by Allen Drury
Were I Akhenaten I should be disturbed by this, but as nearly as he shows us, he does not appear to be. He drifts along: Smenkhkara drifts along: the Two Lands drift along. Smenkhkara makes some pretense of running things, makes his trips to Thebes and Memphis, issues proclamations and decrees in Akhenaten’s name, prides himself on being, as he confided to me recently, “our brother’s eyes and ears.” Real power resides where it has resided for many years, with my mother, my uncle and, lately, Horemheb.
They do not quite dare challenge Akhenaten openly, for he is after all the Living Horus, Son of the Sun, King and Pharaoh of the Two Lands. By adoption, as it were, Smenkhkara has comparable, if somewhat lesser, stature. It takes much—very much—for anyone to openly challenge Pharaoh. It has been done, in our history, but only after the most grievous and long-continuing provocations. And it has not been done until those who did it were sure they could win. The vengeance of Pharaoh, even such a generally peaceable one as my brother, does not fall lightly on those who fail in such a revolutionary and awesome attempt.
Now, however, I suspect the attempt may be made. It is a possibility I hardly dare think about, so terrible are its implications and so awful its consequences, no matter who wins. To overturn a Pharaoh is to shake to the very foundations the being of Kemet, for Pharaoh is all things to Kemet. Such an act violates the very ma’at of the Two Lands. Only a Pharaoh who himself has violated ma’at could ever be threatened with such a thing.
Tonight, I suspect, may be the start of it, though I do not expect the event itself to occur then. There will be a last attempt to reason with my older brother, who is responsible, and with my younger brother, who is not responsible but only the amiable and appealing dull-wit he has always been. If that fails, then I shudder to think what may happen next in the land of Kemet.
The argument at hand is very small: two paintings on two tomb walls. Around them rise issues so grave and great that their settling can convulse the earth from the Delta to the Fourth Cataract.
Knowing my mother, my uncle, my cousin Horemheb, Nefertiti and my two dreaming brothers, I expect the worse.
But I do not want to be there.
I shall walk by the Nile and try to think of peaceful things; though I think it will be long, now, before peace returns to the Two Lands.…
***
Ramesses
I have never known him to be so intent, so silent, so secretive about his plans, his purposes, his feelings. Always up to now Horemheb, my dearest friend and most trusted comrade in arms, has confided all to me, things he would never confide even to Sitamon, to whom he has been husband in all but name these many years. I have known him myself for thirty years, ever since the day of Akhenaten’s birth when I brought to Thebes the news of the murder by the priests of Amon of his older brother, who was the then Crown Prince Tuthmose V. We were young scribes together, young soldiers together, traveled the length of Kemet and from there north to Mittani and Naharin, south to Nubia and wretched Kush, in the service of His late Majesty Amonhotep III (life, health, prosperity!). In the past fifteen years we have faithfully served (though with many profound misgivings which we have expressed only to one another) Nefer-Kheperu-Ra Akhenaten. Horemheb has been a part of my family, he is godfather to my son Seti, who now stands tall and sturdy beside us, ready for whatever the future may bring. He and I might be brothers, even twins, so closely have our lives, our thoughts, our hearts run together: and even I do not know what inner pressures move him now.
I do know that something must be done. I say this bluntly and without embellishment, for I am not a clever man, I admit it. I am simply a fair scribe and a very good soldier who does not concern himself overmuch with policy. But policy is everyone’s concern now. Nefer-Kheperu-Ra has made it so.
The Empire is almost gone, the Two Lands slip away into chaos and confusion. Robbery and corruption, murder and mayhem fill the cities and plague the villages. The temples of the gods stand ruined and deserted; the priests who helped administer government are dispersed, dead or in hiding. Many civil officials cannot be trusted unless they are directly supervised by the army. Even in the army itself Horemheb and I must be constantly on the alert to guard against corruption and betrayal. Men look only to their own self-interest: the love of Kemet wanes because the heart of Kemet no longer beats. Akhenaten is the heart, and he is no longer interested in Kemet. Sad days haunt the kingdom because of this.
