by Allen Drury
We know life goes on while Ra makes his journey. But we also know that ritual and order hold Kemet together, and we know that without them Kemet would not be the great kingdom and powerful empire she is. And since we wish to preserve her so, we preserve the rituals that preserve her order. Even on days when I am ill, the people never know that I do not rise and say the words for Ra. Aanen or one of his fellow priests of Amon says them for me, and it is announced, as it is every day, that I have done it. Thus the ritual is preserved—and the order is preserved.
Thus it has been for almost two thousand years, and so it will be, forever and ever.
So: I worshiped, I said the words, I discharged the first daily obligation of my divinity, and then, like mortal men, I ate. Priests and servants hovered, anxious to seize for themselves whatever sacred scraps I left. I took satisfaction in fooling them, this morning: I was hungry and I ate it all. Then I returned, still accompanied by Aanen, to my private rooms. At the door I told him firmly, “Brother, I would be alone with my wife.” “But she is my sister,” he protested sharply, looking as angry as he dared. “You may see her later in the day, if she wishes to receive you,” I said evenly, and gave him a firm but pleasant stare, both of us knowing that she would be receiving no one but the absolutely necessary this day. “Well—” he began, still sharply; but even now he does not quite dare defy me openly, and so after a moment his eyes dropped, his voice trailed off in a mumble: “Well …” “Go, Brother,” I said. “Make yourself ready to attend me to Karnak, for I go there to worship for her and our new son. I shall be departing in the fourth quarter of morning. Be ready.” And then finally he did say, “Yes, Son of the Sun, I go as you desire.” But it did not come easy to him, and I thought again as I have thought many times in the last two years: he is grown too great.
And I thought further, as I have also thought: They have all grown too great.
Struck by this knowledge, which haunts me too often nowadays, I paused where I was with my hand on the edge of the door. I watched his back, its lines indignant, as he hurried off down the long corridor, pretending to himself that his departure was his own idea, that he really had other business and had to leave me of his own accord. At the distant turning in the hall he met Amonhotep the Scribe, Son of Hapu, and with him the new young scribe, Kaires, whom I have glimpsed a couple of times, always in the distance: he has not attended me yet, though I understand Amonhotep is training him with great care and has assigned him principally to my mother. She likes him; he is a bright lad apparently: I must keep an eye on him and promote him to higher service if he deserves it. I need “King’s men,” loyal to me above and beyond the fear-loyalty that is given the God.
As I watched, Amonhotep the Scribe returned Aanen’s hasty and almost contemptuous greeting with a grave air, followed by a grim little line of amusement around his lips which Aanen, hurrying away, did not see. Then Amonhotep saw me and paused, so abruptly that young Kaires, tumbling along behind like an eager puppy, bumped into him. They laughed together—I could see from Amonhotep’s lack of annoyance that he too already thinks well of this youth who has been added to the household staff at his father’s request—and then, abruptly grave and suitably respectful, they bowed low to me. I bowed also, and then smiled. Emboldened by this, Amonhotep smiled back. So too did Kaires, which for just a moment produced a somewhat shocked expression on Amonhotep’s shrewd and amiable face. But the boy meant no harm, so again I smiled. Amonhotep relaxed, they bowed again and withdrew; but not, I am afraid, before they both perceived the unhappy expression that recaptured my face as I sighed and turned back toward the door. I did not mean for my unhappiness to return so rapidly and so openly, but against my will, it did. I must be more deeply concerned than I admit to myself.
Must be?
Of course I am.
Within the private apartments all was hushed and quiet. Doctors, nurses and the inevitable priests of Amon stood huddled about, attempting with their earnest expressions and low-murmured talk to convince me of a depth of knowledge which is limited by spells, incantations, and foul-smelling poultices on the one hand, and by the hoped-for kindly interventions of Bes, the guardian of childbirth, and Hathor the cow goddess, deity of motherhood, on the other. There is no reason to believe that Bes and Hathor will not attend Tiye kindly today, as they did with both Sitamon and Tuthmose. Both births went smoothly, Sitamon being delivered in three hours, Tuthmose a little more slowly, but with no great difficulty, in four.
