by Overton, Max
"Your majesty, this is Manku, a potter of the street 'Glory of Aten'. He brings suit against the grain merchant Nefneber who sold him a sack of moldy grain."
"Is the grain merchant here to answer this charge?"
"I am, your majesty." A small, rotund man, sweating profusely, threw himself to the floor and groveled before the king. "The grain was not moldy when I sold it, your majesty."
"Is the grain moldy now?"
"Yes, your majesty," replied the Chamberlain. "I examined the sack myself."
"Do either of you have witnesses to the state of the grain before today?" asked the king.
The Chamberlain consulted his papers. "The wife of Manku attests to the moldiness when she opened the sack three days ago and the slave of Nefneber to the fine state of the grain when sold."
"No help there, then," Akhenaten said. "A wife should support her husband and a slave is bound to his master." He thought for a few moments, one hand stroking his long chin. "When did the transaction take place?"
"There is some difference of opinion, your majesty," the Chamberlain said. "Manku says ten days ago whereas Nefneber says two months."
Akhenaten raised his eyebrows. "If it was only ten days ago and moldy already then Manku has a true grievance. On the other hand, if the grain was sold two months ago, then the dampness after the floods may well have affected it after it was sold. Do you have records of the transaction?"
"I...I do, majesty." Manku took a small fragment of pottery from his waist pouch and held it up. Khaemnum took it from the man's hand and passed it to Akhenaten.
The king turned it over, scrutinizing the marks on it. "It says twelve fine glazed pots were paid for one sack of good barley. Is this your sign, Nebnefer?" He held the pottery fragment up.
The grain merchant squinted at the shard then nodded. "It is, your majesty."
"And you say this transaction took place only ten days ago, Manku?"
The potter nodded. "Yes, majesty."
"There is no date on this shard. Is it not common practice to date transactions, Chamberlain?"
"Indeed sire, in the king's house and most...ah, elevated households."
"But seemingly not in this potter's house, nor in the grain merchant's." Akhenaten sat back and thought for a few moments, the forefinger on his right hand tracing a small circle on the armrest of the throne. "Do you keep your own records of your sales, Nebnefer?"
"Yes, majesty." He snapped his fingers and urged a naked slave out from the small crowd of petitioners. The man dropped to his knees and scrambled forward clutching a papyrus roll. "This is my record of the last two months, my lord." The papyrus was passed up to the king who unrolled it and examined the close lines of writing.
"Who wrote this? The penmanship is good."
"I employ a scribe to record my dealings, majesty."
"Is he here today?"
A man in the clean white kilt of a scribe stepped forward and bowed. "Scribe Ahmose, your majesty."
"Come up here and read this document for me."
Ahmose bowed again and walked up onto the dais until he stood beside the seated king. His head was above that of Akhenaten, so he quickly stooped, and then dropped to his knees beside the throne. Peering at the roll, he pointed to an entry near the beginning. "Here is the sale to the potter Manku, majesty. The twentieth day of the first month of Proyet, the Emergence. See, I have written his name here, receipt of twelve pots, and here the single sack of barley. These other entries are other transactions that took place all the way down..." The scribe gently unfurled the scroll in the king's hands. "...To a sale yesterday near dusk of three sacks of grain to the household of Lord Mahmose."
Akhenaten nodded, scanning the intervening entries. "There is another entry for Manku right here, is there not?" He pointed. "And only ten days ago."
The scribe looked closely, then nodded. "Indeed your majesty, you have sharp eyes."
The king sighed and passed a hand over his face. "All too rarely these days, I fear," he murmured. "But does this not open the question once more that Manku is right? The sale did take place ten days ago, as he said."
"With respect, your majesty," Ahmose said deferentially. "It shows a sale took place, not necessarily the sale in question."
"Explain."
"Here, sir. The original sale two months ago put the cost of grain at the end of Ahket, the Inundation, as twelve fine pots to a sack, yet here, ten days ago when the first early harvest was in, only three pots bought a sack."
Akhenaten nodded. "And the shard said twelve. It was the earlier sack that went moldy."
