by Paul Doherty
Once Meryre had finished his gabbling, Ay sat quietly, as if reflecting on the prayer.
‘My lords.’ He lifted his arms, spreading his hands as if to intone a chant. ‘My lords, look around. This chamber represents all of Egypt.’
A few glanced about them; the rest watched Ay.
‘We must acknowledge,’ Ay continued, ‘that the move to the City of Aten proved to be a mistake, but the will of Pharaoh was paramount and we had no choice but to obey.’
A chorus of assent greeted his words. Ay was chanting a hymn we all recognised, every letter, every syllable, so we always joined in the chorus.
‘The cities of Egypt have suffered,’ Ay continued, ‘their temples neglected, their courtyards overgrown, their treasuries empty.’ His voice grew stronger. ‘Our armies, except for that of Memphis,’ he smiled at Horemheb, ‘lack supplies, weapons and recruits. Soldiers desert in droves, their officers no longer care, the barracks are empty. Worse still, Egypt’s enemies, the People of the Nine Bows, grow more insolent and arrogant.’
Horemheb clapped his hands, nodding fiercely, gazing round, challenging any to contradict Ay’s words.
‘Outlaws and bandits prowl the Red Lands,’ Ay continued. ‘Our mines in Sinai are constantly attacked, whilst fresh news comes about unrest in Kush, whose princes forget to pay the tribute due to the Great House of Egypt.’
I sat, eyes half closed, listening to the litany of Egypt’s woes. The breakdown in trade, the empty treasuries, low morale amongst the troops, rebellions and revolts in this city or that province, the growing threats from across Sinai where Egypt’s client states in the land of Canaan now ignored Pharaoh’s writ and fought amongst themselves. To the north of Canaan a great empire was rising. The Hittite princes were becoming more and more absorbed by Egypt’s weaknesses, ever ready to encroach on borders, threatening to sweep south and occupy the rich valley lands and sea plain of Canaan. I was tempted to interrupt Ay’s speech, but recognised what he was doing. He was reminding us that we were all responsible for Egypt’s loss of greatness. At last he finished and sat, hands in his lap, head down.
After some time he looked up. ‘What is the greatest danger?’
‘Aziru!’ Horemheb spat the name out.
‘Aziru,’ Ay echoed, nodding wisely.
‘A prince of Canaan,’ Horemheb continued. ‘We know he undermines our allies, how he supports the Hittites. Our one great ally there, Rib-Addi, King of Byblos,’ he gestured across to Tutu, Akenhaten’s fervent chamberlain, ‘sent letter after letter begging for help, for just one chariot squadron. Even that letter was never answered, never shown to anyone.’
‘Like you,’ Tutu leaned forward, face contorted with fury, ‘I took my orders from Pharaoh!’
‘Didn’t you advise him?’ Rameses taunted.
‘Yes, and so did you,’ Tutu retorted. ‘But Pharaoh’s will was manifest. No troops were to cross Sinai. Our allies were to settle their own problems. Akenhaten planned to go along the Horus Road and bring the word of Aten to his allies.’
‘Nonsense,’ Horemheb bawled. ‘Akenhaten made a vow he would never leave his city.’
The rest of the circle were drawn into the shouting match of accusation and counter-accusation. Ay glanced at me, then looked away: eventually he clapped his hands and kept doing so until all conversation ceased.
‘Rib-Addi is dead.’ His words were greeted by a low moan. Horemheb would have sprung to his feet but Rameses gently pushed him back on to the cushions. ‘The messenger brought the news. Aziru has attacked Byblos, his troops have sacked the city. Rib-Addi was caught, his throat was slashed like a sacrificial goat and he was hung over the main gateway.’
‘But our ally Tushratta, King of the Mitanni?’ Horemheb protested. ‘Khiya, mother of the Prince Tutankhamun, was his daughter. He promised us help.’
‘The Mitanni dare not move.’ Ay shook his head. ‘The Hittites have sworn a great oath. If the Mitanni intervene in Canaan so will they.’
‘Then we must send troops,’ Rameses urged. ‘Bring fire and sword to Canaan.’
‘Will we?’ Ay snapped his fingers and gestured at Maya. ‘How much silver and gold do we have, Treasurer?’
‘Enough for a twenty-day campaign,’ Maya replied, ‘and then nothing.’
