by Allen Drury
The wind is rising, the palms are beginning to bend, and whip along the waterfront, the surface of the swiftly flowing Nile grows grayer, more sullen, more roiling, under the scudding clouds. It is a cold and hostile day. And who has made it so? Not I, not Amon. Let those who have look to the consequences before they are destroyed by their folly.
Amon’s justice may take time: but it is very sure.
Pharaohs come and Pharaohs go, boasting (none more than my arrogant brother-in-law) that they will live forever.
But only Amon lives forever.
***
Kaires
Detail—detail—detail. I must be good at it, else Pharaoh and the Great Wife (encouraged, of course, by Aye) would not have entrusted me with the unusual honor of organizing the military guard for the ceremonies.
But of course I know I am good at it: I need not exercise false modesty here in the privacy of the guardhouse that protects the landing where they will presently arrive from Malkata. Of course I am good at it: otherwise I should not already, at thirty, be chief scribe of all Pharaoh’s armies in Upper Kemet, with a future brighter even than that ahead of me if I am shrewd and careful.
And again: of course I am shrewd and careful. Also ceaselessly diligent, infinitely painstaking, endlessly hard-working, fiercely attentive to all my duties, supremely reliable, highly intelligent, highly informed, aware of all that moves in the land of Kemet, even from my distant post at Semneh near the Second Cataract. I make it my business to know: I have my friends in the Palace, throughout the army and in the temples. I travel, I come to Thebes often on army business, now and again I am permitted to go as far north as my favorite Memphis on special inspection trips. I keep an eye on things.
Pharaoh—Queen Tiye—Aye—my oldest friend and mentor in Kemet, Amonhotep, Son of Hapu—all rely upon me. So, too, does Gilukhipa, whom I dare to trust and who, in gratitude for faithful friendship in her lonely life, trusts me as well. So, too, does Sitamon, whom I love but can never marry. This does not diminish the love, which, thanks to Gilukhipa, flourishes. I take great risks in trusting Gilukhipa with this, I know; but I discovered long ago that to beget trust, one gives it.
The daughter of Mittani and I have struck a good bargain. It has been as my friend Amonhotep said to me on that day fifteen years ago when so many things began that we are all still playing out: “Stay wide of Gilukhipa unless you can use her to advance your own ends.” I did not think then that I had “ends” in Kemet—or if I did, they were vague, unformulated, hardly suspected by me—half-dreamed, half-glimpsed, swirling and unreal.
I see many of them more clearly now.
One thing I see very clearly indeed on this brisk and uncomfortable morning when the wind blows sharply off the Nile and we all shiver in Kemet’s coldest winter in recent years: I have been very wise to make two other friends, as well. My big-brotherly companionship when they were tiny—my little notes and gifts and visits as they grew older—my subtly changing attitude, moving deliberately from big-brotherhood to the friendship of equals, to the still easy yet dutifully respectful humility of the trusted servant-familiar, as they grew into adolescence and moved inevitably toward power—all have been exactly right. The Crown Prince and Nefertiti have served my ends, too; and so, I trust, they will continue to do after today’s ceremonies when he becomes Co-Regent, Pharaoh, and God, and she becomes the new Chief Wife, second only to Tiye and destined, I believe, to wield in time an even greater power.
As they rise, so do I intend to rise: because, to put it quite simply, Kemet needs me. The misgivings I had about this House of Thebes when I first arrived have been borne out. It is a difficult House, uneasy at the apex of the power of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Its head is already an ailing man, though only thirty-seven; its heir is a tragically misshapen youth, deformed by who knows what vengeance of ancestors or of Amon; its real ruler is an indomitable woman who yet cannot control her brother Aanen and his priests, nor keep intact without Pharaoh’s help, a society and an Empire which seem to be suffering from a growing internal decay. Order in the land is increasingly challenged by many who escape unpunished, order in the world tips erratically as Kemet tips. How much longer can it continue thus without true disaster coming upon us?