Tiye is a very healthy woman, and a very determined one; and also we have both prayed long and faithfully for this new son—prayed, ironically, to Amon, who does not know that in this birth he faces yet another challenge to add to those I have already given him.
For this reason I worry, of course: Amon does not take kindly to challenges, and those that are given him must be given with subtlety and with skill. I think the challenge of Tuthmose has been so given. I am hopeful I may in time give the challenge of this new son in the same fashion.
These thoughts were mine as I entered the bedroom where my love lay, and saw the pert little face that conceals such a loving heart and such a fiercely protective and determined will. She stared at me with great dark eyes; a welcoming smile, sweet, patient, indomitable, touched her lips. “It is beginning,” she said. “May Amon give us a strong and healthy son,” I said. For a second a gleam of amusement that was for me alone flashed into her eyes. She beckoned me close and I leaned down. “He would not if he knew,” she whispered; and I, who know, unlike my people, that Amon does not know all things—only those that his priests overhear for him—whispered back, “He will not until it is too late.” A sudden fear came into her eyes, shielded by my body from the doctors, nurses, and priests standing respectfully silent against the wall at my back. “Is Tuthmose…?” she whispered. “Tuthmose is well and on his way. He should be here in the third quarter of morning.” “He is all right?” “He is all right,” I said firmly. “He is escorted from Memphis by Amon,” she said. “But for every priest of Amon there are two of Ptah,” I said. Her eyes stared into mine for a long moment. “I will feel better when I know he is safely here.” “Do you think I will not?” I demanded with a sudden naked honesty. She started to say something, then was cut off by pain. After it passed she managed a smile and gripped my hand tightly for a second. “We must not be afraid,” she said. “We are not,” I whispered fiercely. “We are not.”
I leaned down and we kissed as desperately as though we were youthful lovers again, attempting to reassure one another that the world is not full of shadows threatening happiness. She grimaced once more and turned her face so I would not see. I stepped back. Doctors, priests, nurses hurried forward, hissing like geese who would impress me with their diligence. I uttered a silent prayer to Bes and Hathor, that they might be kind to my wife, to me and to our son; and withdrew to walk alone through the painted mud corridors of Malkata to the robing room where I was to consult, as I do every morning, the Vizier Ramose, and then be made ready for my departure, shortly before noon, to Karnak.
Thus the conflict intruded, even there—there, perhaps, more than anywhere, for it is through my sons that it will be expressed hereafter.
You may ask why it must be so: why does not Pharaoh, the all-powerful, the omnipotent, the owner of all things and all men in the land of Kemet, put down the overweening priests of Amon, reduce their power to manageable proportions, break up their holdings of land, cattle, granaries, gold, jewels, swollen beyond conscience—say the magic word, and return them overnight to the influential but reasonable status they held up to the time of my great-grandfather, the brilliant Tuthmose III (life, health, prosperity!)?
I will tell you why: Because, starting with my great-grandfather, Amon-Ra has become so inextricably entwined with the fortunes of my family, with its foreign conquests, its empire-building and its steady accretion of wealth and power, that it is now impossible to remove the growth on the House of Thebes by some simple, ruthless surgery. It
must be done, if done at all, by the most delicate and skillful of excisions. It is to this that I have increasingly devoted my thoughts and my talents as I have matured from the ten-year-old child who came to the throne on the death of my father, Tuthmose IV (life, health, prosperity!) to my present status as the Good God who has already worn the Double Crown for twelve years.
By now I am sanctified not only by blood but by custom. Kemet is used to me. Each year I can do more. But each year, of course, Amon has grown stronger too. And so it is not a simple matter.
When my family came to the throne there were great intrigues between Tuthmose I, his two sons, Tuthmose II and Tuthmose III, and his daughter, the great Queen-Pharaoh Hat-shep-sut (life, health, prosperity to them all!). Suddenly, one morning in this same temple of Amon to which I am about to depart to pray for my new son, Amon intervened. At that point Tuthmose I was on the throne; but Amon, even as Tuthmose I was offering prayers, suddenly turned (his golden image carried high by the usual band of white-clad priests) and bowed low to Tuthmose III, then only a minor princeling of the royal House. At once Tuthmose III displaced his aging father, assumed the crown, and began the struggle with his half sister Hat-shep-sut which was to give her some years of independent rule but resulted ultimately in his own supreme power, the deliberate obliteration of her name and memory, and the start of his great conquests through the Middle East that created the empire to which I am heir.