‘Well, General Rameses?’ Ay glared at Horemheb’s ally. ‘How far do you think we’ll go on twenty days’ gold and silver; which troops shall we send?’
‘There’s the Horus and Isis regiments at Memphis,’ Rameses protested. ‘Foot soldiers and chariot squadrons, not to mention the Ra—’
‘Ah.’ Ay raised his hands in a gesture of surprise. ‘So we dispatch across Sinai the only three regiments we can trust, led by the only two senior generals—’
‘We can trust.’ Huy finished the sentence.
Horemheb and Rameses fell silent.
‘If we send the Horus and Isis,’ Ay sighed, ‘all we will have left are our mercenaries and Nakhtimin’s imperial regiment. If we faced revolt or mutiny here,’ he shrugged, ‘how long would any of us survive?’
‘We must wait,’ Maya intervened. ‘The temples and palaces must be restored, the treasuries filled, the allegiance of every regiment guaranteed. Until then our allies in Canaan must look after themselves.’
‘Wait!’ Horemheb shouted. ‘Wait!’ He turned and glared at me. ‘Mahu, you are Chief of Police, and Overseer of the House of Secrets. Internal security is your concern.’
‘Is it now?’
‘You sit there silent,’ Rameses taunted. ‘As if half asleep. Still dreaming about the glory days, Mahu?’
I held Ay’s gaze. I was his ally. He knew that I knew it was not for any liking. We were just men manacled together. We had no choice in the matter. We either stayed together or fell together.
‘Mahu the dreamer,’ Rameses repeated.
‘General Rameses!’ I paused.
‘We wait with bated breath,’ my tormentor murmured.
‘General Rameses, you are a dead man. No, don’t let your hand near that dagger you’ve hidden beneath your robes. Don’t you realise?’ I answered his furious look with my own. ‘Every man in this chamber is a dead man! God’s Father Ay sings the hymn and we know the chorus. Each of us was a friend of Akenhaten, he whom the priests of Amun-Ra and Thebes now call the Great Heretic. We are blamed for what has happened.’ I gestured towards the windows. ‘Ask Sobeck. Wander the streets of Thebes, if you dare. There are men who would pay good gold to see your head, and mine, pickled in a barrel! They would love to either impale us alive or bury us in the hot sands of the Red Lands.’
‘If we had followed the Aten?’ Meryre intervened. ‘If we had kept faithful to our master’s vision?’
‘Shit!’ Rameses shouted. ‘It’s because we followed that vision.’ His voice faltered.
‘That’s right, General Rameses,’ I agreed. ‘Because of that, we are now in crisis. We are so weak, we daren’t even let you out of our sight, not to mention your precious regiments. I have reports of unrest from the Delta to beyond the Third Cataract: conspiracies, covens, disaffected officers, treasonable mayors. Did you know certain powerful ones are seriously considering asking the Mitanni or the Hittites to intervene in Egypt?’
‘Never!’ Maya protested.
‘True,’ I replied. ‘We have no names, yet in every city along the Nile, from the Third Cataract to the Great Green, treason and treachery bubble like water in a pot.’
‘So what do you advise?’ Horemheb asked quietly. ‘That we should be careful?’
I stretched out my arms. ‘On the one hand we have those who hate us because we followed the Great Heresy. And on the other,’ I glared at Meryre, Tutu and others of their coven sitting across the council chamber, ‘there are those who hate us because we deserted the Aten, the Great Heretic’s vision. We have no friends, no allies.’ I gestured at Anen, Ay’s kinsman, who had been installed as High Priest of Amun-Ra in Thebes. ‘He is our high priest, yet he dare not even officiate i
n his own temple. Have you heard of the Shabtis?’
‘Shabtis?’ Rameses mocked. ‘Statues put in a tomb?’
‘Statues put in a tomb,’ I echoed, ‘to represent the servants who will serve their master when he reaches the Fields of the Blessed beyond the Far Horizon.’
‘Come to the point,’ Horemheb growled.
‘I am Chief of Police, and rightly so. All I know is that there is a group, a secret society who call themselves the Shabtis of Akenhaten. Fanatical followers who believe we deserted their master and so should pay for our treachery with our lives.’
The council chamber fell ominously silent.
‘You haven’t heard of them,’ I continued wearily, ‘because so far their victims have been minor officials.
