by Overton, Max
Ankhesenpaaten found it in the young prince Tutankhaten. The boy, born of Nebmaetre's union with the old king's own daughter Iset, was her uncle and cousin, but close unions within the royal family were an accepted fact of life. She preferred to seek power in the bed of a young uncle than in the bed of her ageing father. There was little she could do while Smenkhkare ruled in Waset and her father in Akhet-Aten, but when the incredible news of the southern king's death reached her, she knew her time had come. Enlisting the aid of her grandfather Ay, the Tjaty of both Kingdoms, styled Divine Father, she put herself forward and reaped her reward. That it served Ay's purpose to have her as queen concerned her not at all. The young king and queen would soon be rid of the old man and could rule together over all Kemet. Already they had made that first step at their coronations by ridding themselves of the old '-aten' suffixes to their names, replacing it with holy '-amen'.
Ankhesenamen sighed and picked up a scroll of papyrus from an untidy pile on the floor beside her chair. She looked longingly at the shady bench by the fish pool, but conquered her desires, opening the scroll and concentrating on the contents. Her lips moved silently as she formed the sounds as she read.
"Forty measures of land are gifted from the royal estates," she read. "In token of this beneficence, the Hem-Netjer of Amun, Bakt, gives to Tjaty Ay, Divine Father, a herd of fine white bulls, ten in number, from the god's herds in Men-nefer." Ankhesenamen frowned. "Why not to the royal estates? Who was it who donated the land?" She read on, slowly detailing a string of transactions whereby the riches of the king passed through various intermediaries to the coffers of the Tjaty. No doubt enough stuck to fingers on the way that there would be no complaints. Closing the papyrus scroll, she looked out at the garden once more, wondering what she could do. It was pointless taking her concerns to her husband. She had tried that once before.
"Look, Tuti," she had said. "Grandfather took a hundred deben of gold from the treasury. It says so right here."
The boy had looked at the entry and shrugged. "It says it was for the gilding of Amun's processional barque before the Opet festival."
"Yes, of course that's what it says but you don't need a hundred deben for that. Twenty would be ample. Where's the rest?"
"Perhaps he put it back."
"Then where's the entry? No, Tuti, grandfather is stealing from us. You must confront him."
"I can't do that," Tutankhaten had said uneasily. "He'll shout at me."
"You are the king and it is your gold. Tell him you want to know where it is."
Another hour of bullying was necessary to extract a promise from her husband that he would ask Ay about the missing gold. That evening, she raised the topic again as they lay in their bed.
"He says forty deben were necessary to gild the barque."
"Forty? Well, alright, I suppose that is possible. What of the rest?"
"Twenty went to pay the goldsmiths."
"Far too much. What else?"
"Ten to buy food and beer for the temple labourers..."
"Two would supply them with a feast."
"...and there were some other accounts to settle that took another ten. He put the rest back. I told you, Ankhe. I said that was what he did. Can we play hide the phallus now?" Tutankhaten grinned and touched his wife's breasts.
"No." She pushed his hands away. "Why is there no record of the returned gold? Did you ask him that?"
"Yes," Tutankhaten pouted. "He told me but I can't remember. He lost it or something."
So in the end, Ankhesenamen had to give up. Her husband could not retain enough concentration to follow an argument through to the end, so Ay always won. She tried to raise the subject herself but Ay just smiled and told her to leave the running of the Kingdoms to those who knew what they were doing. The treasury records disappeared shortly after and it took a lot of searching and even bribery to find other entries from the treasury accounts. Ankhesenamen did not think anything would come of her research now, but it would not always be this way. When the king reached his majority, he could appoint who he wanted. She smiled at the thought of how far her grandfather Ay would fall on that day.
Hurrying footsteps sounded from the broad corridors outside her chambers and Ankhesenamen knew it to be her husband. No other male would approach the women's quarters so confidently, not even her grandfather. The Tjaty would send for her, despite the fact she was the queen, rather than deign to visit her in her apartments. A few moments later and the great double doors were thrown open and two eunuch guards groveled on their knees as the king of Kemet, in the guise of a small disheveled boy, burst into the room.