Thus, as you can see, our House owes much to Amon, for his priests deliberately intervened to settle a dynastic conflict that was gravely threatening the existence of the Two Lands. Thereafter, though Hat-shep-sut for a few years managed to keep both the priests and her half brother and co-regent, Tuthmose III, under control, they worked ceaselessly to confirm Amon’s choice, which they had so dramatically and skillfully arranged that morning in the temple. And when Tuthmose III came finally to full power, it was Amon who was responsible, Amon who encouraged, sanctified and thus guaranteed popular support for, his military conquests. And it was Amon, naturally enough, to whom in gratitude he gave the power, the influence and the actual physical wealth, drawn from his conquests, which was the start of the priests’ overweening power today.
I was not aware of all this until I began to study the records of my House in greater detail after my formal education was completed. Pharaohs receive a rigid schooling: we are scribes, we are skilled in military arts, we are readers—we are well-equipped men, the equal of any in the Two Lands, by the time we leave the hands of the tutors in the Palace school. This fits us for rule. It also makes some of us think—particularly those of us, like myself, whose eyes do not look outward from Kemet because they do not need to look outward: because all out there belongs to me already, so that I have no need for conquests to keep me busy or to distract me from my thoughts.
From the Fourth Cataract, far to the south in Ethiopia, to the land of Mittani, far to the north in Syria, I rule over the Empire of Kemet. My garrisons are stationed in a dozen vassal kingdoms. A handful of armed men, an annual appearance of my representatives to collect tribute, an occasional dynastic marriage, a routine gift of gold to those whose lands do not produce it in the abundance that Kemet enjoys—such are all that is necessary now to hold the Empire. The alliances must be kept up, the symbolic appearances must be made, the correspondence and the gifts must be faithfully delivered. With a diligent attention to these relatively minor and painless requirements, the Empire today virtually runs itself.
Kemet stands at the peak of her glory. I stand at the peak of Kemet. It is as simple as that. Only one thing shadows the comfortable equation—the fact which has now become with me almost an obsession: Amon is everywhere and into everything. And in the past two years or so this has become, for me, too much.
I do not know exactly when I began to realize this; one day, I believe, in a conversation with Tiye, who keeps me company in all things and possesses, in that small round head I love to cradle in the hollow of my arm, ten times the wisdom of most men. Tiye is my delight and my great good fortune, the one adviser above all others whom I trust, admire, respect and listen to. The shy ten-year-old boy who found himself being married to the shy ten-year-old girl from the house of Yuya and Tuya has grown up to find himself the husband of the perfect wife, lover, companion, friend—and equal partner, though we must maintain the outward forms of my personal supremacy, in the rule of Kemet.
To me she gives love, understanding, support, children—and advice shrewder than any I receive from anyone with the possible exception of her brother, Aye, and, lately, from Amonhotep the Scribe, Son of Hapu. These three I trust above all others, and Tiye above the other two. It is for this that I have issued a scarab, that small, gleaming beetle whose form we have transferred to jewelry and masonry and used to proclaim our worship or our praise, telling of her glories and making clear to my people that she sits at my left hand, almost as great as I. It is for this, also, that a year ago I ordered made for her in her town of Djarukha a “pleasure lake,” or basin, its length being 3700 cubits and its breadth 700 cubits. And it is for her that I issued a scarab showing myself rowing in my state barge on her lake, piercing the dikes so that the Nile might flow in and enrich the land and thus provide fine crops for her private wealth.
And it was at her urging that I named the barge Radiance of the Aten.
For Aten likes not Amon, nor does Tiye, nor do Aye and Amonhotep, nor do I.