Priests who served the Aten, scribes educated in its House of Life, merchants and nobles who journeyed to the city of Aten; all are regarded as traitors. At first I noticed no pattern; just another death in Thebes, I thought when I read the reports: a man stabbed here, a boating accident, a fall from a roof, a tainted cup of wine, something in the food which disagreed with them. In the last five months,’ I held up my hand, ‘there have been at least ten such deaths, and the one thing all the victims had in common was that they once served our Pharaoh in the city of Aten before returning to Thebes.’
‘Grudges and grievances,’ Rameses scoffed.
‘Perhaps, perhaps not, General Rameses. But if I were you, I would keep your bodyguard close and your hand not very far from that knife beneath your robes.’
‘So what do you recommend?’ Ay’s words came like a whisper.
‘Swift action, my lord. The Prince Tutankhamun …’ I paused and smiled. ‘See, we’ve even changed his name, and that of his intended wife. No longer are they pleasing to the Aten, but as Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun their names now bear that of the God of Thebes.’
‘Empty gestures,’ Maya grumbled.
‘Every gesture is important,’ I retorted. ‘We must issue decrees saying that the old ways are to be restored. Such decrees should be posted in every city along the Nile.’
‘And?’ Ay asked.
‘The Kushites should be threatened. The silver and gold tribute must be restored. Merchants must be given every help, the Nile patrolled by marines. Bandits and outlaws are to be summarily executed, their bodies impaled along the river banks as a warning to others. Desert patrols must be increased, marauding Libyans and sand-dwellers taught a brutal lesson: fire and sword, no prisoners taken.’
Horemheb and Rameses were nodding enthusiastically.
‘And here in Thebes?’
I could tell from Ay’s face that he agreed, but he was holding something back. The scroll the messenger had handed to him was still grasped in one hand.
‘Anyone found guilty of treason should face summary execution. Those we can’t trust should be removed from office and dispatched elsewhere. Every one of us here, every official, scribe and officer, must take an oath of allegiance to our new Pharaoh Tutankhamun.’
‘But he is not crowned!’ Huy intervened.
‘He should be, and the sooner the better,’ I retorted, ‘and his marriage to Princess Ankhesenamum proclaimed the length and breadth of the Two Kingdoms.’
‘And Canaan?’ Horemheb asked.
‘Let the pot bubble for a while.’ I wetted my lips. ‘Let us dispatch letters to Aziru proclaiming him to be our friend, our ally. Let us send him as much gold and silver as we can, a token of our great favour.’
‘And?’ Ay asked.
‘Invite him to Egypt and blind him. A warning to all traitors in Canaan.’
Horemheb and Rameses were with me. Maya looked disgruntled as, in his mind’s eye, he measured out all the gold and silver this would cost. Huy remained impassive; Meryre, Tutu and others of the Aten coven looked sullen as ever. One day we would have to deal with them; as Ay had whispered to me, those who were not with us were against us, yet these men still commanded troops and had friends amongst the imperial general staff.
‘Very good, very good,’ Horemheb murmured. ‘But won’t you stir up a hornet’s nest?’ He laughed sharply. ‘Here we are, dyed-in-the-wool Atenists, now demanding the loyalty and allegiance of those who bitterly oppose us, who blame us for Egypt’s present ills.’
‘Forget the past,’ Ay retorted. ‘Let us act as if there was no Akenhaten.’ He ignored the hiss of disapproval from Meryre and Tutu’s hateful glance. ‘Let our young prince be proclaimed as Pharaoh, the legitimate heir and successor of his grandfather, Amenhotep III the Magnificent.’
‘Like that?’ Tutu smacked his hands together. He had risen to a half-crouch. He clapped his hands again. ‘Like that, Mahu?’ he repeated. ‘As if the Great Vision did not exist?’
‘A dream,’ I replied, ‘a nightmare. We were all led astray; now we have returned to the path of truth. We speak with one true voice. We have won the favour of the old gods. Once again Ma’at will rule from the Great Green to beyond the Fourth Cataract.’
‘We will still be blamed!’ Maya shouted.
‘Will we?’ Ay declared. ‘Give a man a good meal, let him drink deep of the wine, and he’ll soon forget his hunger and his thirst.’
‘You have decided on this, haven’t you?’ Meryre shouted. ‘You and your …’ He gestured at me. ‘Your Baboon of the South.’
‘We have discussed this,’ Ay agreed, smiling. ‘We see no other path forward. What do you recommend, my lord? That we all troop down to the Nile and take a barge upriver, back to the City of the Aten?’
