On a Balcony

by David Stacton

That made her wistfully angry. “Do one’s servants always turn out to be one’s masters?” she asked.

  “Yes, usually. They’re interchangeable, like everything else.” He gave her an ironic bow, simply because he did not feel in the least ironic, and knew she would never come to see him again. As before, with the slave to hold his tools, he would have to go to her.

  But it was a pity. From disliking her, he had come to like her very much. And that, too, come to think of it, fitted into the parable of the two façades.

  *

  Pharaoh was buried the proper eighty days later, under a heavy army guard, in the unfinished Royal Tomb, in the room beyond that where Maketaten lay sealed up. The last thing they carried into his tomb was his bed. He had never been very happy in it living. Perhaps he would be more comfortable in it now. And so, having laid away the beautiful child of the Aton, the rest of the world turned to its own concerns.

  It was difficult to know what to do. The city was already almost abandoned, and yet they dare not leave. No orders, as yet, had come from Smenkara and Thebes.

  So life went on a little longer, like a turbine in an abandoned generator house, breaking down, but still with a few revolutions left to go, before the lights suddenly flicker and go out circuit by circuit, as the power is withdrawn closer and closer to the source, so that it at least may continue to burn bright, even though there is not enough to go round.

  And then, just as they were all packing anyway, the news came that Smenkara had died in Thebes, of the same disease as Tiiy. It did not mean much. It was like the darkness of an exhausted candle. It would have snuffed itself out soon in any case.

  Eighteen

  Nefertiti moved at once. Of course she could not win, and yet for a while it seemed as though she could. For three years chaos was to have a director.

  The northern palace was altogether a makeshift affair, splendid, but unfinished, and much too small. That end of the city lay across a wadi and at the far end a wall had been built from the cliffs to the shore, with the northern customs house on the other side of it. Living there, she could control the revenues of the northern customs house. Those and the temple lands supported not only her, but also her court. For she had a court, chiefly by design, of needy nobles who could expect nothing from Thebes, and whose loyalty to the Aton was therefore as desperate as it was assured.

  She did not bother to send for Ay or Horemheb. She went herself to wake Tutankaten, at three o’clock in the morning, and led him by the hand to the central hall. There Ankesenpa’aten was waiting. The girl was now thirteen. Nefertiti had them married at once and Tutankaten proclaimed Pharaoh and Lord of the Aton. The business was done almost before her nobles were roused and assembled. Then, with Pa-wah to help, and what else could Pa-wah do but help, she had runners sent through the city, to announce the news. It was cried everywhere, and before the citizens, or more important, the army or the police, had time to recover from the announcement, heavily defended by guards and priests, the entire party made a state progress through the hostile city and gathering crowds to the Royal Palace. She had had the priesthood turned out everywhere. They were to hold rites, processions, anything, to keep the streets and temples clogged with some sort of ostentation and order. She was shrewdly sure the others would fall into line.

  Tutankaten was then ten. He too fell into line. He did not protest. He too was shrewd and he knew far too much. He was also sufficiently worldly to realize that she was quite capable of having him murdered and herself proclaimed in his stead. For the moment, until he had a court of his own, he would obey. Besides, it was exciting to stand there unblinking, in the dawn streets, his bony knuckles tight on the rail of the chariot, and to feel on his head, for the first time, the weight of the double crown.

  There was no one to bar their way at the palace. By the time Horemheb was up, and as for Ay, he never rose early any more, she had him firmly seated on the throne. She had brought it off. There was nothing for even the more powerful nobles to do but sigh heavily and unpack. For he was the legitimate and only male heir, and if he was also a child of ten, and she had taken advantage of the situation to have herself created regent, there was nothing, for the time being, that anyone could do about that, since with Tiiy dead, neither was there any other legitimate regent.

  She knew exactly what she meant to do. She meant to rule. After all, had she not ruled, more or less, for years?

