Return to Thebes (13 page)

Akhenaten
(life, health, prosperity!)

Can it be hope I feel, after all these awful months? I can scarcely imagine it. Yet do I still have sufficient faith in the word of Nefertiti that I believe it must be so.…

Only you and I, Father Aten, know the agonies I have gone through since they came to me with word of my brother’s death. The reason was never officially discovered, but for the two of them to die so swiftly and so horribly there could be but one explanation. Someone saw fit to poison them: someone very close to me. I scarcely dare admit to myself it was at the order of my mother, my uncle and my cousin Horemheb, yet there is no other sensible conclusion. Is it any wonder I have retreated into myself to nurse my awful pain and loneliness as best I could? I have not dared do other, for daily I have lived in fear that presently they would come for me.

The Living Horus, Great Bull, Son of the Sun, He Who Has Survived, Living in Truth Forever, Nefer-Kheperu-Ra Akhenaten, King and Pharaoh of the Two Lands—cowering like a thief in his own palace, terrified of his own family! Father Aten, it has been dreadful for me. Still, I could do no other.

For the seventy days it took to embalm him, I ventured out only to supervise the process. So terrible was my obvious grief that no one ventured to speak to me, let alone harm me, then. I was enwrapped in grief, engulfed in grief, drowned forever, it seemed to me, in grief. I do not recall now whether I even knew when Ra rose in the east and set in the west during those endless interwoven days and nights: It seems to me only a long, gray blur in which I came and went between the House of Vitality, where the rites went on, and the Palace. Priests of the Aten accompanied me wherever I went, chanting their dirges for the dead. Frequently, for hours at a time, I could not even move, but only lay weeping on the floor before the sculpture of that beloved head that Tuthmose completed for me only a week before he died. I could not believe he was gone, my little brother who grew to be such a comfort to my heart and such a strength to my being. But he was: he was.

The mummification of Merytaten I left to others. I scarcely knew when it was completed, gave to Nefertiti and my mother (how could she have the courage, the effrontery and the heartlessness?) the task of presiding over her final going beneath the ground in the Royal Wadi in the eastern hills of Akhet-Aten. I was notified that it had occurred, but that was only a day before I had to preside at my own grief-filled ceremony. I barely noticed: my daughter’s going moved me very little. I never liked her particularly. She was simply a convenience who, like her mother, could not even bear me a son. She was useful to keep the domestics of the Palace in line: that was all.

To Smenkhkara, however—even now it cuts me like a knife to say that name—I gave the most tender and most loving entombment he could possibly have desired. The memory of his sunny nature, always open, generous, undemanding, comforting, supported even as it devastated me. I got through it somehow and arranged it so that all who come after will know how much he meant to me.

I used one of the coffins originally prepared for Merytaten, for there had been no time to prepare one suitably ornate for him. Around the head of the one to whom I had given Nefertiti’s name of Nefer-neferu-aten and the title, “Beloved of Akhenaten,” I caused to be placed the sheet-gold vulture that usually bedecks the crown of a Queen: the golden wings will protect him forever. His body I caused to be mummified, not with arms crossed over the chest like a King’s as though to carry scepters, but as a Queen with his left hand closed upon his breast and his right arm stretched along his side: thus will all know the position he held in my life. And at the foot of his coffin I caused to be inscribed, as if from him to me—as the God who will someday raise him from the afterworld—the prayer I composed myself in one of those occasional curious periods of detachment that come in the midst of deepest grieving:

“I shall breathe the sweet air that issues from thy mouth. My prayer is that I may behold thy beauty daily, that I may hear thy sweet voice belonging to the North Wind, that my body may grow young with life through thy love; that thou mayest give me thy hands bearing thy sustenance and I receive it and live by it; and that thou mayest call upon my name forever and ever and it shall not fail in thy mouth.”

Thus will all know how tenderly and eternally he touched my heart.

Then I came away to return here to the Great Palace and resume the seclusion from which I have not, from that day to this, gone forth.