On the floor in front of the throne, Manku paled. He prostrated himself full length. "Have mercy, great king," he quavered. "I am a poor man, I only..."
"Silence!" Khaemnum snapped.
Akhenaten nodded. "The potter Manku stands convicted by his own mouth. Take him away, Khaemnum. I will decide on his fate later."
The soldiers dragged the weeping potter away and the defendant, his slave and his scribe bowed with varying degrees of humility and backed out of the king's presence. The Chamberlain presented the next case and the antagonists started their arguments.
Despite the few people in the Chamber of Justice, the cases dragged on and it was close to noon before the last case was heard and the judgment delivered. Akhenaten rose from his throne slowly, fighting back the urge to stretch and yawn. Instead, he bowed to the remaining lords and court officials, receiving their obeisance in return. The guards threw the doors open and the king walked out, enveloped by his retinue of soldiers.
"It is midday, Khaemnum," Akhenaten said. "I am hungry."
"Yes your majesty." The officer led his troops through the king's palace to a large colonnaded verandah that opened out onto gardens. Several large tables had been covered with fresh linen cloths and a variety of dishes and pots. The king walked over and poked a long finger into a few of them, grunting and nodding. He licked his finger and sighed, then reached up and removed the double crown of Kemet, setting it on the table near to a dish of goose meat swimming in its own grease.
"I do not like to eat alone. I will wait for my beautiful wife Nefertiti."
"Your majesty," one of the servants said. "The er...the queen...I mean, er...your daughter Meryetaten will be here shortly."
"Nonsense, my daughter Meryetaten is in Waset. She is married to my brother Smenkhkare. I will be eating with Nefertiti." He looked around the room suspiciously. "Where is my wife? Where have you hidden her?"
The servant cast a scared glance at Khaemnum and as the king was looking the other way, risked a gesture involving his forefinger and head.
Khaemnum coughed discreetly. "Your majesty, your queen has er, gone on a State visit and er, will be gone some time. Do you not remember? Your daughter Meryetaten has come down to Akhet-Aten to be with you during her absence."
"Gone?" Akhenaten picked up a slice of the roast goose and examined it as if it held the answer to Nefertiti's absence. "When did she leave? I don't remember...and my Meryetaten is here?" He bit into the meat and chewed noisily, grease dripping down his long chin. "Has she brought little Tashery with her?"
Khaemnum grimaced. "She left some time ago, majesty and no, your daughter Meryetaten came alone."
"A pity, I like little Tashery. I have a toy here for her somewhere." The king began lifting the dishes and looking under them. He emptied a flagon of beer onto the floor, splashing himself and the attendant servants in the process, before peering into the depths of the jar for the lost toy. "It is here somewhere, I know..." Akhenaten's voice trailed off and he dropped the last piece of goose onto the table, standing and staring at the beer flagon, his face slowly screwing up into a picture of misery.
"She died, didn't she? My darling little Tashery." Tears welled and spilled. "All my darling daughters...my Meketaten, my beautiful Neferneferouaten, lovely Neferneferoure and little Setepenre... all gone. Just like my wife Nefertiti, they have all left me and gone to be with the Living Aten, blesse
d be he. Even my little queens Merye and Khese. I am quite alone." The king held onto the table with one hand as his voice broke down into paroxysms of sobbing.
"Not alone, father. I am with you."
Khaemnum turned toward the door with a loud sigh of relief. "May the gods be praised, Queen Meryetaten."
The eldest of Akhenaten's daughters stood in the doorway. No longer having a beauty to rival that of her mother, the fabled Nefertiti, the woman had put on weight, together with the cares and sorrows of being an unloved queen. Following on the birth and subsequent death of her baby daughter by her marriage to her own father, Akhenaten had put her away in his quest to father a son. He married his only other surviving daughter, Ankhesenpaaten, sending his former queen upriver to Waset to marry his younger brother and co-regent, Smenkhkare. Trapped in a loveless marriage, one of form only and no substance, the bitter young woman withdrew into solitude. She turned away from the religious reforms being slowly introduced by the co-regent and took once more to the beliefs of her childhood, seeking the support of her father's god, Aten. Then Smenkhkare died and Tutankhaten became king, with her younger sister Ankhesenpaaten as queen. Meryetaten saw her opportunity to rejoin her father and left for Akhet-Aten as soon as she was able.