"There you are, Ankhe. I've been looking everywhere."
"Where else would I be?" Ankhesenamen pursed her lips as she examined the dust and sweat on her husband's cheerful face. "Did you have a successful hunt, Tuti?"
"I killed a hundred ducks," the boy boasted, striking a heroic pose. "Well, lots anyway. I lost count. Then I raced Ahmes back to the palace but I won easily. I can beat him every time."
"Well done, my lord. The king is a veritable lion."
"And then Ay told me we are at war with the Hittites. I...I am going to war." Tutankhamen looked uncertainly at his daunting wife and queen. She was four years older than him and sometimes made him feel like a little boy instead of a king. "Ay said I could."
"Did he, indeed? I thought going to war was a thing the king decided."
"Well it is. I told him I was going and he let...he said I could go."
"I'm sure it sounds very exciting, Tuti. You can tell me all about it at the feast tonight. Right now I want to show you these treasury records I found. They show..."
"I'm not going to the feast tonight."
Ankhesenamen looked up from the scroll on her lap, startled. "What?"
Tutankhamen stared down at the floor and traced a pattern on the cool tiles with the tip of one dusty sandal. "I'm not going. I...I'm not feeling well."
"You were healthy a minute ago. What's wrong with you?"
"A headache? And...and a bellyache."
The queen stared at her young husband. "All right. You are not feeling well. Go to your bedchamber and I'll send for the physician. You may have had a bit too much sun. A few hours in the cool and shade, a meal and some of your favourite wine and you'll feel a lot better."
"I'm not going," Tutankhamen muttered again.
"You have to go, Tuti. That Mycenaean bard came over to sing in the court of Kemet's king. How will it look if you're not there?"
"You can be there, Ankhe. You're the queen so he'll be polite. You can explain I'm not well."
"I would not want to lie to him, my lord, when it is very obvious you are not really sick," Ankhesenamen said coolly. "What is the real reason you don't want to go?"
"I do want to go, I just...I just can't."
"Ay?"
The king said nothing, just tried very hard not to look at the queen.
"Oh, Tuti," she sighed. "When are you going to stand up to him? He may be Tjaty, but you are the king. You can do whatever you want."
"Then I don't want to go to the feast."
"What did grandfather threaten you with?" Ankhesenamen waited but she was met with an embarrassed silence. The king stared fixedly at his feet. "Well?" she said after a few minutes. "What will grandfather do to you if you do go to the feast?"
"He said I couldn't go to war," Tutankhamen whispered.
"Is that all?"
"But I want to go. It's my...my right as king to lead my army to conquer the Hittites."
"Your best generals--Horemheb himself and Paramessu--have not been able to beat the Hittites. What makes you think you'll make a difference?"
"I will inspire the men of Kemet by my presence," Tutankhamen said simply. He walked away from his wife toward the balustrade looking out over the enclosed garden. The air hung still and heavy in the midday heat, the scents of the flowering trees mingling with the acrid tang of dust and the faint, far-off stink of the river. "You
are a girl, a woman, and you don't understand things like war. It is noble and honourable and I want to make a great name for myself."
"There is nothing wrong with that, husband," Ankhesenamen said gently. "But you are very young. There will be plenty of time to be a great general when you reach manhood."
Tutankhamen did not look round. "I want to start now. I've read the accounts of my ancestor Menkheperre Tuthmosis and I have studied logistics. I can plan a war as well as any of my generals."
Ankhesenamen sighed and put her scroll aside, getting up and crossing the wide verandah to stand beside her husband. She overtopped him by two hand-breadths so she leaned forward and took his right hand in her left. "Listen, Tuti. Even the birds and insects are silent. You know what this means, don't you?"
Tutankhamen glanced up at his wife uncertainly. "There's going to be a storm?"
