” Deftly he dripped the wax onto the edges of the scroll and, removing his ring, pressed the heir’s seal into it. “There.” He threw it at Horemheb. “Spill all the Egyptian blood you want. Just keep your war away from Akhetaten.”

Pharaoh’s voice suddenly broke into the small silence that followed. “Smenkhara!” he called shrilly. “Where are you?”

Smenkhara raised his plucked eyebrows. “My royal lover bleats for me,” he said. “I wonder what my mother would have had to say about it if she had lived.” Horemheb did not answer but stood turning the scroll in his hand, his face expressionless. Envy suddenly marred Smenkhara’s handsome face as he looked at Horemheb, and he spat on the floor. “Get out,” he whispered. “I am cleaner in the sight of the gods than you, soldier.” Akhenaten called again, his voice a shriek of distress. Horemheb bowed and left.

Several days later the rumor of Smenkhara’s concession to Horemheb reached Ay’s ears. Anxiously he tried to obtain an audience with the prince himself, wanting to ascertain the extent of any influence he might have with his nephew, but Smenkhara had isolated himself in his three small rooms and re fused to see anyone. Ay sent a servant to locate Horemheb and, several hours after being turned away from the prince’s door, was told that the commander was in the office of the Scribe of Recruits. Calling for his litter, Ay was carried beyond the palace to the site where Pharaoh’s ministers had used to conduct the business of government. Most of the rooms were empty, but Ay met several scribes carrying their palettes and scrolls coming out of the headquarters of military conscription. Pushing open the door, he entered.

Horemheb was sitting alone, behind an overflowing desk, the remains of a hurried meal before him. He rose as Ay crossed the floor, and the two men bowed to each other. Horemheb sank back onto his chair and invited Ay to do the same. Ay pulled a stool closer to the desk.

“I came to hear you confirm or deny the rumor that Smenkhara gave you permission to begin a campaign,” Ay began. “And if he did, why was I not consulted? I am, after all, the Fanbearer on the Right Hand.”

“I would have told you before long,” Horemheb answered apologetically, “but I did not want Pharaoh to learn of my intentions prematurely, perhaps during one of his periods of lucidity, and countermand my orders. It does not matter now. They went out to the divisional commanders yesterday.”

“You mean,” Ay protested hotly, “that you did not acquaint me with your plans for fear I would have immediately told Pharaoh. Of course I would have! What you have done is sacrilege, Horemheb.”

Horemheb’s fist came down on the desk. “Someone had to do something!” he answered forcefully. “Yes, I have been sacrilegious, and I am guilt-stricken because of it, but I am sick of inaction, sick of giving unheeded advice, sick of the same worn discussions with you that go around in circles. It is not treason!” He grimaced, and his angry gaze dropped to his clenched fingers.

“I did not say it was,” Ay put in after a moment, “but it is a decision taken hastily, without due consideration. You have allowed your desperation to triumph over your good sense, Commander. How many divisions are involved?”

“Four are on their way to Memphis for victualing, and they will cross the border soon.”

“Are they ready to fight?” Ay waited for an answer, but Horemheb was silent, still looking at his hand, which was now pressed against the smooth wood of the table. “Are they?” Ay urged, now on his feet and leaning toward Horemheb. “You know as well as I that most of our troops have seen no action in more than forty years. They need three months of mock battle drill, time to toughen, to recover from the famine, to learn what they face from the Khatti and the desert! If they are defeated, it will hasten an invasion of Egypt!”

Horemheb’s head came up, and he glared at Ay. “You have always been more full of words than actions,” he said, “and what have words accomplished? Nothing! Besides, it has been years since you retired from active involvement with the cavalry to become fully the courtier. You do not know what you are talking about.”

“Perhaps not,” Ay responded sharply, “but your officers must have advised caution.”

“I did not consult them.” Horemheb rose and gave Ay a brief smile. “I am the Supreme Commander of All the Forces of His Majesty, and I say the army is ready to go to war. Do not worry.” He came around the desk and put his arm lightly across Ay’s shoulders. “We have been through too much together to cease trusting each other, Fanbearer. I will share the information in the dispatches that come for me from the front, I promise.”

“Do not patronize me, Horemheb,” Ay said, moving away, still angry. “I have more sympathy with you than you think, but I beg you to remember that it is I who must stand outside Pharaoh’s chamber watching and listening to the disintegration of a man I swore long ago to honor and protect. For those of us in constant attendance on him it is very painful.”