Meryetaten entered the room and took in the situation with a glance. She signaled the servants to leave, but restrained Khaemnum as he bowed and tried to leave with them. "Stay," she murmured. "I have need of you." Walking across to her weeping father, she put an arm around him and held him close. "It is all right, father," she said. "I am here to look after you." She waited patiently as her father continued weeping, his muffled cries ripped out of him by his suddenly released agony. After many long minutes, she led him across to a padded and cushioned couch and persuaded him to lie down.
"My eyes," Akhenaten whimpered. "They hurt."
Meryetaten wet a cloth from a pitcher of cool river water and rested it over her father's eyes, stroking his hand and whispering to him as he fell silent then, a while later, fell asleep.
"Has he been doing this a long time?" Meryetaten asked quietly. She stood, leaving her father sleeping on the couch, and crossed the room to where Khaemnum stood.
"What?"
"Imagining himself back in happier times."
"As long as I can remember," Khaemnum said. "But I've only been here since...less than a year. He is usually...well, normal, I suppose, but every now and then something inside him snaps and he doesn't seem to know where he is."
"I shall pray to the Aten for him."
Khaemnum frowned. "You think it will do any good? The Aten seems one of those gods that is rather...shall we say, remote."
Meryetaten lifted her chin and for an instant looked the image of a queen again. "The Aten is the only real god and my father enjoys a special relationship with him. He will not abandon him."
Khaemnum thought about this, trying to work out who was not going to abandon whom. He opened his mouth to ask but then decided it did not matter. "Can the doctors do nothing?"
Meryetaten shook her head. "No more than they can cure his blindness."
"His...Akhenaten is not blind."
"It is progressive, like his delusions. It started years ago when he tried to see his god in the sun's disc. He was blind then for days. He recovered under the ministrations of the physician Nebhotep, but the malady returns, worse each time. I'm surprised you have not seen it."
Khaemnum crossed the room and looked down on the cloth-covered face of his sleeping king. "Perhaps I have. There are times when he refuses to come out of his rooms, even to visit the temple. He never gives a reason, just turning away to face the wall."
"Naturally you will report this to Ay."
Khaemnum shrugged. "I do not see the point."
"Ay looks for a way to rid himself of the king. A blind, mad man is no king."
"He is still the anointed one. The gods..." Khaemnum smiled ironically and bowed to Meryetaten. "...Or god, perhaps, put him in his place. Who am I to contradict, ah, divinity?"
"You surprise me, Khaemnum. I thought you Ay's creature, full of hatred for us."
"I am a soldier, lady." Khaemnum smiled again. "I follow orders but I do not always agree with them." He walked to the table and gestured at the dishes. "Do you mind?" When Meryetaten shook her head, he poured himself some wine and broke off a piece of crusted bread, dipping it in the goose grease. He raised the cup to his lips before remembering his manners. "For you, my lady?"
"Some wine." Meryetaten took the cup and sipped. She sat on the end of the couch, near her father's sandaled feet and studied Khaemnum carefully. "So when the order comes to kill my father, you will obey, even though you may disagree?"
"Kill him? What in the gods' holy names are you talking about? I look after the king, protect him."
"And I thank you for it, Khaemnum. But what happens when my beloved grandfather Ay decides his hold over the boy king is secure enough? Do you not think he will have the true king removed? Will you be the one he uses?"
"He would not do that, lady. Killing a king is god-cursed. When he is judged in the Halls of Death, his spirit would be rent and cast into the flames of Ases. That would be my fate too if I obeyed such a command."
"And what if no man strikes the king down, but he dies nonetheless?"
Khaemnum looked blank, his forehead wrinkled as he stared at the princess-queen. "You are talking in riddles, lady. If the gods strike him down, who is to blame?"