  It was not her fault if she underestimated the intelligence of a virtual child. For she made the same mistake with Tutankaten others had made with Ikhnaton. It had simply never occurred to her to ask what he thought about or what he knew.

  He knew, as it turned out, a great deal, and what he chiefly knew was that he hated his sister Nefertiti, was afraid of Ay, and loathed Horemheb on sight, all of which he kept tactfully to himself.

  What on earth would have happened if he had not been so frail, for like all the rest of them he was obscurely clever, adroit at intrigue, and so tutored in cynicism from the cradle that cynicism had become a way of life. For cynics also have their blind spot, which can be played upon. They would have us be cynical only about those things they are cynical about, but he was cynical about everything and knew exactly what he wanted. He wanted his own way.

  The problem was, how to get it.

  He waited three years, quietly, but there was very little that missed that suddenly divine eye. He had nothing against Aton worship. The ceremonial was pleasing, he was at the centre of it, and it was only a little boring. He did have a great deal against Nefertiti’s devotion to it. She insisted upon temple ritual, when what he wanted to do was to go hunting on the cliff-top deserts. He went to hunt on the cliff-top deserts. If she wanted the religion to herself, let her have it.

  This attitude pleased her. She thought that her dominance over him was complete, and it was refreshing once more to be in the public eye. She took over most of his temple duties and intrigued with the cabinet while he was off to snare a rabbit.

  She overlooked the truth that at any moment, once he had some power behind him, he could fling the cabinet out overnight and bring in a new one. She thought instead that she had cleverly consolidated her own power. And so, for that matter, did Ay and Horemheb. It never occurred to them that he knew enough about government to supplant them.

  As a matter of fact, they were quite right. He knew nothing about government. But then he didn’t have to. For as Pharaoh he was the government, and the government was whatever he chose to call it. But not until he could find some power to put behind him, and certainly he had none where he was.

  It was, he saw, a paper city. He could see at a glance how makeshift the palace was. It was certainly gorgeous. But he had only to take a walk to discover that they lived only in part of it. At least two-thirds of it now were walled off, and at the southern pleasure palace of Gem-Aton the water had drained out of the lake, so that dead bulrushes stood rigid in a tight vise of cracked mud as solid as cement.

  Also the building had its anomalies. He discovered them one by one. The female harem he found interesting, and Nefertiti amiably kept it restocked. But it did seem to him that the older women had grown slovenly from disuse. He had them shipped away and redistributed as household servants.

  But what of that other harem? That was indeed an oddity. The machinery of the palace administration still maintained it, but here and there in the corridors you came on a mummified mouse that nobody had bothered to sweep up. And who were all these ageing young men who used too much kohl and rouge, seemed to have such faith in the rejuvenative powers of musk and sandalwood, and who now had a frugal little orgy once a week on three bottles of Ikhnaton’s very best wine of the Royal House of the Aton, saved out of their daily allotment? It made him giggle, but it was not for him to make economies. He left them where they were, as a pious monument to his regal brother, whom he hadn’t liked either.

  Like so many people in frail health, he thought nothing so much proved his own virility and stamina as a few drol
ls, dwarfs, hunchbacks, and cripples to serve as skulls at the highly enjoyable feast. Except for the replenished harem, those at court obediently managed to grow uglier. And when he was bored or depressed he could always look at his guardian’s white eye.

  His first petty act of revenge was to have her pet great cats hauled off in cages and released in the desert, for him to hunt. He had the pelts made into rugs.

  Unfortunately the cats had ceased to amuse her the night she had gone to bed with Horemheb. She walked over the new rugs without comment, complimented him on his prowess, and even said they looked quite nice.

  At the same time he was forced to alter his opinion of Horemheb. Though out of condition, the man knew everything about hunting and proved a good companion in the chase. He was respectful without grovelling, and besides, as head of an army loyal only to himself he had great power. In short, he had to be won over. Besides, no less than the chase, and in exactly the same way, military prowess was something enjoyable. It was impossible to consider Syria. Ay always bored him with talk of Syria. But he saw no reason why tame Nubians should not be as exhilarating to kill as tame great cats. The danger was equally slight, given one went out with a sufficient number of beaters, and the counterfeit equally exciting. And then there was glory in it. Glory was what he wanted. Therefore he was always careful to take Horemheb’s advice.