“I do remember it,” Horemheb answered gently. “I, too, owe much to Pharaoh, but surely we both owe Egypt more.”

Ay pondered Horemheb’s words as he was carried back to the palace, and they made him feel all at once very lonely. He would have liked to go straight to Tiye’s house to discuss the situation with her, but that pleasure would never come again. Missing her was a constant dull ache that intensified each night when he presided at the feasts in Akhenaten’s place, for her granddaughter Ankhesenpaaten, as Great Royal Wife, now sat beside him in the place where once the empress had looked out over the company with her impassive blue eyes.

Although Akhenaten himself showed no interest in his latest daughter, Ankhesenpaaten-ta-sherit, Ay felt sorry for his young queen and often sent his steward to the nursery to enquire after the baby’s health. It was not good. She did not feed well and slept too much. On one occasion when he had summoned the energy to go himself, he found Ankhesenpaaten herself there, sitting on the floor with her daughter in her lap. At her nod he approached, bowing. Ankhesenpaaten smiled wanly and, gathering up the baby, held it out to him as trustingly as if it were a broken doll.

“There is something wrong with her, Grandfather,” she said. “See how limp her right leg is, how weak her arms. The nurses tell me she does not cry, she only whimpers.”

Ay took the baby gently, looking down at the pallid, thin face that was so startlingly like its father’s, expecting Ankhesenpaaten to say, “Can you make it better?” as his own daughters had once done. “Majesty,” he said gravely, “I think you must be prepared to lose your daughter. The physicians do not know what is wrong, and neither do I. You must love her while you can.”

Ankhesenpaaten solemnly took her back and began to rock her. “When I was very young, my father used to tell us that we would never be ill, and that dying would be easy for us,” she said. “My daughter is dying, and he is dying, too, isn’t he?” Her eyes filled with tears, and she hugged the baby to her breast. “The courtiers call him evil names, and the common people say he is a criminal, but he is my father, and I love him. They should not speak of Pharaoh like that. Now he is sick, and they have all abandoned him, but you will not, Fanbearer?”

Ay squatted beside her. “I will not, dearest Majesty.” He put an arm around her. “Do you miss your mother?”

“Yes, and so does he. When we are in bed together, he sometimes calls me Nefertiti.”

Full of pity, Ay kissed her soft cheek. “When the time comes, would you like to live with her in the north palace?”

Her head went down. “I think so. If you will visit me often.”

They talked for a while longer, and Ay returned to Pharaoh’s apartments.
It would be wise to move the little queen
, he thought.
Smenkhara will be pharaoh, but if he does not rule well, there will be many eyes turning to Tutankhaten, including mine. I have the little prince’s confidence, and Ankhesenpaaten trusts me. Horemheb would do well to cultivate Tutankhaten’s trust if he wishes to remain high in power
.

The seasons of sowing and growing intoxicated that year as never before. Courtiers who had held their noses at the sight of a cow and had had carpets carried with them in case they might be compelled to place their feet on muddy ground could now be found standing knee deep in the slim green spears of the crops on the west bank, awed by the burst of glorious fecundity they had not believed could be so precious. The sight of banks of vivid blooms in the gardens brought forth admiring exclamations. Each breath of the damp, fragrant air was a miracle.

As the green fields turned slowly golden, and the pleasant warmth of winter began to give way to summer’s breathless heat, the first harvest in three years began. But the man who had taken such a delight in the changing seasons and the things of the earth lay on his couch oblivious, living out his last fantasies. Akhenaten was dying. The few faithful servants remaining to him, Ay and Horemheb among them, watched the final disintegration of his mind and the accelerated weakening of his body. Akhenaten still had fits of agitation that culminated in weakening convulsions, but they became fewer as the days went by. He seemed to be entering a world whose inner reality remained a mystery to the watchers. The atmosphere in the quiet room became filled with expectancy, making the men who saw to Pharaoh’s physical needs lower their voices. Sometimes Pharaoh paced up and down, stopping to speak perfectly clearly. Once he halted before Horemheb and, staring straight into his eyes said, “But I have spent my life in doing all that the god commanded. I am not ashamed. I cannot say it would have been better had I not been born.”