A God Against the Gods (24 page)

Amonhotep,
Son of Hapu

It is very still. The campfires are out. No sound comes from the crowded riverbank, the silent river, the once more empty plain. Khons rides above in his silver boat, carrying the souls of the dead through the night sky. It as though the mad dream had never happened, but indeed it has. Khons carries one more passenger tonight, and the world of Kemet is no more the same.

I could not believe my eyes. I could not believe my eyes. Around me the Family and the Court stood thunderstruck, across the vast crowded expanse a moan of horror swept from end to end. Aanen died as he had lived, still screaming imprecations against his nephew. But this time there will be no amends made to Amon, no apologies to the world. Nefer-Kheperu-Ra rules supreme in this hour and no man, not even his father, his fellow god, dares raises his voice to challenge him.

I am growing old in the service of this House. Already I am fifty-four, and I have seen too much already. What more shall I see? What more do I
want
to see? Nothing again such as I have seen today, believe me. Yet I think I may, before the rule of this Good God, and
his
god, is done.

Somewhere down the years we have lost Nefer-Kheperu-Ra: “Akhenaten.” (I wonder how long it will be before that name comes naturally to the tongue? Probably not too long: men adapt to the vagaries of gods, and this one is determined that they will adapt to his.) Whether the murder of his uncle was the wild decision of the moment or a deliberately planned act of policy we will never know, for he will never tell us. But in two awful minutes it has taken Kemet far, very far, in the direction he wants it to go. It has implanted great fear in the land. Whether in time he can translate that fear into love and the basis of a lasting rule, we shall have to see. In time the people, shocked, may change and come willingly his way. But the shock is presently so great that this may never be.

He professes peace: he takes the sword—Kaires’ sword. And that one, poor shattered friend, must somehow find within himself the strength to put it all aside, perform his duties, and go on. He will do so, I think, for Kaires has strength—great strength, which this Pharaoh can appreciate when he bends it to his own purposes. May he appreciate it also should it turn against him, for that, too, may come to pass. If it does, will he bend in turn, and adapt and be wise? If not, I fear for him, for Kaires’ strength is very great.

I wonder, now, if Akhenaten
is
wise. It has been customary in the Family and in the land to refer to him as a youth of great intelligence. So, basically, he is. But with it, maturity, judgment, soundness? Increasingly in recent years I have not been so sure. I am not sure at all, now. The Aten has claimed him, and he may already be so far lost in dream that he can never return again to the ways of men—or even of gods, as Kemet has known them.

One thing is certain: he can never return again to the ways of Amon, for Amon will never forgive what has been done this day. He may not, as he says, directly attack Amon again, but in this one act he has done enough to guarantee that someday, when the chance comes right, Amon will attack him. It may be long in coming, but it will come, for Amon does not forget. From this day Akhenaten must be on guard. As one who still manages to find in my heart a continuing affection for him, I hope for his sake this may always be so. For now there is war, though he may choose to pretend it does not exist, and may wish to fight no further battles in it.

He has his “wonders,” and he has his city. At dawn when Ra, whom we of the Court must now call Aten, first begins to spread his light in the east, the work begins. Bek—his helper Tuthmose—myself, who will be in charge of much of the work—have given the orders, we have mustered the men. Six hours from now we venture out upon the plain, and starting from the great altar at the center (the sands in front of it long since drawn carefully over to conceal the blood), we will build outward in all directions until such time as the city is completed. He wants it in two years or less: if we are lucky we may have it for him in three. All is ready. We will proceed. Akhet-Aten will become reality and occupy the plain.

With it will come many problems, and already my half brother Ramose, still Vizier of Upper Kemet and still worrying endlessly in his conscientious fashion, has begun to fret about them. He, too, has responsibilities: housing and feeding the many thousands of workmen who will build this place, bringing here from Thebes the craftsmen and artisans who will work at our direction to beautify and embellish the city, establishing the quarters where the priests of the Aten—for here, surely, there will be many—will live. Stores, supplies, granaries—foodshops, workshops, wineshops—all the small necessary accompaniments of daily life—Ramose and his scribes with their never ending records will have much to do to keep track of them all. It is no small project to change the capital of a country from its old, established place to another as yet unbuilt. It is, in fact, revolution.