These are most secret thoughts I do not discuss with Gilukhipa or with Sitamon, nor with Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, nor with the Councilor Aye, though I know these last two in particular share them fully. They are not the thoughts one dares speak except to one’s closest intimate. Fortunately I have one, and we engage in much thought and discussion as to how Kemet may best be saved. He is my second in command, my friend, my almost-brother, whose fortune is now committed for life to mine, who will rise or fall with me as Amon ordains. We are bound together inextricably by our love and respect for one another, but even more by our love and concern for Kemet. Together, I think, we will save her, working with all others—and I know they are many—who feel the same.
You will remember the young Theban soldier, scarcely a year younger than I, who stumbled exhausted into the midst of the ceremonies at Karnak on that fateful day to bring word of the death of Tuthmose V. You will remember I took him to Aye’s house for safekeeping. There we became friends, encouraged by Aye, who quietly encourages so many things. The Councilor perceived in him the same careful, diligent qualities, the same deep love for Kemet, as existed in myself. It was Aye who saw to it that the young soldier was assigned to me as my principal assistant when I completed my training as scribe and received (also with Aye’s help) my first assignment with the local garrison in Thebes. It was Aye who suggested to Pharaoh that he keep us together as a team when I moved on to my happy years with the garrison in Memphis, my following assignment in Aswan, and now, in these past three years, my major office as chief scribe of all Pharaoh’s armies in Upper Kemet.
“You and your friend,” the Councilor said to me once, “are two sides of the same coin. Kemet needs you, and you must stay together so that you can help her.”
So we have, and it is to Ramesses alone that I confide these thoughts I have, which today, in spite of the gloomy overcast while Ra withholds himself and makes us shiver, are somewhat lighter and somewhat brighter than they have been in recent months. For we are two who do not regard with misgivings the rise of Amonhotep IV and Nefertiti. We are among those who, despite his handicaps, regard the Crown Prince as the great hope for a resurgent Empire and a glorious new era of strength and stability for Kemet.
Despite his handicaps—or because of them? Who is to say exactly? He was such a handsome and well-favored child to begin with: and then the horror descended. There are some, like Gilukhipa, who say that this has turned him inward, made him dangerous, a potential fanatic who might do harmful things to Kemet. I remember an occasion three years ago when I myself once voiced such fears. Yet with them I expressed the qualification that this might not occur were Amon and the other gods to come to his aid, and to Kemet’s. Gilukhipa still holds to her original fears, but Ramesses and I, watching closely as has everyone around him, have gradually changed our opinion. I am not so worried now, for I think the burden he has to bear, while naturally making him shy, and suspicious to some extent of those better favored, has also strengthened his character in ways most subtle and most profound. It has seemed to us that in the past few months, as his father’s intention to make him Co-Regent has become known and published throughout the land—on another of those handsome large stone scarabs Pharaoh is so fond of, and so loves to scatter broadside to his people on major occasions—the effect has been to make the Crown Prince more steady, more secure, less bothered by his physical deformities, more inclined to embrace necessity as virtue.
“You still have pity in your eyes,” he said to me during my last visit a month ago, unfortunately catching me at it. “You still shrink a little. You must be stronger than that, Kaires: I am. These hips, this belly, these arms, this neck, this long, brooding, solemn visage my countrymen love to call ‘horse-faced’—oh yes, they
do, I hear these things!” he interjected sharply at my raised hand of protest—“these will be my principal means of governance. I am set apart already by divinity: how much more impressive I am now that there is no one—no one, Kaires, in all of Kemet—who looks anything like me. I am unique. All Pharaohs are unique among their fellows by divinity. I am unique in addition because I look unique. It gives me an extra strength. You will see.”
Bravado, desperation, compensation—what? I could not tell, carefully though I examined his expression as he spoke. I do not know now, for sure. But I prefer to think, and Ramesses agrees, that he is finally at peace with himself, that he is no longer intimidated by his deformities: that he is ready to go ahead.