Horemheb and I do what we can. Together with Horemheb’s half brother, the Vizier Nakht-Min, we strive to keep all on even keel while Akhenaten lives in his dream of the Aten and Ankh-Kheperu-Ra Smenkhkara plays at directing the government—an easygoing, empty-headed boy of twenty, for such a task! It would make one laugh aloud were it not so tragic. But what to do about it? There we are frustrated and do not know.
I know there are some who whisper that there are plots within the Family against the two Pharaohs, that the Great Wife, the Councilor and Divine Father-in-law Aye, Horemheb, even Nefertiti, may be planning some action looking toward their removal. I do not believe it, for how can it be done? They are the Sons of the Sun. It would violate the eternal laws of Kemet. It would desolate the very ka and ba, the very soul and essence of the country would be destroyed by it. I, a simple soldier, would go mad with the rending of the world. So would most of our five millions of people. We would be lost and wandering in the eternal darkness of the universe and Ra would no more smile upon us. It could not be.
And yet—and yet … we must be relieved of this burden. Somehow the Two Lands must be restored to their glory. Somehow the people must be protected from the corrupt, the murderous, the avaricious and the hurtful. Somehow the Double Crown must regain its splendor in the hands of decent and honorable men. Somehow the gods must be restored.…
Horemheb asked me to return with him to Akhet-Aten from Memphis, where we were seeking to strengthen the hands of a few faithful servants in the northern capital. He did not tell me why, except to say, as he always does, “Because I need you with me—I must have one man I can trust at my right hand.” I do not know his plans, his purposes, his feelings: but I know, as always, that I must be here to help him in whatever he intends.
He tells me there is some argument over paintings in the tombs of Huy and Meryra. Akhenaten wants them one way, the Great Wife and Nefertiti want them another. Evidently there are deep feelings aroused in the Family about this. I sense, though he does not tell me, that Horemheb considers it to be a major issue; though being a simple soldier, I do not really see why.
I asked him as much.
“Because it is time,” he said. And that is all he would say.
I cannot believe it will change things. How could it? The Living Horus, Son of the Sun, cannot be toppled by such a paltry thing. The people would not permit it, unhappy and fearful though they have been made by the strange misrule of Nefer-Kheperu-Ra and Ankh-Kheperu-Ra. And how could any of us who love Kemet lend ourselves to so dreadful an overturn of all her traditions that hold us together?
***
Horemheb
Simple Ramesses is baffled by me, which I would like to think is more a tribute to my cleverness than his stupidity. I fear it is not, however. I think it is only because he is honest, dull and blinded by lifelong loyalty that he does not perceive my purposes; and so I try to conduct myself with extra circumspection in the sight of others, less close, who observe me more objectively.
In this I think I have succeeded very well up to this moment of final conflict with my irresponsible cousin. For fifteen years I have gone faithfully about his business in the Two Lands, and beyond. He has raised me to be chief scribe and general of the army, has used me with unhesitating trust to perform his will, has required of me that I do terrible things: And I have done them. From the murder of our uncle Aanen in the temple of Amon at Luxor to the murder of Maya—the desecration of Amon’s holiest place at Karnak—the hurling of Amon himself into the waters of the Nile—and the ruin and dispersion of all the other gods
and their priesthoods—I have done them. And somehow, although I have been the instrument, I have secretly been able to convince the victims that I am their friend and, like them, am biding only the time when all can be put right again. And so I have come through unscathed and still popular with the secret priesthoods and the people.
It is as though I had acquired something of the aura that Pharaohs have: that whatever seemingly false I do is blamed on someone else (as rightly it should, in my case), and that to me is accorded a great forgiveness such as is not given other men. Particularly such as is not given Akhenaten, I think; and again, rightly so.
