“What do you have in your hand, you little heathen?” Sit-Amun demanded.
The one person I needed to hide it from caught me.
“My horse. You little thief, hand it over,” she clutched my hand, digging in her nails.
“No!” I shouted. The thought of parting with my greatest comfort was unbearable. “Mine!” I wrenched my hand away.
Sit-Amun turned persimmon red. A grim unsettling smile crossed her face. “All along, it was you who stole my offering. I should have known.” Her evil hand clutched at me again. Red flames shot like daggers from her nethers. I whimpered. “You stick your nose into all the wrong places. My mother gave me that horse before she died.” Her fingers uncurled. “Now hand it over.”
I loved that horse. I wouldn’t give it back; instead I held it to my heart.
“Ask for my forgiveness, because I know you spied on me in the tent,” said Sit-Amun. “Such a dirty little fly on the wall. Did you get a good look? You filthy little Semite invader. You set my tent on fire and burned Mery-Ptah’s face.”
“You did bad things. I saw you. I saw the Red Ram,” I said, my chin lifted in defiance. “You tried to kill my Grand Djedti Ti-Yee.”
She slapped me hard across the face. I struggled as tears poured down my face. How dare she? I would not tolerate two people hitting me. I held my hand over the side of the barge, thinking the water would keep my horse safe.
“Sit-Amun, unhand that child,” ordered Hep-Mut, in her deep voice accustomed to commanding servants.
My interrogator reeled back, clearly unused to being ordered.
“Hep-Mut, you little piggy. I shall make you pay for your insolence. Your filthy child has my horse offering. I demand she return it with an apology.”
Hep-Mut blanched. Sit-Amun had accused all the attendants of stealing this horse from her offering tray, yet I, her beloved child had hidden it from her. My nursemaid frowned, the hurt of betrayal evident in her dark eyes. She motioned with her hand. “Merit-Aten, you shame yourself. Do give it back.”
Sit-Amun smugly held out her hand. I lost all reasoning. I released my treasure into the depths of the Nile as an offering to Hapi, the Deity of Water.
“Merit, no,” wailed Hep-Mut.
Sit-Amun cursed me to the heavens.
Hep-Mut jumped over the side of the boat into the watery abyss. A strange expression swept over Sit-Amun’s face. Something shifted. Her eyes glazed over. She mouthed something. Those red swirls again shot like flames from her tailbone. Survival.
A sense of foreboding tormented me. My devoted nursemaid arose from the crystalline Nile waters, displaying my ivory horse in one hand. She slapped at the water. I knew she’d never learned to swim. Yet, she stayed afloat.
Out of the corner of my eye, something moved. A duck or fish, perhaps. No. Something bigger, more like a crocodile. My heart pounded in horror.
Sit-Amun recited her incantation a bit louder.
Wait. Please. Do not hurt Hep-Mut, I thought to the croc.
No answer. Why didn’t it respond? Please stop. I beg you do not hurt her.
A great row of teeth opened wide. Hep-Mut paddled doglike unaware. Gruesome jaws snapped. Hep-Mut screamed. They both plunged under, rolling until the water churned, the croc’s yellow underbelly revealed, water bubbles rising, life’s blood draining away. Then stillness. Awful stillness. It should be me. I screamed and thrust my hands over the side of the barge, nearly falling overboard before strong hands yanked me back on board. I kept this horse hidden from Sit-Amun, but at what cost?
“Crocodile, off the stern,” the captain yelled. “It is a big one.”
Sit-Amun smirked then mouthed the words, “Look what you did.” She may well have shouted, so deeply did her words stab into me. With unspeakable anguish, I recognized in my heart that she was right.
It should have been a day of grand celebration. Pharaoh Amunhotep pronounced his son, the fruit of his loins Akhenaten, and his son’s consort, Nefertiti, to be the new co-regents of Khemit. He blessed them forever and ever, and stamped the document with his golden seal. Thus commenced Year One of Meti and Father’s rule. Pharaoh didn’t even stay for the celebration. He complained about his toothache and summoned his attendants to carry him back to his bed chamber.
I thought I would be joyous. But I wasn’t. My family had waited so long for this moment, but the festivities didn’t wash away the stain from my heart. I had lost Hep-Mut, my one true friend. If I hadn’t taken that white horse, Hep-Mut would still be alive. I would never forgive myself. I would lock my heart to guard against future pain. I would never have a devoted friend like her again.
Even worse, Sit-Amun and the Amunites declared war upon us in Thebes. Terrible lies scattered through our city like an infestation of diseased vermin. Unprotected journeys could no longer be taken in Thebes because of the Amunite’s increased attacks against the Atenists. The day one of my classmates wore the Aten sun symbol upon a chain around his neck, he was beaten and left bloodied in the streets by Amun villagers. I knew it was my duty to do something.
