Ankhesen appeared wearing a black robe—she had not yet relinquished her mourning clothes. Tut was seated on the throne, his head bare and his hand empty; he had acquired none of the splendor of a king—he looked like a terrified boy, searching for a means of escape. He was afraid to go near Ankhesen. She sat next to him, disdainful as ever. She was remembering her mother and sisters, from whose midst she had been plucked for the sake of this dismal marriage. She looked at the priests, who were seeing to the completion of the wedding rites—she was ready to explode. The high priest of Amun was offering the two of them a beaker full of milk mixed with honey.
“This honey,” he said, “is the nectar of the sun, the milk that of the moon. They are combined just like your sacred conjoined lives. Each of you completes the other: you are the goddess Isis, who offers the throne to her husband, and he it is who shall be born anew by your grace, to be as Osiris, and you shall remain together until time completes its circuit, until Sirius the Dog Star appears, the seasons of the flood succeed one another, and Amun grants you both power and dominion over all creatures in this land beloved of the gods. I bless your marriage and proclaim you the new Pharaoh, Tutankhamun.”
Ankhesen was about to refuse, but at a sharp glance from Horemheb she took a sip, just enough to wet her lips. Then Tut, nauseated, drank as well. The high priest drew near and set the crown in place, a huge thing compared to Tut’s small head. It consisted of two colors: red for Upper Egypt and white for Lower Egypt; it was bisected by the guardian serpent, from which rose two feathers, representing truth and justice. The eye of Horus, with its distinctive tapered corners, looked out from the middle of the crown. Tut’s aspect changed once he was wearing the crown: he grew taller and more striking, seated there upon the throne. But Ankhesen grew still more furious with him. She would have liked to get up and leave him sitting there alone, this vagrant who had stolen her father’s throne and bound his destiny to her against her wishes. But the ceremonies had not been concluded yet. The priest was handing him the scepter—the scepter of Amun, who was responsible for repelling enemies. It was made of sycamore wood, and had the head of a wolf. It was covered with a layer of gold, to give light to the world of the hereafter.
Slaves entered, bearing large wooden platters, on which were fresh loaves of bread, the steam still rising off of them. The slaves approached the throne and halted before it. The Pharaoh rose, took the loaves, and handed them out to everyone. The first loaf went to Horemheb, the second to the high priest, and the rest of the nobles and luminaries followed. Then Tut turned to Ankhesen. She glared at him, and he shrank back. Only Horemheb observed this, for at this time the ceremonies were over. As the sound of drumbeats rose and grew louder, dozens of dancers made their way into the center of the hall, where they began swaying to the rhythm. Outside, the assembled masses, in their thousands, cheered as platters of bread and jugs of beer were brought down from the palace, and servants began dispensing them at no charge. The city was suffused with an atmosphere of gaiety it had not known for some time, the men bedding the women indiscriminately, as if the energy ignited in the wanton city streets might engender strength in the loins of the new Pharaoh.
The Pharaoh himself, however, stood helpless before his bride as the night ended. Everyone had left, and Ankhesen stood there quite naked, challenging him with her body, resplendent in its budding womanhood. She had inherited her mother’s coloring, as well as her willowy frame and bewitching eyes.
“You’ll not touch me,” she said to him. “I won’t let a wolf child into my bed.”
Her voice rose high and shrill; the palace had ears, all attentively pricked. Tut had no choice but to go away and leave her. He went looking for a room in a faraway corner in which to retreat, the moans of the lecherous and unbridled crowd ringing in his ears.
In the morning he attempted to salvage some sort of victory in the alien streets. The attendants dressed him in his gilded robe and placed the crown upon his head. He ascended his war chariot, drawn by eight horses, and his lavish entourage made a thorough tour of the city. Horemheb followed him in another carriage, a little way behind. When he reached the Temple of Karnak, the priests gathered around them, holding fragrant censers, and the temple virgins emerged, scattering flowers at their feet. None of this alleviated Tut’s feeling of estrangement: not the chanting of the crowds, the façades of the houses, the emblems of the gods, or the droning of the priests. He was alone, with no remedy for his loneliness.
