by Allen Drury
Silently we steal away. A wind is rising from the Nile, in all too short a time the first fingers of Ra will creep up the eastern sky and we will have to resume our lifelong burdens.
May His Majesty sleep well! May all go well with him! May he rest secure and happy in our love! May all go well with him, forever and ever, for millions and millions of years!
***
Amonhotep,
Son of Hapu
They face us now across the polished cedarwood table sent from Lebanon years ago as gift for his brother when gifts were still being given: two defiant children in the soft flickering glow of the oil burning in the alabaster lamps that hang from hooks along the cabin walls. The curtains are drawn tight against the night, outside the singing and revelry are at last beginning to die down. The crew of the royal barge is sleeping on the shore. No one is near to disturb the six who are still awake at this late hour: Aye; Horemheb; Hatsuret; the two children; and myself, who am still permitted to attend their councils, because Horemheb has kept the word he gave me that horrible night: he forgave me. Miraculously our friendship, and my trusted place with the Family, continue unchanged.
It is apparent that His Majesty is very angry, and that Ankhesenpaaten (the new name “Ankhesenamon” does not yet come easily to me) shares his feelings fully.
“I have asked you here,” he begins, his boy’s voice breaking now and again with adolescence, but his intensity such that he ignores it save for an occasional impatient shake of the head, “because I am much displeased. I would have the cause of my displeasure—removed.”
“What is the cause of your displeasure, Son of the Sun?” Aye asks gravely. Tut almost interrupts with his scornful answer, which startles us all, it is so unlike him heretofore: this must be an anger genuine indeed.
“You know what it is, Uncle!” he says sharply. “I have no doubt they have told you all about it long since. It is the High Priest and his rowdies who break the King’s peace and harry his people!”
“I am sure there was no intention—” Aye begins, but this time Pharaoh does interrupt.
“Oh, there was intention,” he says coldly. “I was there, Uncle. I saw the intention.” He turns sharply on Hatsuret, who is still standing near the door because Pharaoh has deliberately not asked him to be seated. “What did you intend to do to that poor man had I not stopped you, Hatsuret? Is the High Priest of Amon a murderer?”
Hatsuret starts as though struck a physical blow in the face. His eyes narrow with anger, but he knows he must control it, and he does.
“Your Majesty,” he says quietly, “I was but teaching him a lesson.”
“What kind of lesson?” Pharaoh demands. “And what had he done to warrant such a lesson? Speak! I would know!”
“He and his village were insolent,” Hatsuret begins. “They defied me when I asked for goods for Pharaoh—”
“I arrived before you think, Hatsuret,” Pharaoh interrupts. “I know what was said.”
“Do you accuse me of lying, Your Majesty?” Hatsuret demands with a sharpness he would not have dared show a grown man. Perhaps he should not have dared with this.
“Do you accuse me, Hatsuret?” Tut asks, his voice suddenly soft and dangerous with an emotion we have never heard in it before.
Hatsuret is obviously taken aback but, for a moment only, he holds his ground. Then his eyes drop and he says sullenly:
“They were insolent. They would not have given me what I asked for Pharaoh.”
“Amonemhet offered it!” Pharaoh says. “And you did not ask only for me. You asked for yourselves and they knew, as I knew, what you wanted. You do lie, Hatsuret I should have your head!”
“Perhaps it were best,” Ankhesenpaaten says clearly before any of the rest of us, shocked, can reply. “It might remove a painful thorn from Your Majesty’s side.”
“The ‘thorn’ is Amon!” Hatsuret retorts angrily. “Would you remove Amon again, Your Majesty, as the Heretic did?”
“The ‘Heretic,’” Tut begins in a blaze of anger, “was my brother,” he finishes, more quietly. “I do not intend to debate that with you now, Hatsuret. You are back in power, Amon rules the land with us again. But I am determined it shall be a fitting rule, and not the threatening ways you displayed in my loyal village tonight.”
“Amon has done all things fitting so far, Son of the Sun,” Horemheb remarks quietly. “On every side the people welcome him. Are you not pleased that he has returned to bless our House and help it lead the Two Lands to happier times?”
For a second—longer than he perhaps intends, long enough to stir uneasiness in our hearts—His Majesty hesitates.
