by Allen Drury
It is a strange experience for Nefertiti, loveliest and—of course!—most serene of women. But I dare say I shall manage to carry it off, as I have all else.
***
Smenkhkara
Soon, now, we go; and it is me he has asked to assist him in the final stages of his dressing. All others have been sent from the room. We are alone.
About the swollen hips I have fastened the pleated golden kilt, on the swollen feet I have strapped the outside golden sandals, around the thin neck I have gently clasped the glittering jeweled pectorals. I have attached the false beard, held by hidden threads to the enormous wig that covers the bulging, elongated skull (which all the girls have inherited). I have carefully draped the striped cloth of gold over the wig and adjusted its folds to frame his face and rest neatly on his chest. He awaits now, to be added at the last moment before the departure, only the heavy golden crook and flail and the enormous, ungainly Double Crown of the Two Kingdoms, which today he will wear.
Today he goes, not living in the truth of being naked as all have seen him so often, but living in the truth of what he is, was born to be, and ever will be: the Living Horus, Son of the Sun, Great Bull, Lord of the Two Lands, King and Pharaoh.
My brother appears in all his splendor today, for he has wonders indeed to announce to Kemet.
An hour ago he sent me to the chambers of the Queen with instructions.
“Tell her we will dress in full regalia. Tell her she need not go naked. The occasion will demand more dignity.”
“I did not know,” my cousin said dryly, “that he had ever considered dignity an obstacle to living in truth. However, tell him I had already determined that I should dress in full regalia, regardless of what he did. So the request is unnecessary.”
Some devil, which I instantly inwardly cursed, prompted me to murmur:
“I took it to be an order, Majesty, not a request.”
For a moment she looked at me sharply. Then her expression softened.
“Smenkhkara,” she said quietly, “you are a nice boy. Don’t spoil it. Don’t let him make you insolent. It will not hurt him, but it could hurt you in the eyes of all who love you.”
“Nefer-Neferu-Aten,” I said with a contrition that suddenly, and to my complete surprise, brought me close to tears, “I did not mean to be insolent, particularly to you. I, too, was surprised when Akhenaten decided to wear his regalia. It has not been like him in these recent years. It is a change.”
“Many things are changing,” she said, giving me a level glance from those serenely beautiful eyes. “He is. I am. Perhaps, Smenkhkara, even you are changing. Is it not so?”
“Cousin—” I began, “Majesty—” And then I fell back on my first, and almost always most successful, line of defense: I laughed, sounding, I think, happy and quite genuinely amused. “I never change! I am always the same, just as you see me, wishing all well and doing harm to no one!”
“I think you think you do not do harm,” she said; and added quietly, almost as if to herself, with a sudden deep sigh, “and perhaps you do not. Perhaps you do good, in your own way: perhaps you do good to him. I do not know.” She swung toward me, on her bench before the polished granite table covered with a hundred tiny cosmetic jars, and looked me full in the face. “Do you know, Cousin?”
For a moment our eyes held, hers lovely, calm and searching, my own, I hope, open, candid and steady. But it was, of course, mine that looked away first.
“No, Cousin,” I replied, voice low, but honest, “I know only that he thinks I do. And I love him, as you do. And so I help him, if I can, as he wants me to do.”
I glanced back furtively then. Still those lovely eyes held mine in steady command, but now I could see that they had filled with tears.
“We do both love him,” she agreed, also very low. “As I think, in a different way, we love each other. That is what makes it—not so easy.”
“I am sorry, Majesty—” I began, a conventional and inadequate sentiment for which I hated myself, but what else was there to say? But her head came up proudly then and she even managed a smile. In spite of the conflicting emotions that tore me, I was still able to marvel, as we all do always, at her self-control.