Afterward, he sat upon the throne for hours on end, people coming and going before him. They knelt to convey their reverence, told him their names and their many soubriquets, although he was incapable of remembering anything. They laid gifts at his feet: golden vessels, jeweled necklaces, and costly robes, in constantly replenished piles of goods brought in by his followers. He had no idea what he was supposed to do with all of it. At last Horemheb clapped his hands, and everyone filed out. Tut was exhausted and trembling, but Horemheb stood at attention before him, unyielding and grim as ever.
“Beginning tomorrow,” he said, “you shall give the order for the peasants to leave their fields and the workers their tasks. We must assemble the greatest army this land has ever known. The enemy has overrun the Valley of Turquoise, and will soon reach the fertile lands. We must not merely drive them back—we must pursue them to their own lands and lay waste their cities.”
It was always war, one begetting another. Tut, though, was frightened. All those who were providing him with protection would now leave him and go far away. Horemheb seemed to know what he was thinking.
“I shall leave guards with you, chosen from the most faithful of my men. They will carry out orders at your command. They will kill without hesitation anyone you wish done away with—you have only to say the word.”
“Say the word . . . ?” Tut echoed in a hoarse whisper.
“Be resolute in issuing all your orders, and do not repeat yourself. Even the queen—expect from her nothing less than total submission. In truth she gave up the throne to you, but it has become yours now. You must fill her womb quickly—this is what I have found when it comes to women. Use any method you wish, and think nothing of resistance or pain or cruelty—be as cruel as you like as often as you like. The Pharaoh must be harsh, always.”
Horemheb began preparing the country for war once more. The peasants took off their blue overgarments, and harvested reeds from the riverbanks, which would be transformed into shafts for spears. Iron and bronze were combined to be forged into swords and spearheads; grain silos, jugs of oil, and linen thread were requisitioned; women gathered in the temples to weave soldiers’ uniforms. Peace and quiet had withdrawn from the valley, and tomorrow the warriors would call out their entreaties to the gods for help, before they turned and made their way northward.
The army left the city—thousands of peasants, transformed into soldiers. They had taken up their spears and their armor; the professional soldiers had mounted their war chariots. They all passed before him as he stood upon the balcony of the palace, Queen Ankhesen beside him.
He was frightened of her, and of everything else in this city. He thought he would die if he so much as raised his voice just a little. How could he assert his authority over those priests, who had their way in everything? How could he be safe, lost in the dim corridors of this palace, laid end-to-end with traps to ensnare him? Lurking in every passageway was a hidden enemy, but the greatest foe of them all was in the bedroom—the room in which he had found no place until now, and here he must make a beginning.
She sat upon her bed, surrounded by slave girls, who anointed her body with oils, perfumes, and honey—the same recipe Queen Tiye had used. She’d paid no attention when he entered and stood in the middle of the room, so she was startled when he spoke up and ordered the slave girls to leave. They hurried out.
He approached her and took her by the arm, but she clawed at his face with her nails like an angry cat. When he pushed her roughly back to the bed she struck his chest with her fists
. He forced open her legs, and she pulled his hair, so he yanked off the fabric that covered her chest. She tried to repel him, but he pressed himself between her thighs. They struggled in silence, their agitated breathing the only sound. She looked him straight in the eye, then gave up the fight. Her exposed chest heaved, and her pale belly rose and fell. She let him do as he wished. He gasped and perspired, groping aimlessly with his hand. Her scowl vanished, replaced by a sneer. She neither resisted nor assisted him. He struggled on, clutching at her legs and pressing himself to her torso. His breath became the snorting of a beast. All the while she fixed him with the same mocking stare and faint smile.
When at last his efforts ceased, she said, “Now get up off of me, valiant Pharaoh.”