The queen smiled. "Of a sort. They are quiet because they are listening for the king of Kemet, Nebkheperure Tutankhamen, to make his announcement that he is going to war against the enemies of Kemet."
"So...so I can go?"
"That is your decision to make, my lord."
"And I don't have to go to the feast tonight?"
"If you don't go to the feast, Ay will have bent you to his will again. If you go to the feast you have shown yourself to be stronger than him."
"But then he won't let me go to war. I'd rather miss a feast than a war."
Ankhesenamen turned and took her slim husband by his thin shoulders. She looked deep into his eyes. "There is a way you can do both."
The king stared back at his queen. "What do you mean? How?"
"Grandfather Ay is going across to Waset this afternoon. I heard his steward talking about some business he has there. Well, when he has left, you call together the nobles, as many as we can find, and you announce that you will be leading the army to war this year. Then this evening you go to the feast."
Tutankhamen frowned. "That won't work. Ay will just countermand my announcement when he gets back. He'll make me look a fool in front of everyone."
Ankhesenamen pondered the problem for several minutes, turning back to a contemplation of the silent garden. "Not if the priests bless your decision to lead your army," she said slowly. "When we invite the nobles to the Great Hall of Judgment we also make sure some senior priests are present." She grinned as her idea blossomed in her mind. "You make your announcement and you call on the priests to bless you as war leader. They can't refuse you, you're the king. And once it is done, even Grandfather would see that it would be harmful to deny what the gods have blessed."
Tutankhamen nodded, his face alternately reflecting excitement and worry. "He'll be very angry."
Ankhesenamen shrugged. "What can he do?" She smiled to encourage her young husband but reflected that Ay would exact revenge on the boy sometime. Still, I can worry about that later. At least I have got him to make a small stand. It's a start .
Return to Contents
* * *
Chapter Three
Tjaty Ay it-netjer, Divine Father, returned to the western palace in the late afternoon, as the shadows from the western cliffs first touched the golden walls of the royal residence. With him was a young army officer, Nakhtmin, already wearing the insignia of high rank but not the special designation that would have indicated which legion or army he commanded. Nakhtmin was the son of Djetmaktef, a wealthy landowner of Waset, and someone who knew where the real power in Kemet lay. His friendship with the Tjaty was recent, coming to his attention not long after the apparent death of Smenkhkare in the jaws of the crocodile. The young officer's devotion to duty and whole-hearted obedience to the person of Ay delighted the old man and during the recent short siege of Waset, raised him to the rank of general.
Ay was beginning to think of the young general as someone to succeed him in office. His own wife and son had died in one of the recurrent sweeps of plague and his personal proclivities dissuaded him from marrying again. Infrequent sexual urges were easily satisfied by slaves and any children born to such fleeting relationships were rapidly sold off or sent to distant estates. Still, the lack of a son and heir gnawed at Ay from time to time. Now that he had grown so enormously in power and wealth, it worried him that he had no-one to leave it to. One daughter, Nefertiti, was in exile somewhere, and his other daughter, Mutnodjme, sat alone and uncaring in one of her mother's estates in Lower Kemet. She had never forgiven Ay for leaving her mother to die and now she refused even to talk to her illustrious father. His two remaining grand-daughters were a liability rather than an asset. Meryetaten had disappeared from Akhet-Aten at the time the Heretic had walked out into the desert and Ankhesenamen, the queen of the boy-king was an ungrateful little bitch who needed to be brought into line. For the moment, she was useful, so Ay allowed her a loose rein.
Nakhtmin was everything Ay looked for in a son--strong, vital and ruthless. He displayed a cunning grasp of politics and was ambitious, though he had the wisdom not to let it rule him. He could see that great power, maybe even ultimate power, could be grasped through the favour of the Tjaty, and much as he thirsted for it, he worked quietly to make himself indispensable.
