A God Against the Gods

by Allen Drury

  So awesome is his place in the Two Lands that even I, who feel increasingly that the gods may have placed me on earth to help save Kemet, flinch inwardly when I think the word “removal.” But I do think it, and the day will come when I say it. I feel this in my ba and ka, the very soul and essence of my being.

  Akhenaten and I have an appointment with the gods. Everything he does hurries me to the day. I pray constantly that I may never have to do what the gods seem to hint they want me to do: but the time grows closer.

  Perhaps the Great Wife can yet save her son, yet turn him back, yet bring them both to their senses before it is too late. We shall see tonight. But I am not hopeful. Nor is my cousin Nefertiti, nor my father Aye, nor dull, faithful Ramesses, nor Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, nor all the rest, great and small, who grieve for Kemet under such a One.

  I do not want to do what we may all have to do. I shudder away from it as I know the others do.

  But every day the time grows closer.

  Now he has supreme power. Those who would remove him from it must be very careful, very clever, very discreet—and very strong.

  All of these I am and have ever been. And daily, as he grows more profligate, irresponsible and uncaring, I grow calmer, more certain, more careful and more determined.

  We shall see which of us has the final say.

  I have done his bidding for twelve years, first in little things, then in great. He gave me high honors, raised me to his right hand, used me to kill our uncle Aanen, used me to enforce his decree stripping Amon of half his wealth and priesthood, gave me great administrative powers over the Two Lands, has depended upon me many times for the running of the kingdom and such fragments of empire as his uncaring ways still allow us. But aside from those instances where I have managed to act first and report to him later, he has been an erratic mentor, a dragging weight upon my arm, a wavering and uncertain force that now encourages, now holds back. He would rather hymn the Aten and lie with Smenkhkara than be consistent in his kingship. I have administered affairs rather in spite of, than because of, his support. It has not been firm, and since, in the past two years of his father’s final dying, he has become virtually sole ruler already, the wavering has been apparent in all we have done.

  Kemet has continued to drift in spite of my best efforts, those of my father Aye, of the Great Wife, of Nefertiti, and of those closest to me such as Ramesses and my younger brother Nakht-Min, whom I have brought nearer to my side as the difficult months have dragged on.

  Why, you might ask, does it take so long for us to move against him? Why, if we are so convinced of his unfitness, have we permitted him to remain in power until finally the inevitable day has come when he has indeed become the most high, the most holy and, in the still superstitious eyes of the people, the most unassailable?

  The reason, if you understand us, is simple: because for twelve years he has been Co-Regent, Son of the Sun, Living Horus, Great Bull, Good God, King and Pharaoh of the Two Lands, divinity on earth, and, with his father, co-ruler of us all. That is why. You do not topple such a One overnight. You do not even do it in five years or perhaps even in ten, so high does he ride above us in the ancient and ongoing pageant of our history.

  It takes much time and many careful plans to bring down such a One. It takes many, many errors on his part, accumulating until even the people, who go in fear and ancient awe of him, see at last what he is and determine in their own hearts that they must be rid of him. They are close to it now, I believe. But even then the people themselves would never rise to do it, for never have they risen against a Pharaoh, and never will they, so deep in ancient tradition and the belief of many centuries lies their worship of the wearer of the Double Crown.

  It takes a small group within the Palace, close to and part of the Court, working patiently and most delicately over many years, aided by Pharaoh’s errors and capable of most subtly and carefully making use of them, to finally work the people’s will. And they must be very, very sure indeed that they correctly interpret the people’s will, else not only Pharaoh but the people they hope to serve will turn upon them and they will be utterly destroyed.

  They must also have a suitable successor who carries the blood of Ra. And what have we?