  On the other hand, there seemed to be something between Horemheb and the Queen. Not exactly an intrigue, of that he was sure, but something. They seemed to respect each other, and though Horemheb was stupid enough to be loyal to the throne, he was more loyal to the throne than to its present occupant. He would do what was best for the country, and what was best for the country might not necessarily be best for Tutankaten.

  He solved that problem neatly by ignoring Ay’s fears of further revolts in what was left of Syria and sending Horemheb north to Memphis, to reorganize both the internal and external defences of the country at that strategic administrative capital, and also to prepare the coming Nubian campaign.

  It made him breathe easier to have Horemheb gone. Now he needed a tool to use against Nefertiti.

  He was not in the least taken in by Aketaten. There were more priests than ever and they swarmed everywhere. The rituals went on all day. But grass grew in the streets and he could not help but notice that, though it was true, the Aton was all powerful and he was its living incarnation, and therefore all powerful too, the priests never left the boundaries of the city; and come to think of it, except for his wild animal hunts, neither did he.

  If he was all powerful, then he must be all powerful somewhere else. But where? Horemheb was safely at Memphis. That left him Thebes.

  He was then thirteen and a half, and though that was not the legal age of manhood, he had something better to bargain with than manhood. He was Pharaoh. He undertook negotiations with Thebes at once. Because they had to be undertaken in secret, they took six months.

  He could not help but smile. He saw again familiar faces he had not seen for months, and they were now happy faces. It was as though he had suddenly joined a secret fraternity, which met at the throne instead of at some private house. And a few concessions to one religion were certainly to be preferred to total concessions to another, and that one moribund.

  In Thebes there would be a new coronation. They would roll out that doll again now, for good. But though that might sober him, he was not one to be afraid of dolls. He had played with them all his life, and like all thoughtful children, he knew very well how terrible they could be. He was quite prepared to have one reach out and touch him. And a fear of the dark is small enough price to pay for the pleasures of the day. Besides, unlike other terrifying things, a doll can in the last resort be put away once we are strong enough to remove it.

  Since it was necessary to reconcile one greed with another, he would first take away the army’s gold monopoly, and then give half of it back, leaving the other half to Amon.

  That done, and he was almost ready. He had had enough of the tyranny of women, first from his mother, then from Nefertiti. But he moved with care. Though Nefertiti must know something was going on, she must not know what that thing was, until it was over. There was, for instance, the transportation problem to be solved. He solved it.

  And then his moment came.

  On the 10th day of the month of Athyr, year 1366, he rose particularly early and went to the temple, to celebrate the rebirth of the eternal Aton disc. Nefertiti was there, and he would not have missed the occasion for anything. The weather was cool and there was a stiff breeze. He said a few words to Pa-wah, congratulated the Queen on her appearance, and was just leaving the temple when news came that an immense flotilla was appearing round the bend of the river.

  Of course it was. It had been hove-to over night, with instructions to appear at this hour. He had himself driven immediately to the wharfs.

  To tell the truth it was thrilling. Over and over again, one behind the other, in a solemn wedge, the boats appeared from behind the cliffs, the air lifting happily at their sails, water birds screaming and wheeling over them, as the prows rose and fell on the almost motionless water. There must have been two hundred of them, chiefly the gold and ebony state barges of the nobility, some of them sailing for the first time in twenty years out of their berths at Thebes.

  As the sun grew stronger, there rose up from them the faintly mocking rejoicing of a hundred orchestras, to mix with the crying birds and the unintelligible hymns of as many choruses.

