by Allen Drury
Perhaps order, to us, means more than love.
Perhaps that is our triumph.
Or perhaps it is our curse.
It may be we will never know.
Now the roar is becoming steadily louder. As I watch from my vantage point atop the first pylon at Karnak—waiting to join them for worship to Amon, whose now triumphant priests have assisted me up the sharply winding secret stairway inside the great stone mass to this commanding overlook—I begin to catch a glimpse of many banners, crimson, purple, gold, orange, green and blue, sparkling in the sun. I see the rhythmic glistening of oars as they plunge in and out of the water, I see white sails billowing in a favoring wind, I see boats as far as my eye can reach, more boats upon the river than I have seen in many years. Trumpets are blasting now in almost continuous frenzy, the heavy throbbing of drums is beginning in the courtyard below. Great excitement seizes all. And I pray for my little brother and our niece, whose golden barge I can now see coming ahead of all the rest, that they may have the happy and fruitful role that their gentle hearts desire.
One of the assistant priests comes for me—dark Hatsuret, harsh instrument of unhappy destiny for some of those I loved, comes upriver with the rest from Akhet-Aten—and I am led down the stairs and transported in an open, jewel-hung litter to the landing stage.
I am greeted with a special affection by the wildly happy throng, for they have always loved me, and—I am very happy to be able to say—still do. The Queen-Princess Sitamon has always fortunately been someone a little apart, somehow separate from the rest of the Family in their minds: this has been my intention, which they reward with their love. I am a living memory of past triumphs and past happiness for the land. I take them back to the old days of my father and the Great Wife, for which they still secretly yearn in their hearts even as they desperately hope that this reign will eventually make all right for Kemet.
At forty-two I am an established symbol of the past.
Which is all right with me: I don’t mind. In fact it has been my deliberate purpose ever since it became apparent to me that my mother, Aye and Horemheb were becoming determined to rid the land of Smenkhkara and Akhenaten. I stayed away and thus was spared any responsibility or guilt when Hatsuret, who had his orders to abduct Smenkhkara and Merytaten and transport them to permanent exile far to the south in wretched Kush, instead took it upon himself to murder them. I was not privy to the anguished counsels and tortured reasoning by which Aye and Horemheb persuaded my mother to approve the final removal of Akhenaten and Nefertiti, nor was I inside the mind of Horemheb when he, too, exceeded his mission and decided to kill them and so remove them once and for all from their disastrous rule of Kemet—and quite incidentally, of course, from the path of his own ambitions. I was not involved—if anyone was, except possibly gentle Tey—in the agonized process by which my uncle Aye made his peace with all this and decided to go on to what may yet become a final contest with his son for possession of the Double Crown. I am not among those who even now, I am sure, are studying how best to remove my little brother and so open the way for themselves to full power and kingship in the Two Lands.
And praise all the gods there are, I do not want to be. Thank them all that I am out of it! But give me strength to come to the aid of the children if I have to, for I am one of the very few real friends they have left—though the sound of love and greeting that now fills the world would make you think they had millions. So they do, while they ride the golden barge and sit the golden throne. But tomorrow, if need be, the crowds will shout for someone else and give their docile worship to whoever has the power to claim it. Right now the love is genuine enough for the two brave little figures who dismount and come smiling toward me while the heavens break with sound; and no doubt it would be quite genuine for someone else tomorrow. After all, it has to be: such is the place of Pharaoh in our world that the people have no choice.
“Sister,” he says cheerfully, greeting me with a kiss whose obvious affection draws a special roar of approval, “it is good to see you again. It has been long since you came to our capital of Akhet-Aten.”
“And long since you will go there again, I take it,” I murmur in his ear, for Aye and Horemheb are coming up swiftly behind him.
His eyes flash at mine and he murmurs quickly back, “I will not have it dishonored, though. I shall tell Kemet about that before this day is over.”
“Good,” I say, and turn to Ankhesenamon, standing quietly by his side.