‘I object,’ Meryre bellowed.
‘We will compromise,’ Ay declared soothingly. ‘It’s best if Tutankhamun, at least for a while, was moved from Thebes. Let him return to the City of the Aten until,’ he gestured with his fan, ‘Ma’at, truth and harmony are restored. Look, my lords.’ Ay turned in his chair to address Meryre and his coven. ‘The worship of the Aten will not be proscribed; he is just one God amongst many.’ He gestured across the Royal Circle. ‘Our proposal has the support of many. Generals Horemheb and Rameses will bring the other regiments down to Memphis and Thebes; their ranks will be purged, incompetent officers, derelict in their duty, asked to retire.’
‘You mean those owing allegiance to the Aten?’ Meryre asked.
‘No capable officer will be dismissed,’ Horemheb responded.
‘Well, that’s our plan.’ Ay unrolled the scroll. ‘Or at least it was, but I have some news for you which will cast a shadow over all our well-laid schemes.’
‘My lord?’ Huy asked.
‘According to this,’ Ay shook his piece of papyrus, ‘Pharaoh Akenhaten has returned to Egypt.’
neka
(Ancient Egyptian for ‘a serpent fiend’)
Chapter 2
For a while the council chamber echoed with cries and shouts. I could only gape at Ay. Horemheb and Rameses sat shocked. Meryre, however, sprang to his feet, screaming at Ay.
‘Why didn’t you tell us immediately? Why now?’ Even then I thought he was overacting!
Ay’s gaze shifted to me, a faint smile on his lips. The wily mongoose! He’d kept this information back to shock us but only after he had reminded us that in the eyes of many we were reviled as traitors, the cause of Egypt’s downfall, cursed by both factions, those who hated Akenhaten as well as those who supported him. The only reason we hadn’t lost our heads or been hung from the Wall of Death was that we still held power, the reins of the chariots firmly gripped in our hands. Whatever happened, we were damned and damned again. If Akenhaten had returned, he’d show little mercy to those he’d once considered his friends, who had betrayed his Great Vision.
‘But he’s dead! He’s dead!’ Rameses sprang to his feet, his face contorted with fury, his screams drowning out the rest of the cries and shouts. ‘Akenhaten is dead! He has to be dead!’
‘Is he?’ Meryre yelled back. ‘Where’s his corpse? Where?’
The question stilled the clamour. Meryre had raised the spectre of all our nig
htmares. Ay held up his hand for silence.
‘Let us,’ he announced, ‘tell you what we know. An impostor, yes,’ he continued stilling the clamour, ‘an impostor has emerged out of the deserts of Sinai claiming to be the Pharaoh Akenhaten, proclaiming himself “Beautiful as the Forms of Ra, the Unique One of Ra”. He is accompanied by a woman who claims to be Nefertiti. They hold the Imperial Cartouche and are issuing proclamations under those seals. They fly the standards and pennants of the Aten. They first appeared in the Delta supported by Hittite mercenaries.’
‘Mercenaries?’ Horemheb jibed. ‘You mean troops loaned to them by the Hittite king?’
‘They have taken Avaris in the Delta,’ Ay said baldly.
Now he had our attention. A horrified silence. If this pretender was at Avaris then he could sail down the Nile, his flanks protected by troops, and seize the great cities of Egypt.
‘We have troops there,’ Rameses murmured.
‘The pretenders have been accepted by General Ipumer and the Ptah regiment,’ Ay countered. ‘The troops were easily suborned by gifts of gold. Elements of the Hekhet and Basta regiments have also gone over to them. According to reports they have reached the Red Mountains.’
‘Why didn’t we know before?’ Huy demanded.
‘They moved quickly,’ Ay explained. ‘They freed the slaves at the Roiau quarry and impaled the royal overseer there; his son escaped to Memphis, that’s how we know.’
I gazed across at a wall painting depicting Tuthmosis IV in battle against vile Asiatics; Pharaoh, triumphant, driving his blue and gold chariot pulled by dark, blood-red horses over the bodies of the slain against a glorious background of ivory yellow. At the bottom of the picture the artist had depicted one of the enemy caught in a thicket. The man’s eyes seemed to stare at me, that horrified surprise of a human being trapped by death. We were caught in a thicket, I reflected. Was this how it would end?