“I am pleased that Amon has been restored,” he says carefully, “and I am pleased that he wishes to aid our House. I desire only that he do so in ways that will truly benefit the Two Lands. I did not see those ways tonight.”
“I am sure the High Priest will take your desires into account very seriously,” Horemheb says smoothly.
“And I am sure,” Aye says, “that we will all forget the words that have been spoken in anger by you both, and by Her Majesty. Only in the closest trust and confidence can Pharaoh and the gods work together to save Kemet. And all that really matters is to save Kemet, do you not agree?”
“Yes, Uncle,” Pharaoh says with what appears to be a sudden submission, though now, startled by his most unusual display of defiance, we can no longer be sure. “I agree. Hatsuret, go now. Guide yourself better and serve us well, and you shall have no more complaints from me.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Hatsuret says, bowing low so that the carnelian scarab at his neck swings loose on its golden chain and gleams and glitters in the light. “It will ever be my pleasure to serve you well, O Son of the Sun—if Her Majesty,” he adds with another bow, so low that we cannot be sure whether it is respectful or not, “will permit me.”
“Your own actions will permit you or not permit you, Hatsuret,” she says, her determined young voice and cool expression rousing sharp and uncomfortable memories of her mother. “It is for you to decide.”
“Yes, Majesty,” Hatsuret says, his eyes for an instant dark again with anger; but he recovers smoothly. “Such will ever be my earnest intention.”
“Go then,” Tutankhamon says, “and sleep well, for tomorrow we arrive in Thebes and great will be the ceremonies thereof.”
Once again Hatsuret bows low to them both; bows to us; and leaves. We hear his footsteps pass above us across the deck, we hear a muffled exchange as some of the sleeping crew rouse to hand him down. We look at one another and our real council begins.
“Uncle,” Pharaoh says, “I do not like that man.”
“Nor I,” Ankhesenpaaten agrees calmly, and her words are so bold that there is no doubt at all whose daughter she is. “He murdered my mother, my sister and my uncle, and he helped you both in an even greater crime, the death of Pharaoh, for which the gods will not forgive you or cease to harry this House unto its last generation.”
“Your Majesty knows why this had to be done!” Horemheb says sharply, his face flushed with anger.
“I have heard your reasons,” Ankhesenpaaten says, indifferent to the point of insolence.
“They are sufficient!” Horemheb snaps.
“So we are told,” she says in the same cold way.
“It is done,” Horemheb says, breathing hard, “and never will I discuss it more with Your Majesties.”
“Perhaps we would discuss it with you, Cousin,” Tut suggests softly, but at this a curtain of rejection seems to fall across Horemheb’s eyes. His face sets in stubborn lines.
“Perhaps you would, Cousin,” he says evenly, “but I am afraid that will not matter.”
“Well,” Aye says hastily, for all of this tonight—Tut’s defiance, Hatsuret’s anger, Horemheb’s deliberate insubordination—has brought the true situation so suddenly and glaringly into the light that he, like myself, is deeply upset by it. “Well, now. I do not think there need be any cau
se for controversy among us. We are agreed that Amon and our House must work together to return Kemet to glory. There is no place for argument in that. There is no need for falling out about it. Tomorrow we land in Thebes and Your Majesty’s rule, in a sense, will truly begin at last, there in the place where Amon lives, the place that you and Her Majesty enjoy so much. The past is dead with those who peopled it: what the gods have taken away cannot be returned. We must look forward now, no longer back. The good of Kemet requires it.”
“The ‘good of Kemet’!” Pharaoh echoes. “You always talk of ‘the good of Kemet,’ Uncle. How much it has excused, in your mind!”
“Only what has been necessary,” Aye says, his face grave. “And you should thank us for it, Neb-Kheperu-Ra, because had it not been so you would not now wear the Double Crown.”
“Is it your thought I enjoy the Double Crown, Uncle?” Tutankhamon asks, and he looks as young as he is, strained and worried with his burdens. “I should be happy, I assure you, were it to rest upon some other head.”
“It cannot, Your Majesty,” Aye says quietly, “for you alone have the blood.”
“And I!” Ankhesenpaaten reminds him sharply. He bows in apology.
“And you, of course, dear Niece,” he agrees humbly. “Indeed, without you the Double Crown would not rest easily upon the head of Neb-Kheperu-Ra.”