“Niece,” I say formally as the others arrive, giving and receiving an affectionate hug, “I trust your journey was a pleasant one.”
“We accomplished much,” she replies easily, and over her shoulder I can see Aye and Horemheb exchange a glance in the interested silence that has fallen on the crowd as we momentarily pause, a glittering and apparently close-knit family group, on the landing stage.
“I am glad you are returning to Thebes,” I say truthfully. “It has been lonely for me here, much as I love Malkata. I have rattled around the compound like the old bag of bones I am.”
“Aunt!” she says with a laugh. “A better-preserved bag of bones I have yet to see. Yes, we shall join you in”—she hesitates, then gives me a quick wink—“rattling around the compound. After all”—and she raises her voice deliberately so the others can hear—“we will have nothing better to do.”
“You will have the Two Lands to rule,” I take the cue stoutly, and give my uncle and Horemheb look for look as they prepare to greet me. “That will be enough occupation for the Good God and his Chief Wife, surely.”
“Indeed it will!” Tut says with equal stoutness. “And in this endeavor, Sister, I want you always with us to counsel and assist, for you are very wise and your”—a slight emphasis, but noticeable and almost openly defiant—“counsel we will value and rely upon.”
“I shall be happy to help in any way I can,” I say calmly and, turning to my uncle and Horemheb, give them the ritual kiss of greeting on both cheeks, thereby forcing official cordiality from them in return and causing their eyes to lose, temporarily at least, the sharpness with which they have been observing us.
“You look well, Niece,” Aye says. “It will be good to be a united family again, now that we are all returned to Thebes.”
“Yes,” Horemheb agrees gravely.
“If you can stand it, Cousin,” I say dryly. He smiles in a way that tells me it really is all over. Horemheb is enwrapped in his own purposes now and I obviously no longer figure in them.
“I can stand it, Cousin,” he says politely. “If you can.”
“Let us go to the temple and worship!” my brother says sharply, as one might almost add: “and get it over with!” The cautious and carefully observing look returns to the faces of my uncle and my cousin. Something obviously happened on the journey from Akhet-Aten. I will find out presently from the children. In the meantime it is obvious their elders fear yet more will happen. It is obvious that my brother and my niece have come to some determination that it will.
They are very young, however, he nearing fourteen, she soon to be eighteen. But they come of tough-minded stock, he of the Great Wife and she of Nefertiti. It will be an interesting contest, if it has to come to that. In it, the Queen-Princess Sitamon has already chosen her side. I, too, am a child of the Great Wife and I, too, can be tough-minded if I have to be. In the cause of my little brother and Ankhesenamon, I may have to be.
The moment passes. The roar of the crowd begins again as the children step into their gold-painted baldachin and are hoisted high on the shoulders of the bearers. I follow with Mutnedjmet, who returned to Malkata a week ago in advance of the royal party, complete with Ipy and Senna—“Must you take those two characters everywhere?” I snapped this morning as we prepared to come to Karnak. “Yes!” she said with a defiant chuckle, echoed by two squeaky little ghosts of laughter from her half-sized familiars. Then come Aye and Tey in their own baldachin, as befits the Regent and his wife, followed by Horemheb and
Nakht-Min in theirs. The rest of the Court, including Ramesses, Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, and Tuthmose, chief sculptor since the death of faithful Bek, follow on foot.
We leave the landing stage and proceed down the long avenue. It is lined with priests of Amon, elbow to elbow, rigid at attention all the way.
Ahead of us all Hatsuret walks, his High Priest’s leopard skin flapping around his stocky brown legs, his carnelian scarab and his glossy beard glistening in the sun, his stride confident and commanding.
How high have you risen again, O Amon, I think to myself as we rock along on the sturdy shoulders of our bearers. Be careful you do not fall anew from too much pride and arrogance.
It is obvious from the set of Hatsuret’s head and shoulders that there is no limit to his pride and arrogance, and that he has no intention whatsoever of ever permitting Amon to fall again.