For this, great credit must go to his parents, to Aye, to all of us who have loyally supported and encouraged him. Most of all, it must go to Nefertiti, who has most loved, supported and encouraged him. We live in a time of strong women, in the Eighteenth Dynasty: Hatshepsut—Tuya—Mutemwiya—Tiye—Sitamon—Gilukhipa. This frail little girl who bears in her way, too, a burden, the burden of great and unusual beauty, may yet prove to be the strongest of them all.
I think there was a time, quite brief, when she doubted; when the habit of childhood love, growing slowly into adolescent adoration and then into something more mature, almost broke under the strain of the changes we could all see occurring before our concerned and helpless eyes. But she never spoke of it to anyone, so far as I know, and least of all to him. Her love only became fiercer, more protective, more profound, her sympathy for his ideas more adamant and unyielding. A few of those ideas they have expressed to me, in very guarded fashion. As nearly as I have been able to gather, they have something to do with “strengthening Amon by strengthening the other gods.”
This seems to me a paradox, and one that frankly has worried me to some degree. But again, I have resolved my doubts in their favor. It will be good if the feud between Amon and this House can come peacefully to an end, for it has sent through the land in the years of their growing up a secret current of restlessness, uncertainty, and unease which has not been good for Kemet. It has increased that sense of subtle but insistent decay that has so disturbed Ramesses, myself, Aye, Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, and many, many others. It has sprung from Pharaoh and from Tiye, who have seemed to placate Amon with the one hand while giving him many subtle and insistent challenges with the other.
I am sure sour Aanen thinks of it as nothing but an unmitigated feud, despite the new colonnade and pylon at Karnak, despite the new avenue of ram-headed sphinxes, despite the vast new temple to Amon still building here at Luxor, despite the frequent gifts of gold and jewels that find their way regularly to the altar from Malkata. Aanen of course has a guilty conscience: he cannot forget the murder of Tuthmose V. Neither of course can they, which makes me as suspicious as Aanen of all these favors, which so often have a double edge.
Nonetheless, the whole thing is bad. The royal House and Amon together maintain the order of Kemet, together hold society stable, together rule the Empire. They have been partners for centuries, never more so than in this Eighteenth Dynasty which Amon did so much to help restore after the evil Hyksos were driven from the land. This is the right and immutable way of Kemet, which nothing should be allowed to alter because it was ordained in the Beginning that it will last forever and ever.
It is this which we look to the two children, who today become no longer children, to refurbish and restore. Then all will come right again in Kemet and we will go forward to a future increasingly glorious.
He is unique; so, in considerable measure, is she. Neither has any memory of the murdered brother and cousin, neither has any reason to carry on the feud. Amon, it is true, needs some chastening—it is not the House of Thebes alone which has been guilty of upsetting the balance, by any means. But all we need and pray for is that the balance be restored, that the partnership again be made equal, that trust again flow from Palace to Amon and from Amon to Palace. Then all will be well for us, in all things, again.
Soon they will be coming down the river under the leaden sky, the pomp and color even brighter by contrast, the trumpets and cymbals and loyal shouts of welcome even more ecstatic and impressive against the grayness of the day.
I believe him to be at peace with himself.
I believe this means peace for Kemet.
I resolve my doubts in his favor, and I hold myself ready, as he knows I am, to serve him loyally and faithfully in every way I can.
***
Amonhotep III
(life, health, prosperity!)
I fail. I do not know what it is. Sometimes I think Amon is indeed taking vengeance upon me; yet what have I done to Amon that can possibly match what he has done to me? But I fail: there is no mistaking it. Each day I hope for permanent improvement, each day, tongue in cheek, my brother-in-law and his anthill of priests pray to their god that I grow better. Each day, tongue in cheek, Amon gives them the only answer they dare to have him give and Aanen relates it to me: I will get better.
It is a game we play. But wearisome—wearisome. At least to me. I am sure Aanen and his white-robed hordes enjoy it, as they watch me die.