Thus have we wrought with Nefer-Kheperu-Ra “Akhenaten,” we who have always prided ourselves that we were teaching him to be a good Pharaoh worthy of the House of Thebes and a Good God worthy of the land he was born to rule. It is not what we intended, but though we thought we knew him, of course we did not. No one does, save perhaps Nefertiti—or, I suppose, I should say “Nefer-Neferu-Aten.” And I doubt that she does, though she must convince herself of it to be able to stay by his side.

And still I cannot find it in my heart to abandon him, any more than she can. Not only because he has asked me to stay with him here in the new capital, but because I find myself bound to him by strong ties of concern, affection and, yes, love.

In spite of what he has done this day, he is very vulnerable, our Akhenaten. To those of us who have been close to him in the past twenty years he is not the fearsome Pharaoh Kemet now believes him, although of course he could, if he wished, have our heads in a moment, too, just as he had Aanen’s. He is a god, and no power on earth could stop him should he turn against us. But although it now appears more dangerous to be subject to his will, actually, for myself, and I think for the others, it is not. There is a certain element of playing with fire, of lying down with lions, but we feel, perhaps mistakenly, that he likes us too well for us to be afraid. He did not like Aanen, and with good cause: none of us did. Aanen invited disaster and he got it. Akhenaten does not feel that way about us. And even if he did, we would still pity him and, perhaps with a curiously willing compliance, accept whatever fate he might decree for us.

“We would still pity him.” That, I think, is the key to it. He has been through so much in his twenty years. He began his life so beautifully, he was such a handsome, well-favored lad, everything was moving so smoothly and perfectly for him toward a great and happy reign—and then came the dreadful illness, and with it disfigurement, grotesquerie, disaster, pain—an outward and inner hurt from which he has never recovered, and from which, I think, he never will recover. It is not surprising, perhaps, that he should have turned away from the gods who did this to him and turned to a new god he could not consider responsible. It is not surprising that he should wish for all his people the comfort and apparent peace of mind that worship of the bright and open Aten seems to have given to him.

No, I shall not abandon Akhenaten. I look back upon him across the distance of thirty-four years between our ages, and I think: he needs me. He is still, inside, the lonely, frightened boy who sat at my knee to learn the art of the scribe and bombarded me with questions about Kemet and the gods. In some way apart from ceremony, he is not Pharaoh to me: he is almost one of my sons.

He confronts us, and the Two Lands, with a great challenge: we must keep his revolution within bounds. We cannot do it by abandoning him. We must stay close, and soften and gentle where we can.

I stand here in the silent night staring out across the haunted plain where in six hours’ time a great city will begin to rise, and I am not so sure that he is wrong in his worship of the Aten. Amon is old and dark, threatening and fearsome. Perhaps it is time for a gust of fresh air to blow through Kemet. Perhaps it is time for a new light to shine upon the world.

I shall not abandon Akhenaten, though there may be some who will. I shall accept his revolution, observe it, try to understand it—and direct it where and if I have the opportunity, into safe channels. The death of Aanen was a shocking spectacle, but it was caused by the fierce and much-provoked anger of the moment. It does not change him inside. And though, like all, I never expect to know all that is inside, what I do know leads me to decide in his favor.

I pray for him and for Kemet that all will go well for him. Aye is beside him; I am; Kaires, I think, will be, once he has recovered from this day’s deed. Nefertiti (I shall probably never be able to use the new construction of her name: that is too bizarre) will be beside him; his daughters; even, I think, though with many misgivings, Pharaoh and the Great Wife. And perhaps, in time, his people, too, though for the moment they tremble with fear of him from one end of Kemet to the other.

We must go with him. There is no choice.

Now all is still: at dawn his city rises.

His “wonders” are just beginning.

We must welcome them willingly if we would not lose him altogether and drive him irretrievably down pathways most awful for the Two Kingdoms and for him.

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