by Allen Drury
The last child of Tutankhamon and Ankhesenamon had been born dead. And in one last cruel joke of the gods, it was not the Crown Prince we had all so confidently expected, either. The last royal child of the Eighteenth Dynasty was but one more of those puny foredoomed girls who, save for unfortunate Merytaten and Ankhesenamon herself, have apparently been destined to curse forever the line of poor Akhenaten.
Now twelve hours have passed and Ankhesenamon is in my small palace at the far end of the compound of Malkata, the palace I have occupied ever since my marriage to my father forty-six years ago. She is sleeping the sleep of utter exhaustion in the bed that has been brought in next to mine. In the next room dear Tey also sleeps. In a room on the other side the four nurses sleep. I have not been sleeping: I have been on guard. And as much as one woman can who is also a Queen and Princess of the blood of Ra, I have made sure that we will be safe here.
I have my own household guards, completely loyal to me, and these have been placed on post all around my palace. I have organized them into regular watches: only a handful of servants whom I trust are permitted to come in and out with food and water. I have established my own small armed camp. No messages have reached us from others in Malkata, with the single exception of Aye, and I have sent none to them. Aye’s message said: “Keep her safe. I trust you.” My reply said: “I shall guard her with my own life. You have my trust also.” As indeed he does, and between us I think we may make some sense of this, though I do not yet see how.
I said we have had no messages from others in Malkata, but we have had one visitor, an hour ago. A guard came to tell me, in considerable agitation: apparently the demand for entry had been as imperious as the night before. Tired as I was, I could be imperious too. I had the guard show the visitor to my audience chamber and went to confront him alone.
“What do you want?” I demanded sharply before he had a chance to speak. “More victims?”
“Do not be too clever, Cousin,” he said angrily, “or I may find one.”
“That would be three in twelve hours,” I snapped. “I must congratulate you on your taste for blood, Cousin. It is beginning to become you.”
At this he had the grace to flush. With what I could see was a great effort, he managed to make his tone more reasonable.
“I am here to inquire for the safety of Her Majesty,” he said, “and to take her to the main Palace where she may be placed under suitable guard and made safe while she recovers.”
“I would not let you have Her Majesty were you Menes himself!” I said. “You place Her Majesty under suitable guard? You keep her safe? Why, Cousin, I dare say she would be as safe with you as her husband was. You have given him the greatest safety of all, the grave. How kind of you to wish the same safety for Her Majesty!”
“Cousin—” he began, a furious anger rising in his eyes and voice. But I simply gave him a contemptuous look and started to turn away. He reached forward and placed a restraining hand on my arm and said, “No, wait,” in a suddenly pleading voice. And fool that I am, something—old love, old hate, old habit—made me respond to the appeal and turn back. At least I heard his rationalization of what he had done, anyway, and I was glad to have that, for now I know that it will justify anything for him, and so I know better what we face.
“Well, Cousin?” I said coldly. “What is it?”
“To begin with,” he said, “Hatsuret killed Neb-Kheperu-Ra. I did not.”
“How could Hatsuret have been in his bedchamber if you did not take him there?” I demanded. “How could he kill him in your presence if he did not have your approval?”
“I killed Hatsuret instantly the deed was done,” he said. “I revenged His Majesty instantly.”
“You do not answer my questions, Cousin,” I said, “because you know you cannot. You took that pretentious priest—who, incidentally, is no loss to Amon or the Two Lands, I give you credit for that—and you told him to kill my brother. And then you killed him, to cover your crime and make it appear to the people that the Priest of Amon had murdered Pharaoh. Thus you removed Pharaoh and rid yourself at the same time of one who knew all your crimes. And thus you, too, Cousin, sought to lower Amon in the eyes of the people. Even you, proud Cousin, are afraid of Amon! Two ducks fell together at the slingshot of that great hunter, Horemheb. How skillful, how noble! I would congratulate you, were it not—were it not—” at which point, being a woman, though a strong one, and very, very tired after the dreadful night, I began to cry, quietly enough but without being able to stop. The rest of our conversation took place to the steady fall of my tears, which only seemed to make him more anxious to justify himself.