At first I took no interest at all in government. Aye, Horemheb and Nakht-Min came to me as in a recurring dream, their words meaningless, their reports incomprehensible. Somehow Kemet continued to be governed, by them but not by me. I knew this was wrong, that I should bestir and reassert myself, but a great lethargy held my heart.

And in spite of what I sensed about their part in the murder of my brother, I felt that I could trust them: I was still the Living Horus, and none, not even they who had wounded me so deeply, would dare betray me.

More lately, I have not been so sure: but still the grief and lethargy have held me prisoner. I have eaten less and less, grown thinner and more grotesque. With increasing carelessness I have allowed my physical appearance and cleanliness to decline. Again, I have known this was not right, that pride and the dignity of Pharaoh should require me to do otherwise. But again, the great pain and dullness have made me listless and uncaring.

So it has gone until a few short days ago. I do not know exactly what inspired the turning point, unless it was my surviving brother and now my heir, who came to me with a childish concern because he had not seen me for many months. Timidly he came alone in his chariot, surrounded by soldiers, from the North Palace where he lives with Nefertiti. Timidly he sent in word that he was here and asked to be admitted to my presence. My first instinct was to say no, as I have refused, until today, all requests from my wife. Then something made me relent, some memory of my own childhood, a realization of how little, how lonely and how lost he must feel in the midst of all these violently unhappy grownups; and so I reconsidered and bade them bring him in.

“Brother,” he began, after he had prostrated himself dutifully at my feet and I had raised him up, “Your Majesty—how are you?”

It was asked very simply and directly, as befits a child; and it revived with a sudden rush all the affection I have always felt for little Tut, who was such a happy baby and now has been made tense and over-old by all that has happened in his eight brief years.

“I am not well, Brother,” I responded, beckoning him to sit beside me on the empty throne—the first of the only two I have so honored—“but your visit makes me feel better.”

“Oh,” he said, eyes wide and earnest, “I am
so
glad. We have all been worried about you.”

“Have you?” I asked with a smile, though I hardly believed it—at least not of my mother, Aye and Horemheb. “You are very kind.”

“I have brought you a present to make you happy,” he said, and held out a brown little hand, clenched tight. Slowly he unfolded it, eyes gleaming with excitement, to reveal an exquisite pale blue faience pendant of the god Thoth in his aspect of the baboon. I still have a liking for Thoth, whose priesthood in the old days was quite small and never any real threat to me; and besides, he is the god of wisdom, scribes, learning and the arts, all of which I have respected and encouraged all my life. But I did not at once accept the gift, for through my mind there ran a sudden terrible warning:

Beware! They killed Smenkhkara with poison. Perhaps they have sent this innocent child to wreak their evil upon you. Beware!

“It is beautiful,” I said, keeping my voice calm but not for the moment taking it from his hand.

“Why don’t you take it?” he inquired in a puzzled tone, his eyes concerned. “It will not hurt you.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, unable to keep the concern from my voice.

“Look!” he said. “It does not hurt me.”

And he lifted it, turned it over, shook it, placed it next to his face, sniffed it, licked it—all with a deliberate and knowing air that made me realize sadly that even at his age he must have come to understand the evil of his elders and the method they used to wreck my life.

“No,” I agreed, smiling as I took it from his hand, “it does not hurt you and you have bravely proved that it will not hurt me. I shall treasure it and wear it on a gold chain around my neck as evidence that there is one of my family, at least, who cares for me.”

“We all care for you,” he said earnestly, upset by my bitter tone; but I am afraid too much has happened for me to conceal my bitterness.

“You are generous to think so, little Tut,” I said, “and I pray you may never have cause yourself to think otherwise. But I must warn you to be careful, as I must be careful, for the Son of the Sun has many enemies.”

“I know it,” he said, looking suddenly quite as old as his apparent knowledge of the dangerous world in which we live. “It is very hard being Pharaoh, is it not?”

“For me,” I said somberly, “it has been very hard. But for you, when it comes your time, I hope and believe it will be better.”

“I am frightened,” he said in a wistful little voice that caused me to take his hand quickly and give it a reassuring squeeze.

“You must not be,” I said firmly.

“They say you may die soon,” he said in the same remote little voice, “and that then I will have to be Pharaoh. And I am frightened.”