All of this has required great subtlety, great cleverness, the ruthless leading of a shrewd and implacable double life. It has also required great courage, because not even such a listless and uncaring One as Nefer-Kheperu-Ra could afford to countenance such behavior, if he knew it. He would have had my head on a dozen occasions had I not been able to advance my purposes with the requisite amount of grace and bravery. That I have been able to do so safely has convinced me further, if I needed to be convinced, that the gods have in store for me great things in Kemet.
Many years ago—thirty, how the time rolls by!—Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, said to me when he first became my friend that he thought I did indeed have “purposes” in Kemet. I was only fifteen then, newly come to Thebes and all the dazzle of the Court. I knew I possessed great brains, a stout heart, wit, charm, a lightning intelligence—and the skill to dissemble, which I did not at first employ because I did not see any particular reason why I should. But as I rose higher, I learned. My father Aye was secretly guiding me, more by example than by direct admonition. Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, as he moved more and more securely into the position he now occupies (which is really “the official Sage of Kemet,” so widely is he known, loved, listened to and revered), gave me many direct and helpful admonitions that greatly eased my way. My father’s support guaranteed me position, his example schooled me in skill and statesmanship. From Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, I received the intimate guidance and warm day-by-day friendship my father’s high position and remote austerity made impossible. I owe them both very much: and will continue to owe them much, I think, as I move closer to the destiny whose shape the gods have made clear to me beyond all doubt in these last few troubled years.
Sitamon knows. Her shot was in the dark, but I could see she sensed instantly how shrewdly it had gone home. I do want to be Pharaoh: I, Horemheb, say it secretly to myself and not yet to any other. But the day will come when it can be proclaimed to the world. When it does, I will be ready.
How this will come about I do not yet see, for at the moment the path to the Double Crown is not open to me, who am the illegitimate son of Aye, who is only uncle and father-in-law to the King and is not able, himself, to confer upon me any rights to the throne. He has given me the right of legitimacy, and he has given me the right to be a member of the Family. Both have been great advantages: but he cannot give me the right to the throne. Yet I feel that somehow the gods will work on my behalf, as I work secretly and shrewdly on theirs. Somehow I shall not go unrewarded—this I believe. In that belief I live and govern and do great things, though always, up to now, at the command, and in the shadow of, my strange cousin and his amiable, empty brother.
Suppose the day comes when they are removed—yes, that too I dare say secretly to myself, though it is treason to even think it: when they are removed. What will happen then? Solemn little Tut, who used to be such a happy child before he became old enough to sense that the world of Kemet is deeply in trouble around him, will succeed. He will be married to Akhenaten’s second oldest daughter, sweetly ambitious little Ankh-e-sen-pa-aten (another Merytaten but with much smoother edges); and from his loins will no doubt spring many sons to revive the House of Thebes. And what will happen to hopeful Horemheb then? Will he succeed his father as councilor, when that good man goes? Will he continue to run the army and govern the country while Tut remains a child, and go finally to the afterworld, gray with honors, after Tut takes full command and presently permits an old and faithful servant to retire?
This is a future most men would greatly envy: but it is not enough for Horemheb.
Still, as I say, that is what appears to be the likely outline of the future. I see no other path logically before me. Yet I still believe the gods will come to my assistance and make me Pharaoh. How, I do not know.
For the present, I suppose, I am not intended to know. I am intended only to play my part in the crisis that is now upon us, and to have my just share in whatever must be done to save the throne and the Two Lands, which now suffer so greatly under my cousin’s misrule. That is enough for me, right now—or so Amon and his fellow gods inform me.
I pray often to Amon, whose statue I ordered to be recovered secretly from the Nile after Akhenaten ordered him thrown in. Hatsuret—my father—the Great Wife—Amonhotep, Son of Hapu—Ramesses—we six alone in all the world know where Amon is, for after the special group of divers I commanded had brought him up from the bottom of the Nile, I had them slain so that there would be no witnesses. Ramesses and I then took him to a secret place in the necropolis of Sakkara, near Memphis, where he stands in an empty tomb carved more than a thousand years ago for some noble who never occupied it. It is at the end of a tiny passage leading off from my own, which has been under construction in Sakkara for many years. After I had the passage dug, the tomb enlarged a little and suitably decorated as a shrine, and a concealed doorway fitted cleverly into place, I had those workmen slain also. Now, as I say, only six in this world know where Amon is; and only I, who have the pretext of visiting my own tomb from time to time to supervise its progress, ever have the chance to visit him. But I take the offerings of the others, and he knows that all of us work toward the day of his restoration, and he favors us in our endeavors and guides us in what we do.