"I can tell you what will happen one day, Khaemnum. You will get an order that simply says something like, 'Show the king to his god'. Who can say what that means? Ay will say, if any dare question him; that it was something innocent, meaning only that the king should be allowed more time to worship in the Aten's temple." Meryetaten placed her wine cup carefully on the floor and stood up. She crossed to where the soldier stood and looked up at him. "But you, faithful Khaemnum, will have received the true meaning beforehand, and will take my father out into the desert and leave him there, with a small flask of water and a loaf of bread, to die. You can say, should any ask you, that he was fit and well when last you saw him; that you left him with food and water and you are not to blame; that it was his father the Aten who took him."
"That...that is just supposition, lady. I cannot believe it of the Tjaty."
"You do not know him as I do. The real question is what you will do when the command comes. Will you obey a usurper or the true king of Kemet?"
Khaemnum stared down at the king's daughter. "Why do you tell me this, lady?" he asked in a shaky voice. "You have no great reason to love the king, despite being his daughter. You were also his wife and bore him a child, before he put you away. Many women would hate a father like that."
Meryetaten paled and spun on her heel, walking quickly to the edge of the verandah, where she stood and stared out at the gardens for several minutes.
"I did hate him," she said at last, her voice soft. "For so long I desired his death. But the gods did not grant my wish and I came to see that it must be--it can only be--that there is one true god, his god, the Living Aten. I then prayed to Aten and he answered me, Khaemnum." Meryetaten turned and looked at the soldier through tear-filled eyes. "He showed me that my father needed me, needed my love. I have come back to Akhet-Aten to be with him. I will not leave him again. I will share his fate, whatever it is. You will have to take both of us out to die in the desert."
"I...I could not do that."
"Then you will help us?"
Khaemnum was silent for a long time, his eyes unfocused and turned inward upon his own soul. At last he sighed raggedly. "I will think on it."
Akhenaten shifted on his couch and the drying cloth fell away from his reddened and inflamed eyes. He stirred in his sleep and smiled.
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Chapter Twenty-Four
Paramessu was a long time healing, despite Nebhotep's attentions and Scarab's devoted care. Throughout the time of the general
's recuperation she hovered by his bed side, ever ready with water or a cooling cloth, holding the pot unashamedly as he relieved himself, feeding him and, under the physician's care, exercising his damaged leg. This last duty she had a hard time believing but Nebhotep assured her that a leg unexercised over months would waste away. So she stretched Paramessu's leg, pushing and pulling, ignoring his winces, until the day came when he could leave his bed with its stinking sheets and venture out into the sun. Progress was rapid and within ten days of his first steps he was exercising in the barrack yards, working his way slowly back to fighting fitness.
News came in regularly from the army up in Kenaan where Djedhor was in command of the army. The Amorites were quiet, as were the Hittites, though spies indicated something was being planned. A messenger from Horemheb in Waset a month past, when Paramessu still tossed feverishly on his sweat-soaked pallet, had confirmed Paramessu in his rank of Commander General of the Northern Army, and Djedhor as his second. Horemheb himself was staying in the south for the time being. The letter did not explain why, but the messenger thought it something to do with a Nubian uprising. Paramessu fretted for a while, eager to be back in command of his army, but Djedhor's reports, outlining the situation and the lack of news of the Amorite forces, calmed him. He started to devote himself to regaining his strength. On the first day of the second month of Shomu, he limped over to the stables and took out a fine roan stallion, determined to ride out into the countryside for fresh air, exercise and a welcome change of scenery.
The second day, Paramessu was once more at the stables, but waiting for him was Scarab, dressed a trifle inappropriately for a royal lady in a short military kilt and a thin shoulder wrap that fastened at the neck but hung loose and open to her midriff. She smiled at Paramessu as he stopped short of the stable doors, staring.
"I thought I might join you today, General Paramessu."
"Er, yes, of course, my lady." Paramessu recovered his wits and collected his stallion again, selecting a quiet gelding for Scarab. Leading the horses out into the courtyard, he hesitated as he handed the reins of the gelding to the young woman. "Can you ride, or do you wish to join me on my horse? Or we could take a chariot."