He was choking—the corridors of the palace were stifling and endless. He increased his haste, seeking the river, a fresh breeze to dry his sweat, but he stumbled on, through the side passages, until the face of the river appeared, black and silent, without a breath of air. He sat upon the steps leading down to the water. The opposite shore seemed far away, dark and desolate—if only he could escape to it. There he might give way to his tears with no one to see him. He heard footfalls, and turned to find a detachment of four guards standing behind him, protecting his back. They left him only when he went to the queen’s quarters, but no sooner did he reappear in the open than he came once more under their direct scrutiny, precisely in accordance with Horemheb’s orders.
“I want to cross to the other shore,” he cried.
“We’ll fetch the royal bark at once,” one of them replied.
The oars beat upon the surface of the river, slicing the dark waves. His heart was heavy and the opposite bank seemed unwilling to come any closer. Behind him were the lights of the palace, refusing to disappear. All he wanted was darkness to hide the emotions that showed on his face. The boat kept rocking, rocking on the face of the water until it made contact with the mud of the riverbank. The oarsman stood up quickly, got out of the boat, and bent over before him, so that the Pharaoh might step upon his back and thus reach the sand. Tut was trembling, but the earth here was solid, perhaps more than in any other place. Here was more silence, more darkness than anywhere else. He motioned to the guards, who stayed by the riverbank, watching for any movement on the water. Only the elderly oarsman stayed with him, following, at a certain distance.
“What is this place?” said Tut.
“It is the Valley of the Kings, my lord,” the old oarsman replied, surprised. “Here lie all the great kings who make their way to the afterlife.”
In the distance rose the howling of wolves; the sound pierced him to the marrow. He remembered the taste from long ago, of milk running into his mouth. The memory woke within him hunger, desire, the need for warmth, driving out the torpor of palaces and lazy familial comforts. The voices rose as if the wolves had caught his scent.
“Let us go, my lord,” the oarsman said fearfully. “There are a great many of them.”
He made no move. He saw their eyes gleaming in the darkness and their nimble shadows flitting among the rocks of the mountain that loomed over them like a great beast’s horn. He laid hold of his garments and removed all the finery and jewelry that weighed him down, at the same time releasing a great cry—he had returned once more to their world—he must surrender his body to their fangs and claws. He moved toward them, trying to make contact with their bodies, but the oarsman began to weep, and called for the guards. No one dared touch him, so the four guards moved quickly to form a line between him and the rocks. One of them held up his hand and said, pleading, “My lord . . .”
Tut drew breath with difficulty, also nearly weeping. There they stood, forming a barrier between him and the freedom he sought, keeping him on a throne he did not like, with a wife he could only detest. There was nothing to do but turn and stumble back through the sand, ready to collapse with every step, the rest of them behind him not daring to place a hand on him, until he heaved himself at last into the boat.
Later he went back again to the western shore, but in daylight it appeared less forbidding, despite the scowling rocks, heavy with the sarcophagi of the dead. The guards accompanied him, along with the priests of Amun, walking behind him as he cast about in the sand, in an effort to recall the place in which he had stood during the night. He tried to familiarize himself with the features of the rocky terrain, to discover the imprint of claws upon the ground, to sniff out the scent of urine always left behind in places where the wolves had been. At last he pointed out the spot, addressing himself to the high priest.
“Here I wish to build my tomb,” he said.
The priest stared. “Your tomb!” he exclaimed. “Is this not rather premature?”
“Work begins tomorrow,” Tut replied sharply.
Work indeed commenced the following day. There were few men—most of the houses had been emptied of adult males, leaving the women alone, their beds cold. Yet workers must be found, in deference to the Pharaoh’s orders. The first tunnel penetrating the depths of the earth was begun. He stood and watched the laborers as they scooped out soil and cut through stone. This supplied a pretext for him to spend as much of his time as possible on the other shore. The work proceeded all through the day, and at night by torchlight.
News came regularly of the war being waged in the north. Every fifteen days a messenger came, sand-coated and blood-soiled. The battles raged on—they might flare up and subside, but the casualties never abated, nor did the ships cease their plying of the waters, bearing matériel northward, where they sailed laden with wheat, barley, salt, honey, onions, and with them northbound passengers. While the messages kept coming, the northern tribes had retreated to their own side of Egypt’s borders and the struggle had moved into Canaan, but it would not stop unless and until the Hittite enemy was driven back behind the northern river, which as far as Egypt was concerned was the line of safety.