So does he guide us now as we come finally toward the day of reckoning with the treacherous Aten and his foolish servitors. My cousin has tried for fifteen years to make the Aten the Sole God of Kemet, he has persecuted Amon and all the other gods, he has had his subversive and ridiculous Hymn to the Aten inscribed on a hundred stelae throughout Kemet—and still the people do not love the Aten, any more than they love him. But this does not stop him: he continues, and will continue, to worship his Sole God and try to inflict him upon the rest of us. He will continue this to his death: for such is the nature of my cousin Akhenaten.
In a curious way, it is almost possible to admire such stubborn determination, however foolish and self-defeating it has been. His whole life since he became Co-Regent with my uncle Amonhotep III (life, health, prosperity!) has been a deliberate challenge to all the ancient traditions of Kemet. He has defied the weight of history: he has risked the wrath of centuries. And now that he nears the end of his rule and his life, for certainly he does, one can only ask: for what? Has he really had a purpose? Has he really known what he was doing? Or has he been simply the creature of an automatic and increasingly insane compulsion, without strategy, without aim, without sense?
I believe, myself, that he is insane. I have believed this ever since the day of my uncle’s death when Akhenaten assumed full power, ravaged Amon, put aside Nefertiti and sailed off to Akhet-Aten from Thebes with silly, bewitched Smenkhkara singing the Hymn to the Aten at his side. I think on that day he relinquished whatever shreds of reason still remained in him. I think on that day the gods sealed his fate, and that everything thereafter has been simply preparation for the final ending of his crazy dream.
In this ending I have much part to play. I do not know yet exactly what it will be, what the Great Wife and my father will wish of me; but I feel, though neither has talked to me about it, that both know well what they intend.
The army is in my hand, though it would take almost impossibly much to make my superstitious soldiers rise against the Living Horus—and so I know it is not by that means that we will bring him down. But bring him down we will. Of that I hav
e no doubt.
And then in due time—somehow, someday, in some fashion the gods have not yet revealed to me but which I know they will, for I am their faithful servant—the way will open for Horemheb and he will lead Kemet back to what Kemet was when he first arrived, an eager lad, in then flourishing Thebes, so many years ago.
***
Aye
My sister thinks it time, my son thinks it time, I think it time, Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, though he confides nothing direct to any of us about it, indicates the same. We do not know what my daughter Nefertiti thinks but tonight we intend to find out. Then, perhaps, will indeed come the time—to act.
Yet what do I contemplate when I say “the time to act”?
My mind shudders away from it.
We say we are talking about two carvings in two minor tombs of the pathetic coronation durbar and what they should represent to posterity. In reality we are talking of something else.
Behind them lies the face of death.
So far we have come along the road with Nefer-Kheperu-Ra and his bemused and fatefully willing brother … my two little nephews, who so short a while ago laughed and tumbled at my feet! Of them I use the word “death!” May Amon and Aten and all the gods forgive me the thought … and may they understand, in horror and compassion, why it is that Aye, Private Secretary, Councilor, Divine Father-in-law, must now face the fact that for him, as for others, it is a thought that can no longer be put aside.
It is not enough to catalogue the wasting of temples, the withering of empire, the corruption of the land. It is not enough to talk of gods destroyed, of brothers shameless in public spectacle, of old ways thwarted and traditions upside down. It is more than that. It is ma’at, the fitness of things in all its aspects, that Akhenaten destroys with what he does.… It is this he destroys now simply by continuing to exist, simply by continuing to be the living symbol of all that he has done against ma’at and the safety and preservation of the Two Lands.