  My cousin Smenkhkara is a not very bright but charming boy, swept away by the adoration of his older brother, not knowing really, at seventeen, where his true duty lies. He thinks, for various reasons, that it lies with the King—and certainly he is fortified by every tradition in that. He does what his heart and body tell him to, but in his mind he has the absolute conviction that he does it because it is his duty to Pharaoh. My father has told me how Smenkhkara once turned white and cried, “I will never betray Nefer-Kheperu-Ra!” at the lightest, most innocent suggestion that he might inadvertently do so. Now love, which I am convinced is quite genuine, has fortified that early reaction. Piled on top of it lie all the overpowering weight and tradition of centuries. Akhenaten’s younger brother never will betray him, of that I am certain. (Nor would his youngest, Tutankhaten … if we wait too long.) Therefore Smenkhkara would be of no use to our purposes—those “ends” with which Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, chided me so long ago in Thebes, and which have finally become clear enough to me so that they dominate my every waking hour.

  We cannot use the younger brother as the instrument of his deposal.

  And the youngest brother, whom one cannot overlook in the royal equation? Tut is five, still the sunny, happy child he has always been—indeed as all the children of my uncle and the Great Wife have been, except for Akhenaten. He knows nothing yet of these worrisome, unhappy concerns of his elders. We cannot use the youngest brother either … if we wait too long.

  But here I go beyond the bounds of safety, even in my own mind. Such speculation is treason, which is why I confide it only to my father Aye, who knows and understands all things—fully as well, I am convinced, as Akhenaten says his “father,” the Aten, knows and understands all things.

  Yet even now, even after all these years, even after the judgment of time has begun to turn finally against him—at least in the minds of those of us who will have to do the things that may be necessary if he must be deposed—it is a strange thing:

  I still pity Akhenaten.

  I find that his “big brother” also still loves him, though the love is stretching very thin. Some tenuous tie of childhood affection—some deep, unerasable compassion for all that he has been through—old shared happiness, the uncaring innocence of the newly minted world—still holds me to my strange cousin. One does not so lightly shake the bonds of youth, and growing up, and the happy trusting years.

  I find that I still hope desperately, hope against hope, that he will halt even now and turn back from the fatal course that appears to be leading him inevitably to disaster and death. I, even I, still want him to live and to be, still, a great King and Pharaoh.

  Perhaps my aunt and all of us can do it when we meet in her apartments an hour from now. My intelligence and an unshakable sense of reality assure me this will not be so. But something Akhenaten can still draw upon, if he but will, tells “big brother” that he still must hope, fatuous and futile though it seems at this late date.

  ***

  Aye

  Carefully they dress me, clothing me in my garments of state that I may go to see my brother-in-law suitably laid at rest within his sarcophagi. Tomorrow comes the great procession, the final going beneath the ground in the Valley of the Kings. Tonight is rehearsal for Amonhotep III (life, health, prosperity!).

  It is grim reality for the rest of us.

  Very shortly now they will send guards and torches to show us to my sister’s apartments. From all over the Palace of Malkata we will come—my son Horemheb—my daughter Nefertiti—my nephew Smenkhkara—my niece Sitamon—Amonhotep, Son of Hapu—and the Living Horus, Son of the Sun, sole King and Pharaoh of the Two Lands.

  What mood will he be in? What mood will they be in? Do I understand, in fact, what my o
wn mood is, or are so many things swirling through this close-cropped, gray haired skull that even I, the patient, the logical, the farseeing, the all-knowing, even the Chief Steward, Private Secretary, and King’s Councilor Aye, cannot make head nor tail of them?

  That, however, is exactly what we all must do. This is the last opportunity we will have to persuade Akhenaten. He has been, in a sense, lying dormant since his father’s death. He has kept his accustomed rounds in Akhet-Aten, performed the traditional rites of mourning there and, more recently, here in Thebes. For once he has done what was expected of him, what the gods and the Ancients and the people desire. But tomorrow this all ends, and he returns again to the Aten and to all the things that so grievously disturb his mother, the Family, and all who love the Two Lands.

  My sister thinks we can even now hold him back from final folly. She hopes with a mother’s desperate love. I hope desperately, too, and, I think like all of us, with love. But the hope grows very dim and the love runs almost out.

  Already I have tried, just before I left Akhet-Aten to return here to take up residence until the mummification and funeral are over. It was not a satisfactory interview.