Sit-Amun felt confident I’d keep my mouth shut, but the day after my dwarf wested, Grand Djedti visited the Palace to offer her condolences. I confessed that in the red tent, I saw Sit-Amun invoke the dark magic to try and kill my grandmother. I confessed that Sit-Amun killed Hep-Mut by invoking the crocodile. I fell to my knees, begging forgiveness that I’d not had the courage to come forth sooner.
Yesterday, when Pharaoh discovered Sit-Amun’s Book of Amun and the magic ritual of the death incantation, he ordered Sit-Amun out of the Malkata Palace and banished her to her country demesne. The Royal Consort didn’t leave with grace. We kept a guard watching her at all times. He reported that her evil invocations had caused the sorceress’s fingernails to fall off.
Father said because we served the Aten, we must be compassionate and forgive her. How could I? She stole Hep-Mut from me, by way of a terrible death. Even Sit-Amun’s punishment of losing favor with Pharaoh Amunhotep and Per Aat Ti-Yee couldn’t replace my nursemaid. The only comfort I found was the knowledge that Sit-Amun had lost her ivory horse…perhaps this time forever.
In retribution for Sit-Amun’s disgrace, the Hanuti launched psychic attacks on Father, which kept him bedridden with headaches. He sequestered himself within his darkened chamber, but the pain never dimmed his burning devotion to the Aten. A week had passed since he left his private quarters and he even refused to stroll around the gardens with Pentu. Meti encouraged my father, now in his twentieth year, to walk more. Middle age had set heavy upon his waist.
The kindly physician sat by his bed for days, feeding him herbs mixed with broth and wiping my father’s face because he was too weak. Father would struggle to lift his head and only showed interest when Pentu told him news about his people, the Sesh. In an effort to make him smile, Pentu told him the court news about my accomplishments in astronomy, and my youngest sister’s visit to our zoo and how she begged for a monkey.
My ailing father would nod and smile. Pentu patted the new Co-Ruler on the knee. In these private chambers, they were brothers bound closer than their familial ties. My father allowed it. He needed someone he could trust. Pentu knew my father really desired to hear about his Temple to Aten. So, Pentu explained that ‘this fracture between the Amunites and the Atenists was so wide the Hittite army could march through.’ It was true. Violence has broken out. Shopkeepers refused service to rival worshipers, trading insults instead of merchandise.
I didn’t understand why the Sesh gave daily thanks for peace at our borders while a war brewed within our city. Pentu tried to explain to Father and to me that this was more than a religious war for the Amunites. One they couldn’t afford to lose. To lose would cost them everything: wealth, power, and positions held for generations. As any mason could tell you, a building was only as strong as its foundation. I had heard for years that the Amunites built their religion upon fear, greed, and a ruthless hierarchy. Upon those blocks any structure wi
ll eventually fall asunder and crumble.
A bitter taste had formed in my mouth. I told them that we should knock their reign over. Get rid of them. Everywhere we went the Amunites spoke of us with anger and disgust. How could anyone feel peaceful in a time of such ‘peace?’ Why did the Sesh believe they were so powerless? Father believed that anyone would feel powerless if they had been beaten into submission, even worse, their rights surrendered to the domineering Amunites.
Fear. Why build a religion based upon the fear of disobedience? “If you do not pay us, we will not embalm your dead and allow safe passage into the Duat,” I said, imitating the deep voice of an Amun tax collector. My stomach roiled. Their religion and temples had no life. Their solid gold icons were dead. The statues of Amun, Mut, and Khonsu weren’t real. They had no ka or spirit. Father was determined that the worship of the Aten would never be a religion.
My father desperately yearned for something new, a new direction. He said that Atenists would quest for truth in the union between man and spirit. So the love of spirit was verily the opposite of religion. Neither Pentu nor I understood. But, as he spoke, my father’s spirits lifted and his face glowed.
“The love of the Aten is free. The only cost is belief and devotion to receiving this eminence. We will teach the Sesh about love.”
Pentu didn’t think it could be done. How could the Sesh possibly understand if we didn’t? Father called it a ‘spiritualness.’ Even I knew the Sesh believed that they must suffer to buy their way into the Duat, the lower heavenworld. Why else would they do the offerings to the dead with a thousand ox, a thousand fowl and a thousand jugs of beer? That would cost a lot.
Father committed himself to awakening the Sesh from a long, numbing sleep. It gave him the determination to rise from bed. I think he even believed he could convince the Hanuti. I noticed that Pentu clenched his jaw and scratched his head with fury.
“Apuati, Shining One, these are glorious principles, but again, the Hanuti will brand you a heretic. These ideals are too revolutionary for our time.”
How could any human with a heart, which beats by the hand of the Aten, not want love and peace? If we could only stop the Amunites from spreading their fear, everything would be all right. Our country, my family, and I could live in peace. I smiled. Since that Golden Boy couldn’t help me, this was perhaps a better plan.