“You must understand me, Cousin,” he said quietly, shifting his chair closer to mine and taking my hand, which at first I sought to remove but then allowed to remain limp in his, for what was the use? I was too overwhelmed suddenly with grief to end a contact I now despise. “You must understand about Tutankhamon and about Hatsuret, for on your understanding of them depends your understanding of me, which I hope I have always had, and will always have.”
“Oh, you have always had it,” I said bitterly through my tears. “And never more than now, I assure you, Cousin.”
“I think not,” he said, flushing again with a renewal of anger, but forcing himself to remain calm. “You know as well as I that our little kinglet was well begun on his plan to restore the Aten. You know that was what he intended. You know that yesterday when he announced his so-called ‘mortuary temple,’ that joke upon all of us who thought the Aten in disgrace, he was already starting down the road that would bring him back inevitably to Akhet-Aten. You know the Two Lands could not have survived this again. You know he had to be removed, as Hatsuret, that priest grown too big of a priesthood also grown too big again, had to be removed. My father agreed with this: why do you not see it?”
“I do not believe he agreed with it,” I said, “except under the pressure of your persuasions.”
“He agreed with it,” he said grimly, “and so it was done, because he knew there was no other way.”
“There are always other ways than killing and more killing!” I said, an anger of my own breaking through my tears. But he only shook his head somberly.
“No, Cousin. Sometimes there are not.”
“And so now you want Her Majesty!”
“She is the ruler of the Two Lands, last bearer of the legitimate right to the Double Crown,” he said simply. “I must see that she is safe.”
“I will see that she is safe,” I responded sharply. “I have received the charge of Aye that I do this and I shall obey him, for I trust Aye.”
“When did Aye speak to you?” he demanded.
“He sent me a message,” I said, “and I replied that I would guard her with my own life. And so I will, brave Cousin, so raise your spear and stab me in the head or in the heart or wherever your great concern for Kemet tells you to strike me if that is what you wish to do!” And flinging off his hand, I stood up and pointed to the door. “Begone, Cousin! I do not wish you to come here again without invitation. My niece remains with me and I will yield her only to Aye. Work on the old man, if you can! But I do not think you can. So go, Cousin. Just go!”
He, too, stood up, and for several moments our eyes locked furiously. My tears were forgotten now, I seethed with an anger as great as his. For a second I thought he might indeed raise his spear and run me through: I wondered with a strangely distant curiosity whether anyone would hear my dying scream. Then I found the words to vanquish him … at least for the moment.
“In the name of Aye,” I said, “who now truly rules the Two Lands, go!”
“He does not rule the Two Lands!” he shouted. “I—”
“You do not, Cousin,” I interrupted in a voice that somehow managed to be so cold and level that it stopped him in mid-utterance. “She does, and through her, he does, because that is how we have decided it. And unless you would slaughter us all this day in one great final blood-drowning of the
House of Thebes, you will be gone from my sight before I call my guards and have them throw you out, O great Vizier of Lower Kemet!”
For another long and furious moment he glared at me; and then with an inarticulate, strangled cry of rage he spun on his heel and left; and womanlike, I sank back in my chair and gave way once more to tears, trembling all over but with a resolve as hard as stone in my heart.
I know now why my cousin Horemheb wishes to gain possession of Her Majesty, and I know now why we must truly be prepared to die so that he may not have her. She is indeed the last bearer of the legitimate right to the Double Crown. He thinks far ahead, does Horemheb, but farther yet thinks the Queen-Princess Sitamon.
I returned to my room and resumed my patient vigil at my niece’s side, so tired that I could barely keep my eyes open. But I knew I must keep them open until she awakened so that we might talk of this and decide what to do.
Another hour has passed since then. Now at last she stirs and opens her eyes. They wander, then focus: she knows me. Abruptly her eyes fill with sadness and terror as she remembers.