“Do not be sorry, Cousin,” she said more firmly. “Your heart is kind and good, and there is nothing to be sorry about in that. It is rare enough, in this world.… You may tell Anser-Wossett she can come back in, now. I have almost”—and marvelously she managed a little laugh that sounded quite natural and relaxed—“almost ruined the kohl. And all because of you, you naughty boy! Now run on back and tell His Majesty I shall be ready when he is. And may the Aten keep you.”
“And you, Cousin,” I said, and bowed low and backed out of her presence; finding to my amazement my own eyes filled again with tears, my voice again choked with emotion, so that I was unable to speak but could only gesture to the Lady Anser-Wossett. She bowed gravely, her face expressionless but, I felt, understanding more than she ever acknowledges, and went it. The door closed and I was alone—suddenly, I felt, terribly, terribly alone. She is so good … and I am—what?
Standing in the empty corridor, I leaned my arm against the wall, my head against my arm, and gave way to a sudden grief that swept my body and completely astounded me. This weeping thing Smenkhkara the always confident and laughing? This shaken, weakling boy the God Smenkhkara? Oh no, oh no…! but, as I knew with a cold and certain anguish beneath my desperately strangled sobs, Oh yes … oh yes.
Mercifully no dignitary of the Court passed by, no servant blundered in, during the five minutes or so that it took me to regain control of myself. Presently I was able to brush the tears from my eyes, open them very wide, dash them with water from a drinking jug that stood nearby against the wall. Then I took a deep breath and went back, by side corridors and devious pathways, to the dressing room of my brother, who gave me a single sharp and penetrating look, stopped readjusting his kilt in front of the full-length mirror he has kept with him ever since his illness, and came toward me, arms outstretched.
Again I collapsed and sobbed, hating myself but helpless, this time against the thin but iron-hard chest, until at last the storm was over. Gently he released me, put a hand under my chin, raised my face until we stared at one another eye to eye.
“Smenkhkara,” he said softly, “if you do not wish—”
“Oh no!” I cried, and again dissolved to tears, which I despised but could not stop. “Oh no, my brother—” and I fell to the floor, I hated that, too, but I could not help myself, I clasped his legs with my arms. “I wish! I wish!”
“Then,” he said, his voice kindly but matter-of-fact, “I suggest you remember all the vast dignity of our ancient and royal House and rise like the god you are and beam upon me with your usual sunny likeness to Ra the Aten who smiles upon all things. Come now, get up! I need help with this accursed outfit which looks so impressive but takes so much bother. Today I must look every inch the god, because today”—his voice lost its jesting note and dropped abruptly to a somber and serious level, for the moment I might as well not have been there at all—“today I bring to my god a gift which will make all men marvel and make them realize at last that they must worship him, who is my Father, and me, who am his Son. Today we shall be truly worshiped and adored. Today we shall be recognized. From this time forward Akhenaten and his Father Aten will at last take their rightful places over the earth, over the water, and in the sky. I, Akhenaten, decree it!”
“Yes, Brother,” I said, my face still stained with tears, my voice still shaking with emotion. “It will be a wondrous thing.”
“It will,” he said with a conviction so calm that I did not realize until later that for the first time, ever, he had used the words I decree it.… “Now, help me. And later, after the day is ended, we will talk together quietly of your laughter and your tears.” He smiled and again placed his hand under my chin and raised my eyes to his. “Perhaps,” he added softly, “I may be able to banish the tea
rs, which disturb me, and restore the laughter … which delights … my weary days.”
And for a moment, on these last words, which he said with such a sad and heavy emphasis—“my weary days”—he looked so gorgeous in his regalia and so lost and desolate in his eyes that a great wave of love and pity swept my heart and my body: and I knew then that from now on I would do, always, whatever he desires.
“Yes, Son of the Sun,” I said humbly. “It will be as you say.”
***
Akhenaten
(life, health, prosperity!)
There is a small window, concealed by golden draperies, just at the beginning of the arch that leads from my private apartments to the Window of Appearances. Here I often stand for a few moments before we go out, so that I may estimate the size of the crowd and gauge its mood.