When I first published the scarab, in fact, there was much muttering in Amon’s temple. It was led by my brother-in-law Aanen, he whom I elevated to be Second Priest of Amon in a burst of generosity (never to be reversed, once done) when at fourteen I first began to be so deeply in love with his sister, thinking it would be a kindly gesture to her family, and also give me better control of pushing priests. This was my mistake. He even dared challenge me openly one day, here in the Palace. “You pay too much tribute to the Aten,” he said, his tone carrying, as always, its sharp little edge of criticism and impatience. I shrugged. “Amon has a hundred thousand priests throughout the Two Lands and owns as much of them as I do,” I said. “The Aten has only a barge—” “And the temple you have built for him at Karnak!” he interrupted. “That little thing!” I said with an equal sharpness. “Are you comparing that to the vast halls of Amon? Come now, Brother! You make too much of too little.” “We would have preferred the barge to be named for Amon,” he said with a prim pursing of the lips. “Well, it is named for the Aten,” I said, “and published so to the people, and so it stands.” “They will be confused,” he said, his tone becoming uncertain in the face of my obvious determination. “Amon will no doubt set them right,” I said dryly. “Do not worry about such a little thing, Brother. Amon reigns, forever and ever.” And I turned and walked away, and presently the grumbling in Amon’s temples subsided, though I know they still resent it whenever I use the Aten’s barge to sail the river. But since for the time being I have done nothing further, they have perforce subsided; though they watch. Always, they watch.
Amon is the hidden essence of Ra the Sun, which is secret, forbidding, unreachable, unknown. The word “Amon,” indeed, means hidden. For this reason his sanctuary at Karnak, like his sanctuaries everywhere, is shrouded in darkness: massive, dim, mysterious, frightening. Passage leads into passage, hall into hall, secret chamber into still more secret. Far inside, in the murky depths, mystery of mysteries, holy of holies, stands his gleaming golden statue in its sacred barque, lighted by a single ray of his father Sun, falling through a cleverly angled hole in the ceiling in such a way that his eyes are sunken, brooding, distant, terrifying in their somber depths. He is a god worshiped in fear by the people. He is supreme. And he is very cold.
The Aten is the disk of the Sun, its open, natural essence, its golden rays, its light, its joy. The Aten is everywhere, beaming down upon the Two Lands and all the people. The Aten is open, candid, lovable, the giver and benefactor of all things, which all men may see whenever they wish to look upward. Amon h
ides: the Aten gleams. And slowly, slowly, ever so carefully, my House has begun in recent years a patient and cautious shifting of emphasis to the Aten, as counterweight to Amon, who needs control but is too strong to be openly challenged, even by us who are the Sons of the Sun in all his manifestations.
Rekh-mi-re, Vizier of my great-grandfather Tuthmose III (life, health, prosperity!), wrote of my great-grandfather that he “saw his person in his true form—Ra, the Lord of Heaven, the King of Upper and Lower Kemet when he rises, the Aten when he reveals himself.” My great-grandfather, like earlier kings of our dynasty, was officially said to have “rejoined the Aten” when he died; before that event he had constructed a temple to the Aten at Heliopolis in the Delta, seat of the cult of Ra-Herakhty, the Sun-God. Under my grandfather, Amonhotep II (life, health, prosperity!), the disk of the Aten became prominently displayed. At his command it carried a pair of enveloping arms to protect the ka, or essence of being, of the land of Kemet, the royal House, and the people. In the reign of my father, Tuthmose IV (life, health, prosperity!), the Aten became officially the god of battles who makes Pharaoh supreme and gives him power over all his dominions—a great universal god whose exalted position in the sky entitles him to rule over the empire of all that his rays shine upon.
Thus slowly but surely the Aten became recognized as a deity separate from Amon. I in my turn have continued the process. I built the modest temple which so incenses Aanen and his fellows. I named Tiye’s barge. I built my palace on the west bank of the Nile near the necropolis, becoming thereby the only Pharaoh ever to defy and prove empty the warnings of Amon and the cult of Osiris, god of the dead, that the west bank must be reserved only to the dead. I have started a new complex of buildings at Medinet Habu, near Malkata, among them another shrine to the Aten. From time to time I make public display of my worship of him; and contemplate, in due course, some further things upon which Tiye and I agree.