One way or another, matters of state were carried out. Ranks of clerks and other employees skilled in many languages took on all assignments. The young Pharaoh knew virtually nothing of what went on, and if he asked the answers he received were at once vague and incomprehensibly detailed. The tomb, though, kept expanding beneath the surface of the earth, a black hole with walls of jutting rock. When he peered into its murky depths, he felt them calling to him. He got into the habit of keeping a solitary vigil, in order to listen to the howling of the wolves, while the torches stayed lit all night long.
He would steal back to the dark palace and go to bed alone, where he would lie with his eyes open, hoping to keep the nightmares at bay. Meanwhile, the keening of the wolves never stopped resounding in his head. He imagined his skin covered in fur, his canines grown into fangs, his nails sharpened into claws. One night he opened his eyes in alarm to find the light of dawn peeping through the curtains. He could see clearly Ankhesen’s face regarding him. She was not angry or poised for a fight. Her hair hung loose, its locks wreathing her face, and she wore a thin gown through which her breasts were plainly visible—she took no trouble to hide them. He heard her whisper very softly, sounding the way she had in her long-ago childhood.
“What is troubling you?” she said to him. “Why do you seek death so eagerly?”
He stared at her in astonishment. She spoke with a gentle kindness to which he was in no way accustomed—nor would he ever have imagined her leaning over him in this intimate way—she was all but clinging to him, fearless and unguarded. She spoke again. “Am I the cause of all this?”
In a strained voice he said, “I used to think so . . .”
“What is it, then?”
“The man they have defamed, the god we have abandoned . . . this is the cause I did not perceive before. This is the curse that has befallen both me and you.”
“But the throne is ours!” She was staring at him, mystified.
“For the sake of that throne,” he replied, “we have forsaken everything. And so we have been ashamed of things that should not have
shamed us.”
He spoke sadly, painfully, but his words were true. Perhaps she had been averse not to him, but in some way to herself—both of them had recoiled from themselves.
Now for the first time she attached herself to him, trembling. “Be all that as it may,” she said, “don’t leave me alone. This city frightens me!”
He caressed her, and she flung her arms around him. They were too close to permit either the clawing of each other’s faces, as in their first encounter, or even an exchange of words. They were both trembling, and her hair hung down around his face.
“Make love to me now,” she whispered in his ear. “Do as you will with me—I am content.”
The following morning the rising sun found them warmly asleep in each other’s arms—the cold that had beset them since their arrival in the city had dissipated. Although she was hungry for more, she contented herself with this measure of warmth and affection, for there was no preventing him from crossing the river every day to follow the progress of work on the tomb. It extended well into the earth, with rooms and corridors, a hidden cavern designed for the resurrection of the dead. The dreary walls of sand disappeared behind a layer of white plaster: a smooth and gleaming surface that mitigated the gloom of the lightless burial chamber. Next would come the artists to paint the walls of the tomb.
But the army stayed away longer and longer, while households made up of only women grew more and more oppressed. The flood season drew near, but there was no one to sow seed in the earth, so when the waters engulfed it and then receded, nothing grew but grass and weeds. The army would have had to return earlier, before the floods, to ward off the specter of famine, but the soldiers stayed away, beyond the horizon, while the number of messengers reporting from the north dwindled, and such news as they brought was contradictory. The army had advanced considerably upon the barbarian tribes—but had it reached the river that was its goal?
At last the army returned, Horemheb raging like a cyclone, begrimed with sand and bearing many wounds, some of them still bleeding. His army was exhausted, its numbers reduced nearly by half. They looked around, their eyes wandering in their heads, reeling with hunger and fatigue. Horemheb, though, when he stood before the Pharaoh, appeared strong and confident, as was always his way. Tut sat upon the throne, the queen at his side. They trembled when they heard Horemheb’s booming voice—all these months they had fancied they were true monarchs, but here came Horemheb to put them in their place, like the two little children they were.
A Cloudy Day on the Western Shore Page 47