The crowd pours out its adoration and excitement in a constant loving roar as we approach the first pylon. The trumpets have resumed their bellowing, the great drums throb. Pharaoh has come home to Thebes, and on two little figures dressed in cloth of gold now rest the hopes of Kemet.
***
Tutankhamon
(life, health, prosperity!)
My wife and I understand fully now what is expected of us in Amon’s temple, and as we dismount inside I bow gravely to the masked priests who dance their rituals around us. They chant. Ankhesenamon and I respond. We move through the stations of the temple, making at each its proper oblation. In our wake the others dutifully copy.
Finally I proceed alone to the inner sanctum, the holy of holies.
There he is, eyes hooded, the single ray of sunlight falling through the slit in the roof, the solid gold of his figure glowing softly in the gloom. He is standing in a new Sacred Barque, only four years old but polished and rubbed and hand-worked every day until it now has the look and patina of the original: one would think it had been there for centuries.
He looks at me, I look at him. Again we understand each other, though those at my back see only my dutifully bowing figure. “The enemy of my life,” Akhenaten called him once, to me. Beware, O Amon, I tell him privately now, lest brother follow brother and you find yourself with enemy again.
He gives no sign, but our eyes hold for long as I lift my head and stand before him proudly and unafraid, staring up as sternly as he stares down. We almost enter into a trance together, it would seem, until presently outside I hear a murmuring amongst Aye, Horemheb, Hatsuret, Nakht-Min. I shake my head as if to rid it of some heavy burden, which indeed I have begun to feel pressing down upon me almost physically in the last few seconds, and turn solemnly to lead them out.
Ankhesenamon keeps me company at my side, behind us Sitamon walks alone, head held as high as ours. I realize with a sudden rush of love for my big sister that she is our ally and our friend in a world that holds very few. After her come my uncle, my cousins and Hatsuret. We return through the columns and statues, we emerge again into the long processional way flanked by priests, we come again to the landing stage, we turn to the left and enter the field beside the temple. A platform has been set up. I intend to say some words to my people upon this my formal day of return. I shall then be taken in triumphal procession through all Thebes, worshiping at Luxor as well, going across the Nile to visit my father’s mortuary temple and there worship his memory and my mother’s, and all my illustrious ancestors’ back to Menes (life, health, prosperity!) of the First Dynasty, two thousand years ago.
Then there will be great rejoicing, drinking and roistering all over Thebes, far into the night. By then I hope my wife and I will be soundly asleep in Malkata with Sitamon. By then we shall be thoroughly exhausted by the day’s ceremonies.
But those who roister, and my uncle and Horemheb as well, will, I hope, have reason to pause and think of me sometimes as the day and night wear on. For in what I will speak from the platform now I am about to give them what my brother used to call “wonders.” I do not call them wonders, because for me there is no wonder about it: they are simply the things that in fairness (and for the protection of my crown) should be done. It is well I have waited for this moment, because it will not be easy to challenge me now.
I think the journey from Akhet-Aten has been very good for me. Somewhere along the way I seem to have found a sudden new confidence, the confidence I must have if I am to be a good King and Pharaoh to the Two Lands. I think it began with my facing down of Hatsuret in the village: I was so angry with his bullying of innocent peasants that I did not even stop to think of the fears that used to hold me silent in his presence. It continued to grow in my argument on the boat with my uncle and Horemheb. I perceived that when Ankhesenamon and I really stood firm—my anger apparently continuing to give me strength—it really cowed and frightened them. They did not argue back, they slunk away. For quite a while thereafter we were too excited to sleep, but lay side by side in our golden bed reviewing all that had been said. I told her how it began, of my friend good Amonemhet in the village, and all that followed after. We congratulated one another that we had won a significant victory. From now on they will begin to obey. From now on we will not be afraid to assert ourselves and do what we think is right for Kemet. The love we have received everywhere from the people confirms us in this.