  The other boats held back, hovering, as the first of them drove forward with a smooth majestic glide towards the jetty attached to the palace. This was the barge of the high priest of Amon, who had been restored to all his offices, and as it drew close to the stone stairs, one could make out the immense black statue of Amon, its shell and silver eyes staring forward over Aketaten from a gilded shrine on the prow, with its own indestructible proud look of idiot certainty.

  It was even the same high priest as twenty years ago, who astutely prostrated himself before Tutankaten. Together they went to the palace.

  Now anyone might know the matter who chose. He was quite prepared for Nefertiti when she appeared. He was even willing to be alone with her.

  “Why was I not told?” she demanded, and she was furious, and yet dangerously calm.

  But some things may be dangerous without being in the least able to do us any harm. “Because you are not coming,” he said, and left her standing there.

  That afternoon the boats set sail again. The jetties were crowded. The nobles had prudently taken what was most valuable with them, left caretakers behind, and would come for the heavier goods later, at their convenience. The wind had blown so many ways in their lifetime that they could not be sure, even of this almost certain departure for good.

  Tutankaten was quite sure.

  The royal barge had been readied a month ago. Now it emerged from its boat-house. To the sound of trumpets, Tutankaten and Ankesenpa’aten left the palace for the last time, without a backward glance, and crossed the plank to the barge. Nefertiti did not appear. The plank was thrown carelessly into the Nile, the hawsers were loosened, and the barge moved out into midstream, at first ahead of the high priest’s barge, and then, more prudently, or perhaps because of an idle riffle of the current, behind it. The music once more struck up. The fleet manœuvred into assigned order of precedence, and then, with some shouting from boat to boat, settled down and moved smoothly off.

  Looking back, Tutankaten’s eye was caught by the figures on the rudder. It was the old royal barge, and the figures were those of Nefertiti and Ikhnaton, since no one had thought to remove them. The sight of them startled and displeased him, but then he saw it did not matter, for this time the boats were headed upstream and not down, and they were going the other way, back the way they had come.

  It was ironic, if you liked. For they were all leaving. Not even Ay, in particular not Ay, had been left behind.

  Nineteen

  It wa
s incredible.

  At dawn it had been the centre of an empire. Now, at evening, it was not. Yet, even though this had happened, it was to keep up a shadow life, after all. It was precisely that it had been left so suddenly, that made one believe in those shadows.

  For three weeks one could go through the royal magazines and still find edible vegetables and fruit prepared for the royal table. There were 15,345 bottles of wine still in the cellars, but waiting now not to be drunk, but stolen. That evening, in the royal banqueting hall, an overturned amphora still noisily dripped wine on the painted floor. On one of the food stools lay three bitten figs.

  Where were the servants? Why had they cleared nothing away? Those who were left were in the kitchens, not knowing whether to hang themselves or gorge on the royal banquet they had been cooking all day. Being human, they wiped their tears and ate, for the food was undeniably as good as ever. For a few weeks they even fed the goldfish, the greyhounds, and the zoo.

  But then Nefertiti withdrew to the northern palace, alone, for her three remaining daughters had been taken off with Tutankaten. In the course of the next six months the servants had either been dismissed, called to Thebes, or had drifted away, since no new foodstuffs came into the commissary now.

  The palaces were the first to fall into disrepair. Workmen from Thebes stripped them to the walls, and what the workmen did not take, looters did. The guards made a half-hearted attempt to stop them, but it was only half-hearted. Mahu had gone to Memphis to join Horemheb, and there was no one left to pay them. They, too, drifted away and left the population to itself.

  People entered the palaces timidly at first, out of curiosity, to see how a pharaoh had lived. But with all the rich furnishings gone, they found what they saw disappointing.

  Goodness knows where the creatures left in the royal harem went. No doubt they either found places or died. As for the male harem, that was not pretty. Some had become castrati and sphinctriae to seek favour, and all to no purpose. Because of the reason for their maimed condition, not even the temple eunuchs would have them. What could they do? They drifted away and no one remembered them.