Normally it is not as numerous as I would like, though I have long ago grown used to that: for one thing, the street is narrow and cannot accommodate too many, and for another, they just don’t come. And usually the mood, which the Family and the Court assure me (I do not know why they still pretend to me: I do not pretend to myself) is wildly welcoming, is far more often one of dutiful boredom, laced now and again with a sly and almost evil curiosity. It as though they were saying to one another, as indeed I expect they are, “What is Horse Face up to now? What crazy ‘wonder’ will he offer us today?”
These are, of course, my subjects among the common folk. The members of the Court have a much more specific curiosity.
“Whom will he honor today? Who gets the gold pectorals and bracelets this time? What lucky soul will go home luckier still, his hands burdened down with the jewels our odd King flings down so carelessly from his window? Will it be you? Me? Or that completely unworthy and worthless one over there?”
It draws them like flies. I can always be assured of a basic audience. The hopefuls are always here.
Today I am at my secret aperture a little early, for Smenkhkara, overcoming his tearful spell—which disturbed me, for I do not know the reason and he would not tell me—has dressed me quickly and efficiently and gone to his palace to change to his own ceremonial garb. It gives me a little time to read over what I intend to say (the heart of it in my own hand, as I have written and rewritten it to perfection over many days and weeks) and to prepare myself for the ordeal of appearing in public.
For it is an ordeal still, though they know it not.
I still do not like to be watched, to be studied, to be made fun of; and all of these, of course, occur. I suppose I shall never get used to it, though I have ruled for a decade, had six daughters—seven—and been on almost constant public display all my life, saving the dark period of my ailment. I am King, Pharaoh, Good God, Living Horus—and I am also an object. I will never really enjoy it, Father Aten, even with your help. Never.
Yet, of course, it must be done; and today it must be done, as I am doing it, with an extra pomp and splendor.
Today they must take notice.
And they will, for today I have much for them.
There is firstly the news of Kaires, which will give him new stature and raise him to new power and dignity at my right hand. I believe this to be best for me and best for Kemet. It is also best for him. I am trusting that he will be grateful and will not betray me. My “big brother” has always been a constant in my life and I expect him to continue. My mother, I know, considers it something of a gamble. But Nefertiti agrees with me, and although we are not now quite the single heart and single breath we have been all our lives, I still trust her judgment in many things.
I try to reflect at times—you know, Father Aten, how often I have discussed this with you—upon the reasons for the subtly growing rift that has come between us, but I usually wind up baffled. I thought at first it might be my union with Merytaten, though to me—and I think to my daughter, though she never said and I am not sure—it was a perfectly natural attempt to secure for myself a son and so pass on the blood of Ra in direct line from myself to the Double Crown. That the child was born sickly and soon died did not disturb me unduly, for it was simply the failure of a purpose that can be duplicated easily, though not, I am afraid, with Merytaten, who appears to have been injured in some way. Now, if it had been a son I had lost, I should have been seriously upset. As it was, it was forgotten in a day—by me, at least, though not, perhaps, by either my wife or my daughter.
Merytaten is a fierce and ambitious little girl. I feel she resents me now, yet in some curious way I think she resents her mother even more. I once overheard her cry out bitterly, “Why did you let him—” But then they heard me shuffling along the corridor. Voices were abruptly hushed. When I entered the room they were placidly knitting and chatting of innocuous things.
It was, in any event, a stupid question.
It was not a matter of anyone “letting” me.
How could anyone stop me?
Nor, when it comes to that, as presently it will, can anyone stop me with Meketaten, or if that fails with Ankhesenpaaten, or with Nefer-Neferu-Aten Junior, or with Nefer-Neferu-Ra or with Set-e-pen-ra, if it comes to that. They are all my daughters, I am their father, I do it only with love in my heart, for them, for our House and for Kemet—and above all, for you, Father Aten—and I know they understand this.
So I do not worry.