Father, renewed with the vigor of his divine thoughts, tried to pull himself up. He was eager to write down all his new ideas and reached for his pen and a blank papyrus deeply engrossed. But Pentu did not have the time to help him. He was due at the Heliopolis Temple to uphold his Priest of Ra duties. His shoulders rounded, no doubt feeling the weight of my father’s dreams upon them.
When Pentu mentioned Heliopolis, I asked to go too.
“I would tell you about the magic of the sacred temple of Heliopolis, but it is late.” Pentu chucked me under the chin. His mind drifted off. “Magic? Oh, please tell me about the magic,” I begged. Good magic could bring peace.
Pentu stood and said he had another patient to attend to. He moved toward the door but I hurried to block his way. Was he not a servant of our house? I could simply order him to do my bidding, like my many attendants.
Pentu smiled. He passed his hand in front of my face. A wave of exhaustion cascaded over me. I yawned. For some reason I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I staggered away to my chamber. I would have to ask him about the magic another time.
By the next year, within the Malkata Palace, the dissention could now be tasted like bitter medicine, causing Grand Djed Amunhotep even greater pain. Whispers said that his infected broken tooth made him quite mad. On quiet nights like this one, in the comfort of my bed, I heard him moan in pain across the courtyard. Father had better get well soon.
Over six hundred commissioned statues arrived. Palettes of the sitting leonine, the great nurturer Mut, Deity of Motherhood and Sekhmet, and the standing leonine, the great protector of humans, the Eye of the Sun were positioned around Malkata. Everywhere we walked, the golden stone lions with breasts watched us. They looked friendly. I wondered if I could wake them.
Outside the golden gates of the palace, throngs of people kept vigilance. Lamenting their grief, over the Pharaoh’s impending death, they wailed all night disturbing my sleep until I had to throw the pillows over my head. That night, when the moon appeared like a clipped thumbnail in the sky, a messenger arrived.
“The Pharaoh summons us to his High Chambers,” said Father.
On the way over to see Grand Djed, my heart ached. I missed Hep-Mut. I still cried when no one watched, but I forbade anyone to talk about her. Hep-Mut had wested. She lived in the Duat. My mother explained that her ka, or spirit, had left her body, as if she moved to a new house. But what if it was lost within the belly of the beast? I could never hate her, and I so regretted saying those awful words to her. And even more for throwing the horse overboard. Because of that act, I’d lost both Hep-Mut and my beloved horse.
Meti, my two sisters, and I now entered the private house of the Pharaoh. An agonizing moan startled us. We held hands. This was my first time in his elegant inner quarters. Grand Djed lay stripped of all dignity upon a high ebony bedstead held aloft by golden lions that roared their silent warnings. Although the Pharaoh was a withered man at fifty, he had far surpassed the average Khemitian lifespan of thirty-five. Yet, his bedchamber walls displayed him as a virile warrior in scenes of hunt and war.
Meti asked the Fanbearer, “Why is Pentu not here to administer to Amunhotep?”
“The Pharaoh sent the doctor to attend to the Viceroy of Kush’s daughter. She needed a skilled physician to remove both her infected eyes.”
Meti sighed. “How do we know the Hanuti did not send this new physician, Sinuhe?”
“Pentu trained Sinuhe in the art of alchemy and herbal remedies. If his tincture brings comfort to my Master, then let the Deities watch over both of them,” the Fanbearer replied.
The lovely sounds of a harp helped soothe Grand Djed. The musician, Kiya, looked familiar. Her eyes never left him. So loyal she was. Large ornate golden circles jangled from her ears with each movement. A boy played a flute, but he hid behind the multitudes of her strings.
The Royal Ornaments lamented in a dark corner. “What will happen to us?”
“Akhenaten declined to accept Pharaoh’s Harem, so I may be sent home,” whispered Seta-pent, an aging woman with sagging breasts. “May my daughter Rennutet take care of me.”
Rennutet was one of my classmates who was kind to me.
A coppery beauty with flowing crow-black hair sniffed. “He granted us freedom. I intend to choose another consort.”
With his long-legged stride, my father arrived at the bed of his earthly father and gave him a gentle embrace. Maybe they could heal their earlier clashes over the Aten. I recalled one night when the two got into a terrible argument. Grand Djed tried to give my father advice after the chariot races.
“I have been in power longer than those before me,” Grand Djed had said. “Let me show you how to enjoy this life by turning a blind eye to the ways of the Hanuti.”
Father shook his head. “My allegiance is to Aten. I cannot serve two Masters.”
Grand Djed had risen from his seat. “Must you be so headstrong and contentious? Slow down. Do not rush in like a mad bull to disrupt our entire society.” Then he softened his delivery. “Both the Aten and Amun could be worshiped together. The Hanuti will agree if they have your vow of loyalty.”
“I refuse to mingle my beliefs in the Aten with those in polarity,” replied Father crossing his arms.
“My son, is it more prudent to stay true to your heart—or wiser to be politically cunning like a jackal, which has kept this family in power?”
Shadow of the Sun (The Shadow Saga) Page 14