“My husband!” she says, and begins to cry. Patiently I wait until she remembers something else.
“And the Crown Prince?” she asks. And then we cry together as I give her, as kindly as I can, the second blow the gods have decreed she must accept.
We do not cry for long, however. Into her eyes there comes presently a cold and steady resolve. She is not Nefertiti’s daughter for nothing. She smiles, wanly but gamely.
“I am hungry, Aunt,” she says in a weak but steadily strengthening voice. “Have them feed me, and then we will plan what must be done.”
“Yes, Niece,” I agree thankfully. “He has not defeated us yet.”
“No,” she says, not bothering to ask who I mean because she knows. “Nor will he, while I am Queen and Lord of the Two Lands.”
***
Aye
Two days have passed since the horror. Hatsuret’s body has been burned on a traitor’s pyre, his ashes thrown into the Nile. Neb-Kheperu-Ra lies in the House of Vitality, the long process of embalming begun. We have sixty-eight days in which to decide the kingdom.
It is only now that I have begun to think clearly again. I know that I must, for Kemet’s sake, and I know that I will. I have suffered great regret, great anguish, great despair, in these past two days: many times I have not known whether I would come through with my sanity intact. It has been a terrible ordeal for a man of seventy-six. But I have survived and now it is time for me to move on, since someone must. More than ever, I believe, Aye is the only element of stability that stands between the Two Lands and chaos.
Ankhesenamon and Sitamon summoned me two hours ago to Sitamon’s heavily guarded palace, to whose protection I have added substantial numbers of my own household troops. They told me of their plan, which is unknown in our tradition: but these are not traditional times. At first I demurred, aghast: never before has such a thing been done in all our history.
“I will not order you to support me, Grandfather,” Her Majesty said, “but it will be much easier for me if you do.”
I said I wanted to think and they were silent and let me think. Finally I began to understand their idea in all its clever ramifications. At first uncertainly, then wholeheartedly, I endorsed it and pledged my support. With her first genuinely happy smile since the horror, my granddaughter embraced me, called a scribe, dictated her will that I should hold the title, powers and privileges of Co-Regent until the burial of Neb-Kheperu-Ra and told me to publish it immediately from the Delta to Napata.
Scarcely had I returned to my chambers here in the main palace than my son came to me with his own ideas for the future. They were more conventional and in their vaulting ambition hostile to the careful compromise that must be worked out. They were also personally repugnant to me, as I know they would be to my granddaughter. He wished my support. I temporized, which angered him. He was angered even more when I told him I was Co-Regent, but there was, for the moment, nothing he could do. He went away planning, no doubt, further things.
Instantly I called in a team of scribes, dictated a proclamation announcing my appointment as Co-Regent, announcing that I will remain so until Tutankhamon is buried, announcing further that Her Majesty will not choose a husband to be successor to the King until that day. Then I dispatched many horsemen and many river craft (for I am taking no chances on how many Horemheb may be able to stop when he learns of their departure) to carry the proclamation throughout the Two Lands.
I then sent word to my granddaughter and Sitamon, repeating my pledge to co-operate fully with their plan and telling them that I have already, in fact, sent word to him who is the key to it, so that he may be swiftly on his way.
No doubt Horemheb will wish to kill us all when he learns of it. But I am still the Co-Regent Aye, last remaining link with the golden age of the Eighteenth Dynasty; and my niece and my granddaughter still guard between them the legitimate right to the Double Crown; and not even he, I think, would dare.
***
Amonemhet
Now all is sadness in the land of Kemet and all is fear here in my village of Hanis which I have led faithfully and well for His Majesty since the night five years ago when he made me Chief and Headman. I have sent him many gifts of food and grain, he has sent me and the village many gifts in return, doubling our gifts with his, protecting us from hunger and guarding us always, as his friends.