For dying I may be, I sometimes think. Other times I am not so sure. Quite often I think I may have many years ahead of me. Then come days when my teeth pain, when my body, which has lost its trimness, groans, when arthritis blows into my bones with the wind off the Nile. Some days I can hardly walk, hardly talk. Then comes an easing, a resurgence, a restrengthening. It, too, may last for days, weeks, even months. Then the malaise creeps back. I hobble in misery and think I may die.
I too pray then, though it has been years, now, since I prayed to Amon when I really pray. I pray to Amon in his temples, which are growing bigger and better every day as many thousands of workmen labor under the command of my namesake, Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, to add new hypostyle columns, new statues and the new third pylon at Karnak, additional buildings at Medinet Habu, and, at Luxor, the entire new temple which I have dedicated to the god and to his wife Mut and his son Khons. In private I pray to other gods, principally to the Aten. The Aten understands and, in his beneficence, is kind. Sometimes I pray to him in public, too, and here and there along the Nile and throughout the Empire I have built new temples to him, as well. They are not as magnificent as Amon’s but they are pleasant, light, and airy things. They give me pleasure when I worship in them, and they infuriate Aanen and his fellows. This, too, I think, improves my health: or at any rate, my good nature.
The Aten’s temples are not yet, however, popular with the people. I have conceived of the Aten as, among other things, a symbol of universal unity, drawing all the diverse peoples of the Empire together. But even there Amon still holds the upper hand, for he does not see the need of another to assist him. There is little I can do about it short of an open confrontation, and this I am not well enough to do. Nor am I, indeed, in any position. I have supped too long at Amon’s table, and he at mine, for me to challenge him openly. And I, in any event, am already too old.
Fifteen years ago, when Amon killed my son Tuthmose, the Great Wife and I swore that we would, in time, have vengeance. Now and then in the years immediately following we thought we saw the chance. But each time caution prevailed: sometimes through the intervention of Aye the ever patient, sometimes through my mother, sometimes through Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, and, more lately, through the diplomatically offered but calmly assured and self-respecting opinions of young Kaires, rising fast in my service. And there have been occasions even these did not know about, when Tiye and I might have struck out with fearful force at Amon but were restrained by our own common sense, which also exists.
The moment has never seemed quite right, the opportunity never quite ideal. So we have compromised with stick and carrot, expending vast sums for Amon on the one hand, favoring the Aten, and becoming increasingly formal and remote with Amon on the other; hoping meanwhile that sufficient of the populace would begin to follow our lead so
that the small priesthood of the Aten we have established might grow in size and influence to a point sufficient to balance Amon. So far it has not happened. Amon is too ingrained in Kemet, too intertwined with our House, too much a habit, too loved—and too feared. Loved and feared among the superstitious, I am unhappily forced to acknowledge, perhaps even more than I.
While Kemet has a ruling overlay of the educated, the mature, and the sophisticated, I am afraid the ignorant and superstitious still form the great bulk of our population. The older I grow the more I realize that our royalty rests, our ruling classes rest, on the foundation of the great mass of the illiterate, there below. The aristocracy governs Kemet, but the peasant mass in its mud-brick villages is Kemet. And thus, to them, with all their superstition, ignorance, and habit, the battle with Amon appears no real battle at all, because it is inconceivable to them that Amon could ever be shaken. Amon, and the fellow gods whose priests he has been able to purchase, subvert or enlist, is a part of the universe as immutable as I am. How can my people possibly conceive of a break between us, when I am not strong enough, and did not realize at an age young enough, that break there might ultimately have to be?
This, of course, was because I did not really realize, though instinct and concern for my authority made me restive, how determined Amon was to rule both king and kingdom. I wanted only to restore the balance, I did not want all-out war. When I made Tuthmose—that sweet, innocent little boy!—High Priest of Ptah, it was only to seek a balance. Amon chose to regard it as a declaration of war, and so Tuthmose died, the war’s first but most sensational casualty. Too late then the Great Wife and I realized what we confronted. And, as I say, it has never come right to gain revenge.