“It does not rest easily, Uncle,” Pharaoh says with a wryness beyond his years, “but it rests.… Tell me, then: what are we to do about this troublesome priest?”
“I shall vouch for him,” Horemheb says firmly. “I was not present in your village tonight until it was all over, so I did not see for myself. But,” he adds quickly as Tut’s eyes begin to narrow, “I believe Your Majesty, of course, as to what happened. I agree it was ill thought out, ill considered, evilly done. Even priests are human sometimes.”
“They should not be,” Tut says. “Particularly the Priest of Amon. He should be above the desires and passions of ordinary men. Otherwise how can he serve me and the god?”
“I shall speak to him,” Horemheb assures him.
“I have already spoken to him!”
“I shall reinforce your words,” Horemheb says smoothly. “It will not hurt to have all of us speak to him.”
“I, too,” Aye says. “With your permission, Majesty, of course.”
For a moment Tut hesitates, obviously considering whether to tell us something. The decision is apparently negative.
“Very well,” he says, seemingly mollified. “If you give me your words. I cannot have him trouble me and my people thus.” And suddenly he yawns, a great yawn, rubbing his eyes with his fists, reminding us of the boy he really is.
“I give my word,” Aye says.
“And I,” says Horemheb, and moves quickly to take advantage of the moment. “And now, Majesty, had we not best seek sleep, as you yourself suggested? It grows very late and Thebes awaits us tomorrow. It will be a very long and tiring day.”
“I think so,” Pharaoh says, yawning again. “I have much to do tomorrow, as you say. I shall announce my plan tomorrow, then.”
“What plan is that?” Horemheb demands sharply, and his father and I suddenly find ourselves listening very intently.
“Oh, just a plan,” His Majesty says lightly, but between him and his wife passes a look that stirs unhappy memories and makes our blood run cold. We have had enough of secret “plans” between a Good God and his Chief Wife. Surely the gods will not permit it again!
“Can we not be told,” Aye suggests quietly, “so that we, unlike your people, may be prepared to assist you in it?”
“I hope you will assist us in it, Uncle,” Tut says with a smile growing sleepy either naturally or deliberately, we cannot decide which. “But I have now decided that tomorrow will be time enough. You are right: we must sleep. Good night, Uncle. Good night, Cousin. Good night, Amonhotep. Rest well in the arms of Nut the night, for tomorrow will be, as you say, a busy day.”
“No, wait—” Horemheb begins, but before he can go further His Majesty gives way to another tremendous yawn.
“Ay-yai!” he says, blinking hard. “I am tired. Are we not, wife?”
“We are,” Ankhesenpaaten says and, rising, goes to the door and opens it. There is nothing to do but bow and leave.
As we step out upon the deck a lone singer is sounding a last farewell to the day. All about are either asleep already or silent listening to his song. His closing words are familiar: we have heard them all our lives. But never, perhaps, with quite the melancholy chill that Aye, Horemheb and I feel now, as we realize that our young King and his young wife have suddenly and unexpectedly become as elusive and mysterious as those we have known before.
“Increase yet more the delights that thou hast,” the singer urges, his voice lifted high on the silken sheen of a harp, his words given emphasis by the gentle rustle of a sistrum. “Follow thy desire and do good to others and thyself. Do what thou must upon earth and vex not thy heart, until that day of lamentation cometh to thee—for He With The Quiet Heart, Great Osiris, heareth not lamentations, and cries deliver no man from the underworld.
“Spend the day happily and weary not thereof!
“Lo, none can take his goods with him!
“Lo, none that hath departed can come again.…”
We cross the deck, are handed down by two sleepy crewmen. We pause for a moment on the bank. All is finally quiet. Only the light in Pharaoh’s barge still burns: the children must still be talking about their disturbing mystery.
“Do what thou must upon earth and vex not thy heart,” Horemheb murmurs softly.
“For, lo, none that hath departed can come again,” Aye replies with equal softness.
“Good night,” we say abruptly to one another, and go swiftly to our separate boats. But not to sleep for a while, I think. Certainly not I, and not, I am sure, the Regent Aye nor the King’s Deputy Horemheb.