Now His Majesty lies dead in Thebes, scarce eighteen years of age; and it is given out that he was murdered by the priest Hatsuret, that evil one of Amon, “in a fit of madness that took him suddenly at the sight of His Majesty.” We do not believe this in the village, nor is it believed by any of our friends in the other villages, nor, I think, by anyone in all the Two Lands. The rumor that runs along the Nile says he was murdered at the orders of his cousin the General Horemheb, that crafty, glittering one who stood beside him that night in all his array of pomp and power; and great is the fear that we feel now for what will happen next in the land of Kemet.
No one, however, knows the fear I know, because apparently I have been chosen to play a part in what is going on in Thebes. I do not know why, unless it be that I was His Majesty’s friend and was known to those he trusted in the Great House as another he could trust. Never did I go to him with the ring he gave me to ask help, though he told me I might; and never did he send to me for help, though I would have left all else and gone to him at once had he so requested. But now his ring has been sent to me secretly together with four fine horses (hidden in the safe place we know on the edge of the Red Land), a bag of gold, two rolls of papyrus, and a letter from the Co-Regent Aye. Imagine me, the peasant Amonemhet, receiving a letter from the Co-Regent Aye!
I cannot read it, of course, but my oldest son, who is studying to be a scribe, says he will read it to me. So now I sit in my hut as in a daze, while before me the two rings gleam side by side on the table in the flickering light of the taper, and against the wall my wife and our other eight children huddle together and stare at me with frightened eyes while my oldest son clears his throat importantly and begins:
“‘The Co-Regent, Councilor and Divine Father-in-law Aye, in Thebes, to the Headman Amonemhet, in his village of Hanis, greetings. May all go well with you and with your village, which was ever dear to the heart of Neb-Kheperu-Ra, may he live forever young and happy in the afterworld!
“‘The Co-Regent Aye is empowered by Her Majesty Ankhesenamon, Queen and Lord of the Two Lands, to request the Headman Amonemhet as follows:
“For the love you bore His Majesty and the love and duty you bear Her Majesty, the Queen and Lord of the Two Lands, Her Majesty desires that you take these four horses and this bag of gold, together with one other you can trust to assist you, and ride secretly at once to His Majesty Suppiluliumas, King of the Hittites. Go at your greatest haste for her sake. Take with you this ring of His Majesty which I send you, and show it to them that guard the borders of
Suppiluliumas to prove that you truly come from the Great House. Present to them also the roll of papyrus bearing the ribbon of blue. This is Her Majesty’s commission to you. It names you as her envoy and requests safe passage be given you to her royal brother, Suppiluliumas of the Hittites.
“‘When you have been brought safely to the presence of His Majesty Suppiluliumas—’”
“But there is war with the Hittites! What if his border guards take the ring and kill you and you never see the King!” my wife wails suddenly, and our five girls dutifully start mewling along with her like a nest of kittens.
“Silence!” I thunder, very loudly, for I, too, of course, am quite aware of all the possibilities: but they don’t have to make me more frightened than I am, with their caterwauling. When silence has been restored I say as firmly as my trembling voice will allow, “Now be still and let our son proceed!”
“‘When you have been brought safely to the presence of His Majesty Suppiluliumas,’” he resumes, his voice also shaking with excitement and fear, but striving to maintain that grand detachment they teach him as a scribe, “‘do you deliver to him the second roll of papyrus, that which is bound by the ribbon of gold and sealed with Her Majesty’s seal. Her Majesty wishes me to trust you by telling you that this is a letter from Her Majesty to King Suppiluliumas. You are not to read it, but you are to guard it with your life and see that it gets safely to his hands alone.
“‘Then do you wait upon King Suppiluliumas for his answer; and do you then return at your greatest speed to Thebes and deliver his answer directly to Her Majesty, who will be awaiting you anxiously each day and praying constantly to the gods for your safety.
“‘Her Majesty and I know this is a long, hard and dangerous journey, full of many perils for you. But we know of His Majesty’s love for you, and yours for him, and we remember well that he often told us what a brave and loyal subject you are. Therefore Her Majesty trusts you with this great mission, upon which rests the fate of the kingdom of Kemet and the ancient glory of the Two Lands.