Nonetheless, I think it may have had some effect upon Nefertiti. I sense a withdrawal, slight but inescapable. Now she wants her own palace and I have ordered it for her. Yet surely she has no just cause for complaint. I have tried six times to have a son with her and six times she has failed me. I am not going to banish her, as some of my fellow monarchs in other less progressive and enlightened lands might do in such a circumstance. She will always be my Chief Wife, Queen of the Two Lands, my first and still … I think … my only love. What excuse does she have to be upset?
I have, as I say, puzzled over it many times. The only thing I have been able to conclude is that she did not like the secrecy of it. She must have felt that this was in some way degrading, that if whispers of it got about the people would consider that I had done it against her will and over her protest—that for the first time we were not in agreement on an act of major policy—that for the first time, we were not living in truth.
She should be pleased, then, with what I have to say on that subject today.
Not today, but in due course, I shall also live in truth about the other matter which I suspect upsets her; though that I shall discuss privately but directly with her first, as befits her dignity as Chief Wife and Queen of the Two Lands. I believe she will understand, knowing that she is still first in my heart and that the one who has come to dwell there now holds a place that may perhaps sometime equal, but can never surpass, her own. I do not think she will begrudge me that. I do not see logically how she can.
It is not as though my younger brother were a stranger to me or to this House. It is not as though he were an ignorant peasant or a bored soldier or a dirty street boy. He, too, is of the blood of Ra; and his is a disposition so carefree and outgoing, a nature so decent and kind, and a physical presence so perfect, that it seems to me only fitting that he should become the beloved of the Good God—for in him the Good God sees himself, not as he is now but as he once was. And so in him I love myself.
Thus was I, before my illness struck. Thus was I, before horror came and my world turned upside down. Thus was I, before I became monster, grotesque, “Horse Face” and all the other bitter things my people call me—and which, in moments of darkest despair, I call myself.
Smenkhkara is myself as I was and as I would have been, had the gods who chose to betray me permitted. He laughs for me, he runs for me, he leaps for me, he is beautiful for me. He is me. I am he. In him I see myself, youthful and perfect and golden and beloved by all, as I might have been—as I should have been, but for the gods. I hunger for that perfection, which now I shall never have, as I hunger for sons, which also I may never have. And so I intend to take him to mys
elf, hoping that in such a union Akhenaten may find what he has never found but always seeks: happiness, at last, and peace of mind.
Is this too much for a god to ask? It is not denied the simplest peasant in my realm. There is scarcely a one who is not happy in his simple life, who does not sing and joke as he goes cheerfully about his work in the fields. There is scarcely a slave in my household, or in any noble house, who does not have, if not perfect happiness, at least far more than I. There is not an artisan, laboring over his scarabs or his sculptures or his paintings, who does not exceed me in contentment. From the Delta to the Fourth Cataract, I am surrounded by happy people. It is only their King who is denied this. In the youth who is myself as I was meant to be, I intend to find it, if I can.
In this I mean no slight or hurt to Nefertiti, though I am afraid that already, even before the fact, she is choosing to take it so. It is no reflection on her that she is not the mirror image of what I should have been. This is something aside from, and beyond, the love she and I have always had for one another from our earliest days. She has been my constant companion, my beloved wife, my faithful supporter in my worship of you, Father Aten. She has not given me sons, though she has tried; it is not her fault that the gods, vindictive toward me still, should have remained adamant on that. Even you, Father Aten, have not been strong enough to overcome the other gods—yet. But you will.
You will.
And so I must discuss this with Nefertiti very soon, for very soon—probably tonight—I intend that it will happen. I know she will understand. She loves me. I love her. And we both love and trust in you, Father Aten. How, therefore, can there be friction?
Bless my union with Smenkhkara, Father Aten. Keep strong my union with Nefertiti. Make fruitful with sons my unions with my daughters. Permit Akhenaten, your son, to find his happiness, which he has never had in twenty-five years upon this earth. Help him in this, Father Aten, and he will continue to glorify and strengthen you in all things.