“I do not intend to die
yet,
”
I said, sounding more positive than I often am about this: often it seems I may die naturally at any moment, even if they do not succeed in making me die unnaturally. “It will be many years before you must assume the Double Crown. By then you will be a man, big and strong, and no one will dare frighten or do harm to the new Son of the Sun.”

“I hope so,” he said in the same wistful fashion. “Oh, Brother, I hope so!”

“It will be as I say,” I told him emphatically. “You must be brave and patient and never fear; and when your time comes, you will be a good Pharaoh and do great things for Kemet. I know it.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, eyes big and desperate in his search for reassurance.

“I am sure,” I said with a flat certainty I indeed was far from feeling: for the evil that threatens me may yet consume him. “I, Nefer-Kheperu-Ra Akhenaten, Living Horus, Son of the Sun, decree it!”

“Well,” he said with a sudden relieved sigh that told me my firmness had been accepted, “I’m glad of
that.
”
His manner became suddenly grave and dignified, he rose from the throne and bowed low. “Now I must return to the North Palace, Your Majesty, if I may have your leave to depart.”

“You may, little Brother,” I said with equal gravity. “Come to me again when you wish to talk.”

“I will,” he promised solemnly, and added, with an innocent emphasis that told me much, “
I
like you.”

“Thank you, Neb-Kheperu-Ra,” I said, formally using the name the Family has agreed he will take when he does come to the throne. “You are always welcome in my house.”

“Good!” he said with a quick smile that lighted up his face. “Be of good cheer, Brother, and do not worry. All will come well for you.”

“And for you too, little Tut,” I said, “and do you never doubt or forget it.”

“I will try not,” he said, falling abruptly solemn again. “But at times it is not easy.”

After he had gone the glow of his earnest and loving little being stayed with me for a while, a bright, even if troubled, note in my weary life. But I was deeply disturbed by the fears he revealed to me. Even its youngest member, apparently, is haunted by the ghosts of the House of Thebes.

Later I reflected that he had not even mentioned Nefertiti. I wondered if this might not have been her deliberate design, to send him as a reminder of her presence that would work upon me and make me weaken toward her. But I did not weaken, for at that time I was still too gone in grief and resentment, and the things that had caused me to put her from me in the first place.

But presently I began to think; and in these past few days I have found to my surprise, with a growing inward excitement, that I am beginning to dwell a little less upon the past and a little more upon the future. In some subtle way I cannot quite define, my heart and mind are coming to life again after their long, dark passage.

And so today Anser-Wossett, with her never shaken loyalty to Nefertiti and her honest concern for me, opened the way. She was the key, as I know Nefertiti hoped she would be. The door is unlocked and I am ready to come forth.

I do truly believe that this is hope I feel at last, O Father Aten, you who have sustained me in all my troubles. Together—and together with Nefertiti, too, who I now realize possesses a love for me that nothing can ever shatter, which revives in me my love for her—we will resume our rule of our dear Two Lands.

I have given the order. All is ready. The guards are expecting her, they will let her in, we will go to the North Palace and from there, tomorrow, to the Window of Appearances to announce the resumption of our rule. It is now three hours to midnight. I have only to wait patiently, here on my throne where none will dare disturb me, and very soon I will see her again. And then, Father Aten, perhaps your son Akhenaten will find some little happiness in the world once more.

With excitement and anticipation growing eagerly in my heart, I am told that Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, would see me. I send word that he is to be admitted. I shall not tell him our plans, but he is my old, dear friend and teacher, and his presence will entertain me for a little while I wait.

I arrange myself upon the throne, put on my wig which I have not worn for days until my visit with Anser-Wossett this afternoon, straighten my linen shift, prepare to greet him with the smile of old friendship and affection. He appears in the doorway, face distraught, eyes filled with great agitation … and hope, which I now know I should never have allowed to bemuse me, dies.

“Majesty!” he cries with a frantic urgency. “Flee, Majesty! Flee! They are coming to do awful things! You must flee, I beg of you! Flee! Do not hesitate, do not delay—
flee!
”