  I had first to separate him from Smenkhkara, who now is almost always at his side, regardless of occasion. It was in the throne room of the Great Palace. I do not know where Nefertiti was. Two faces, the one long, slit-eyed, impassive, unrevealing, the other open, fresh-faced, sunny, innocent (in appearance, for innocence long since died in that young heart), confronted me.

  “Begging your pardon, Son of the Sun,” I said directly, for I have ceased to dissemble with these two, “but I would speak with you alone.”

  “Smenkhkara knows all my secrets.”

  “I am sure. But he does not know all of mine. Nor,” I added—tart, I am afraid, to the point of danger—“do I intend him to. Smenkhkara: if you please.”

  This was taking great liberties, but I have become both old and, in some areas, uncaring—or impatient is perhaps the better word.

  “I should like him to stay,” Akhenaten said with a quiet I might have interpreted as ominous had I been so moved.

  “Then I must go,” I said, starting to back out.

  “Uncle!” he said sharply, half rising. “You will remain. Smenkhkara will remain. Tell us what is on your mind.”

  “Very well,” I said with equal sharpness as he resumed his seat and Smenkhkara stared at me with as much insolence as he dared. “I think it best that you go to Thebes separately, that you stay there separately, and that when you return here you live separately.” I could see the eyes were slitlike no longer but open with anger. “You are the only King now. The sole burden of the Two Lands rests upon your shoulders. Much is expected of Pharaoh. You cannot betray it without dangerous consequences.”

  “Dangerous for whom?” he asked in an almost mocking tone. “Not for Pharaoh, surely. Pharaoh is above danger.”

  “Pharaoh is not above the people,” I said quietly, “though fate has placed him in a position to be their god and their protector.”

  “The people,” he said slowly, and it was the first time I had ever heard him use such a tone about them, and it made my blood run cold, “are nothing to me. Nothing.”

  “Majesty,” I said earnestly, abandoning all pretense of admonition, pleading numbly with him now, noting that even Smenkhkara was shaken by the savage tone in which he spoke, “such is no sentiment for the Good God to have. You are their god, their protector, their father. You are all things to them—”

  “I am nothing to them!” he said in the same harsh voice. “Nothing! And they are nothing to me. Nothing! And if that is all you have to say, Uncle, you may go!”

  “I beg of you, Nefer-Khepera-Ra,” I said, my own voice trembling with emotion and dismay, “give heed to my words, give heed to them! You must not talk so of the people—”

  “Nothing!” he cried out again in a furious voice. “Nothing, nothing, nothing!”

  So then I did leave, bowing low and backing out, for I feared to enrage him further. But when I looked up just before I stepped outside, I saw that he had clasped one of Smenkhkara’s hands in his, that with the other hand Smenkhkara was gently soothing Akhenaten’s forehead, and that the Good God’s eyes were filled with tears and his body was wracked with sudden sobs, strangled and suppressed with a terrible, anguished determination.

  And so of course tears came into my eyes, too, as I thought: how sad he is, how sad! How lost, forlorn and sad, great King and Pharaoh, Son of the Sun and Living Horus! My dear nephew, whom I have known from a baby! My two dear nephews, whom I have known from babies!

  But it is not, of course, with tears and sentiment that one governs. And so my tears dried fast and into my heart there soon crept back the bleak desolation of what we face.

  And I wept no more for lost Akhenaten, but only prayed, as I find I very often do these days, that he may not truly be lost to us forever.

  Now I go to my sister’s chambers. Great apprehension—yet great determination, too—fills my being.

  I arrive first, am announced and go in. My sister and I exchange quick kisses and look at one another for a moment with unhappy eyes.

  Swiftly the others follow. Smenkhkara looks tense but unafraid; the rest of us, with trembling hearts, await his brother’s arrival.

  Down the hall comes the rustling of guards snapping to attention.

  Silence falls.

  Slowly and unmistakably, the shuffling sounds of a misshapen body being dragged along by the sheer will power of its owner reach our ears.