Dismissing the charioteer who waited patiently by the gilded state vehicle to bring Ay from the royal barge moored at the end of the new canal, Nakhtmin drove the Tjaty back to the palace himself. He kept the speed down, and the drive relatively smooth, allowing the old man time to think after his busy day. The Tjaty had invited Nakhtmin back across the river with him, saying there were matters he wished to discuss in private. The young general, impatient for new honours and position, hid his anxiety beneath a smooth shell of calm obedience. As he drove, Nakhtmin kept a surreptitious eye on the old man, watching the shift of his gaze, the play of muscles around his eyes and mouth. They neared the palace gates, flung wide to admit them. Nakhtmin noticed Ay had relaxed, and knew the Tjaty had come to a decision. He hoped it was something that would strengthen Ay's hold on Kemet and stemming from this, personal power.
"Wait until we are in my apartments," Ay cautioned as Nakhtmin helped him down from the dusty chariot. The young man said nothing, walking slowly beside the old man into the cool wide corridors and tiled rooms of the palace.
"Where are the king and queen?" Ay asked the chamberlain as the man bustled up to attend to the Tjaty's needs. He nodded at the man's answer. "We shall be in my apartments. Bring us food and wine and see we are not disturbed."
Ay dismissed the servants after they brought trays of food and a pitcher of fine red wine from his own estates. He also sent out the ubiquitous slaves who quietly, almost invisibly, inhabited the palace rooms, cleaning, tidying or merely waiting for direction. So used were most people to their presence that sometimes even the most intimate actions took place with an unseen audience. Ay wanted nobody to overhear him today, so he walked through the rooms of his apartments, dismissing everyone. When the rooms were clear, he gave orders for his steward Mentopher to be sent for, and ensured the armed guards on the doors were alert.
"Elaborate precautions," Nakhtmin commented, handing the Tjaty a cup of watered wine. "Do you suspect a spy among your house slaves?"
"If I suspected anyone I would have them killed. No, I just prefer we are not overheard."
Nakhtmin poured himself a cup of well-watered wine and took a ripe fig from a dish of fruit. He said nothing, knowing that Ay preferred men of few words.
"You are wondering why I brought you here," Ay stated. He paused a moment, smiling at the young man's impassive countenance. "Name me the generals of Kemet's armies."
Nakhtmin stopped with the fig halfway to his mouth and stared at Ay. "The generals?" He shrugged and put the fig on the table. "Horemheb, his prot�g� Paramessu, Djedhor of the Heru legion...Psenamy, myself."
"Why so few?"
"Kemet has few enemies to oppose her. The Hittites and the Amorites are our only real foes at the moment. We have two generals up there and Psenamy to look after the Amun legion. There is
no need for any more."
"A reasonable answer on the face of it, Nakhtmin, but I expected better of you." Ay sipped at his wine. His left hand, hanging by his side, displayed the faintest of tremors. "I'll ask you again--why do we have so few generals?"
Nakhtmin played with his cup, concentrating, thinking hard. If it's not external enemies then internal? That's nonsense, we'd need more, not less. Try another way--what if there were more generals ? "A general controls an army," Nakhtmin murmured, starting to think out loud. "A powerful man looks for more power. Where is power? Only in the royal house. He could marry into the king's family and..." The young man broke off and frowned.
"Go on," Ay prompted. "Tell me of the days of Sekhenrewahkhaw Rahotep, illustrious progeniture of the family before our present weak kings."
"Rahotep?" Nakhtmin nodded. "Now I know why there are none to overhear us."
"Tell me, and then relate the story to our present times."
"Rahotep was a general in the army of the king...I forget his name...about three hundred years ago when the heqa khasewet or Hyksos, invaded our Kemet. He grew powerful and supplanted the king, setting up his own dynasty that went on to throw out the foreign invaders." Nakhtmin paused, collecting his thoughts. "A powerful king has little to fear from a powerful general, but a weak king lives in fear. One or a few good generals can be kept busy fighting Kemet's enemies, but if there are many, some will be idle and look for other avenues to power."
"Very good, Nakhtmin. Now rank our present generals and tell me which ones are dangerous to the stability of Kemet."