What is right, I think, is the restoration of a balance. I think I let Horemheb persuade me to go too far in my “restoration stela.” He gave it all back to Amon and, being only nine, naturally I was unable to think it through very clearly or do anything about it if I had. I was their prisoner in Akhet-Aten—in fact, I still felt myself to be so just a week ago on the day we left—and I submitted easily to Amon then. It is different now. It is amazing how fast one’s feelings can change as one grows older. I no longer feel their prisoner today.
I think it is time for Amon once more to be brought to heel—Hatsuret represents him well, as Ankhesenamon and I commented to one another when we saw that arrogant figure swinging along so confidently before us into the temple. It is time to make it walk humbly again. I took his measure in Amonemhet’s village and I won. I feel now that I will continue to win.
We reach the platform, take our places. The Family, Hatsuret and the rest sit in a row of gilded chairs along the back, Ankhesenamon and I side by side on our golden thrones in front. (The back of every chair and the backs of our thrones carry carvings of the head and enormous double plumes of triumphant Amon. There, too, I think I will restore a balance.) I am continuing with Ankhesenamon the custom of my father with the Great Wife, of Akhenaten with Nefertiti: my wife is my partner and almost, as nearly as tradition permits, my equal. We love one another and we will share our power for all the years we are given to rule the Two Kingdoms. This will be very many, for we are young and long lives stretch ahead for us in the service of our beloved Kemet.
The trumpets give a final blast, there is a final long roll on the drums—and silence. It is time for me to speak. I rise and move to the edge of the platform. My people stretch as far as the eye can see. I begin to speak and, happily for me, my voice seems to have stopped cracking with the unexpectedness of youth. (Maybe my voice has grown up in this past week too! I hope so, for it is embarrassing to be steady one minute and squeaky the next.)
“My beloved people of Kemet!” I cry. A great roar of love comes up in response. Then they are swiftly silent, listening intently to what I have to say.
“It gives Her Majesty and me great pleasure to be back in Thebes again!”
Another roar of approval, another quick silence.
“Here and in Memphis will we re-establish our capitals, but it is particularly here that our hearts will rest. For this reason I am this day adding to my titles the words ‘Ruler of Southern No,’ ‘Ruler of Thebes’—and I am restoring to Thebes her ancient name of ‘No-Amon,’ City of Amon, which lately has been known by another name. [My brother’s “No-Aten,” of course—“City of the Aten”—but I am determined not to name him or blame him.]
&
nbsp; “These changes, signifying my close friendship with Amon, do I, Neb-Kheperu-Ra Tutankhamon, decree.”
There is another great shout, including applause from Aye and Horemheb, who knew I intended this, and approve; though I think they are uneasy concerning what I may do next. I will show them.
“People of Kemet,” I continue while all fall still again, “you know what I have done and am doing for Amon, here and everywhere in the Two Lands. You know I am restoring his temples, replenishing his wealth, returning his priesthood to its ancient glory. You also know I am doing the same for all other gods. You have read my Restoration Stela and with your own eyes you see everywhere about you in Kemet the living truth of it. I am doing as I have promised, for my word is good and I do what I say I will.”
Once more, approval, loud and fervent. I turn for a quick downward glance at Ankhesenamon, who gives me an encouraging smile: we are no longer afraid of my uncle and Horemheb, or of anybody. So I proceed to jar them a little—not too much, I think, but enough so that they will know that Neb-Kheperu-Ra lives—and rules.
“Though I return to Thebes and to Memphis,” I resume—and suddenly it is very still indeed, particularly behind me—“I do not wish to destroy or take vengeance upon those who in recent years have sought some other faith than Amon.
“I wish my rule to be one of conciliation, of happiness and of peace. I wish to bring all of you, my dear people of Kemet, and all our great gods, together once again in harmony and love. I wish to restore ma’at and do justice to all, in all things.”