  The door opens and he faces us, in full regalia. Dressed in our garments of state, we stare back.

  It is a glittering scene.

  Across it fall the ever hastening shadows of the cruel, unhappy years.

  ***

  Amonhotep,

  Son of Hapu

  There is a long silence while he stares at us, the narrow eyes moving impassively from face to face. I am standing a little behind the Family, as befits my high yet secondary station. It seems to me that his eyes dwell upon mine an extra moment. I suddenly see a happy, healthy little boy, my beloved pupil, head flung back, mouth open in generous, excited laughter, running headlong down the palm-lined pathways of Malkata. Perhaps Pharaoh sees him too, because for a split second his eyes seem to reveal, only to me, a deeply hidden anguish. He shifts position a little. As if on signal we all do the same. Quietly he holds out the crook and flail to Smenkhkara and says softly, “Brother, take these for me.” The golden youth accepts them proudly and stacks them carefully against the wall. The King turns to the Great Wife, bows gravely and says:

  “Mother, you wished to speak with me. Do you wish us all to speak together?”

  Queen Tiye’s voice trembles a little but she holds it firm, bows in return and holds out her arms.

  “I do,” she says, “but first may your mother have a kiss?”

  “Majesty,” he says, his voice suddenly hoarse with emotion; steps forward, leans down and kisses her gravely on the cheek. She hugs him with a sudden fierce hunger which, abruptly, he returns with a naked desperation that is profoundly touching. It lasts but a moment, he releases her and steps back. Their faces become formal, almost stern, again.

  “Can we not all sit?” he asks then. “Are there enough chairs?”

  There obviously are. The Great Wife has had them arranged in a semicircle, her small, ornate throne at its center. Facing the rest is a single chair, the small private throne occupied on so many informal occasions by Amonhotep III (life, health, prosperity!) in happier times.

  Silently we all take our places flanking the Queen, Aye on her right hand, Nefertiti on her left, the rest of us, including Smenkhkara, dispersed along the half circle.

  This does not please Akhenaten.

  “Brother,” he says, and it as though no one else were in the room, so directly and nakedly does he speak only to him, “I should appreciate it if you would bring your chair and sit beside me.”

&n
bsp; “Yes, Son of the Sun,” Smenkhkara says quickly, and quickly lifts his chair and places it alongside his brother’s. Another silence falls as they stare at us calmly and without expression, Smenkhkara a little defiantly, a little on edge, but taking his cue from his brother and attempting to keep his face impassive though he does not quite look any of us in the eye. Akhenaten does, and it is obvious that he has come prepared, alerted by instinct and intelligence, for whatever may impend.

  “Now,” he says quietly, “you wish us to speak, Mother. Pray begin.”

  “My son,” she says, and now her voice is as steady and impersonal as his, “tomorrow your father goes beneath the ground and you become at last beyond all challenge sole and only King and Pharaoh of the Two Lands. It has seemed suitable to me that the Family discuss with you and”—she hesitates the tiniest second, then goes firmly on—“with your brother, how you intend to conduct yourselves in the days to come. For on the answer depends the future of Kemet and of this House.”

  Again there is silence while we all stare at them intently, not knowing what explosion—or evasion—this may produce. But we might have known that from Akhenaten, living as always, as he fancies, “in truth,” there would come an answer direct and unequivocal.

  “I shall continue to conduct myself,” he says quietly, “as what I am, the Living Horus and Son of the Sun. I shall continue to conduct myself as my Father Aten directs me, to the greater glory and strength of Kemet and our House.”

  “And I shall continue to conduct myself,” Smenkhkara says, patterning himself upon his adored older brother, “as the Good God directs, and I too shall work always for the greater good and glory of Kemet and of our House.”

  The Great Wife seems momentarily taken aback by the contrast between noble purpose and actual practice. There is no doubt they are both absolutely sincere, which opens vistas of rationalization that are quite appalling when one stops to think about them. To her aid comes her brother, thinner, slower, graying, seeming to gain in dignity, stature and statesmanship the older he grows.