***
Sitamon
Far down the Nile we hear the trumpets blow. The great crowd waiting on both banks stirs and shouts with excitement. Faintly beginning, growing ever louder as the flotilla advances, comes the swelling roar of love that greets Pharaoh and his Queen as they approach their capital of Thebes. Not since my parents’ day has there been such a welcome for a Good God and his wife. My little brother and our niece are well launched upon the path the Family wishes them to take.
I say “the Family”—and yet what of us is left? I, the Queen-Princess Sitamon, settling ever more rapidly into lonely middle age while my dream of marriage to my cousin Horemheb fades as surely as the evening glow on the Western Peak … my uncle Aye, doing his best, with guilty hands and fierce, unhappy conscience, to restore to Kemet the ma’at and order for whose sake he had to violate ma’at and order so dreadfully himself … Horemheb, troubled by it all but not, I think, troubled as much as he used to be, now that the fires of his ambition have truly begun to consume him … my youngest brother Tutankhaten (pardon me: Tutankhamon) … Akhenaten’s and Nefertiti’s third daughter Ankhesenpaaten (forgive me: Ankhesenamon) … Nefertiti’s odd little half sister Mutnedjmet (still accompanied everywhere by her always chuckling, faintly sinister dwarfs, Ipy and Senna), and her brother Nakht-Min, children of Aye’s second marriage, to gentle Tey, who also still survives … and that is all.
Where are we now, the great Eighteenth Dynasty? How fast has dwindled the House of Thebes!
My mother and father gone … my younger brother Smenkhkara dead of poison … our little sister Beketaten, always sickly, dead of a fever … Akhenaten and Nefertiti dead of the ax … their daughters Merytaten, Meketaten, Nefer-neferu-aten Junior, Nefer-neferu-ra and Set-e-pen-ra, all dead, Merytaten of poison, the others of that fragile health that has taken every product of Akhenaten’s loins save Ankhesenamon … all their children by him dead, too.…
Cursed are we, I begin to think, cursed by fate and the anger of the gods, brought upon us by poor, foredoomed Nefer-Kheperu-Ra and his los
t dream of the Aten.
All, all dead. And of the eight remaining, only Aye, Horemheb and Nakht-Min really have influence in the Two Lands; and of them only Aye and Horemheb really have the power; and of them, which will win in their duel over the helpless persons of my little brother and my niece?
Because duel it is, and make no mistake about it. They would have you think otherwise, covering all with sweet words for one another and shows of unity. But the words grow increasingly tense and the unity shows signs of cracking, to those like myself who watch it most closely. Beneath their public display the old lion and the younger contest for the bones of Kemet. Two defenseless children only keep them from one another’s throats. Only in the balance of their contention lies safety for my brother and our niece.
I pray for them that they may have many sons, and swiftly; for only by this means can the Dynasty be restored and Kemet and the Family truly returned to glory, and only by this means can they hope to live long and bring peace and stability to the Two Lands. I understand they have lately begun to live together as man and wife, and perhaps Ankhesenamon will soon have a son. I pray so, I pray so. We have had enough of deaths and killing in the glorious Eighteenth Dynasty.
I speak so bitterly because I think it need not have been so had there been, at various points along the way, more understanding here, more restraint there, more imagination somewhere else. Yet all have been trapped in the stately ritual of the kingship of Kemet, which requires of those who would keep the Double Crown a steady obedience, and of those who would acquire it absolute loyalty and endless patience for the will of the gods to work itself out. My brother Akhenaten overturned all, of course; but before him our father had begun to let things slide; our mother had tried valiantly but without much success to hold them together; Aye had sought desperately to keep a balance, only to be thwarted; and soon the misgivings of the Family, the ambitions of Horemheb and the vengeance of Amon combined to bring blood upon our House as chaos swept the land.
Somewhere there must have been a key, but it was never found. I believe Akhenaten tried to show it us: to him, however strangely he expressed it, the key was love, by One God, for all men. Perhaps he came too early, perhaps he was too strange to make us understand, since he and his weaknesses loomed so large before us, to the exclusion of the dream. But he may have been right … he may have been right. Except, of course, that it could not succeed in Kemet as Kemet has always been; and as Kemet has always been, so Kemet must always be, if the Two Lands are to come again to happiness, serenity and peace.
