Return to Thebes (22 page)

Aye

He has sent word to me, my patient son—now suddenly impatient. We must talk of Pharaoh and the kingdom, and at once. I understand his urgency. I feel something of it myself after this surprising day. But I am not, I think, quite so anxious as he to leap to a conclusion that could only mean more unhappiness and horror for the House of Thebes and for the land.

It seems to me that all my life I have been mediating between the violent and the peaceful elements of both. Sometimes I have been successful. More often, I suppose, I have failed. Yet even though I now am reaching substantial age and showing a little in my physical reactions, there is nothing slowed yet in the heart and mind of Aye. I see through impatient Horemheb. What Sitamon told me years ago is truer now. He seeks to be Pharaoh, and it has, I think, become in him an obsession that rationalizes all he may feel necessary to achieve the goal.

This is a very dangerous state to be in. It can lead to a fanaticism of a kind different from, but no less devastating than, the fanaticism of his cousin Akhenaten. I grant to Horemheb his oft-proclaimed motive that all he does he does for Kemet; yet I think in his own strange way Akhenaten was trying to do the same. He sought to approach it on the spiritual plane of the Aten, hoping, as I understood him, to spread the goodness downward to the people. Horemheb approaches it on the practical plane on which he has always lived, seeking to make sure that goodness reaches the people by a route more direct:
he will command them to be good and kill them if they aren’t.
As between the two, given the sad condition of the Two Lands, I suppose for the present (and perhaps always in our long history) Horemheb’s way is the better and more certain of success. Yet I cannot escape the lingering feeling that in Akhenaten’s method there may have been some key to it all that we failed to grasp—but could have, had we but possessed a vision and a selflessness as great as his: even though with him, as I say, it soon became a fanaticism we could not follow.

There may have been a moment—just a moment—when, had all come right, we could have joined him in his dream and made it work. The traditions of Kemet were too strong. They had held us to a steady course, save for the Hyksos invasion and a few times of dynastic turmoil, for almost two thousand years. It was easy for us to turn back to them when doubt assailed us. And with Akhenaten, doubt assailed us early and often. He proclaimed love, but doubt ate up love. The fault was equal: Akhenaten lost his grip on reality long before we suspected, I believe. The tragedy had to play itself out to the end.

But it does not need to be revived.

All of that, we thought, was past. Yet tonight we face a new condition. The Aten is not dead with his unhappy prophet. He lives anew in a boy of thirteen, who says he seeks a balance between the gods to restore the Two Lands.

This, I know, is why Horemheb comes to me in anger and alarm. Knowing him and the methods he has resorted to increasingly in the past four years, I think the Regent Aye will have to employ all his resources to prevent further tragedy. And when all is said and done, the Regent Aye’s resources come down to just one thing: the Regent Aye.

I am seventy-one, last link, save for Sitamon, who has the people’s sentimental love but no power, with the great days of my sister and Amonhotep III (life, health, prosperity!). Like Horemheb, I too have many loyal friends in the army, many staunch supporters among officials of Court and government throughout the Two Lands. If it came to open war between us I do not know which could command the greater strength in the field: probably my son, for he is younger, more vigorous, more careful about keeping such alliances strong and fertile by a constant policy of pressure and reward. But he is weak where I am strong: my strength is in the hearts of men, and on that subtle but often decisive battlefield I am very strong.

After the deaths of my sister, my nephew and my daughter (no one will ever know the agonies it cost me to accept Nefertiti’s murder, even though I understood how it all happened in that terrible moment of fury, dismay and final disillusionment between brother and sister) there was a great revulsion in the kingdom, a great turning back. From it I emerged, as I knew I would, the one revered leader whom all elements respected and around whom all could join. Thus it was relatively easy for me to reject Horemheb’s too quick presumption in seeking the title and power of Regent: we both knew the country would not stand for it.

So he deferred to me, grudgingly but practically. Our contest was over in a moment, for essentially it was no contest: he would have been regarded as usurper, and all he attempted would have been sapped and subverted thereby.

Therefore we began our joint rule of Kemet uneasy in our partnership but aware that it was all that could save the kingdom. Behind the symbol provided by my youngest nephew, that sunny child who too soon grew sadly old in the shadow of his unhappy elders, we began the rebuilding and restoration of the Two Lands. Horemheb traveled constantly from Napata to the Delta, up and down the river, ceaselessly prodding, goading, directing, exhorting, commanding in the King’s name the rebuilding of temples, the re-establishment of justice, the restoration of
ma’at
and social order where it had so universally collapsed. In Memphis, Thebes and in Akhet-Aten, where we believed it best to remain for a while until the country had become fully accustomed to the idea that we would presently return to the ancient capitals and abandon Akhenaten’s city, I too worked tirelessly on the endless details of civil government and foreign relations, seeking to bring back an equal order to a system that had virtually died in Akhenaten’s last dreadful year. (In that time, also, we had worked in harness toward these same ends, only to find ourselves thwarted by the presence of a mature Pharaoh who had lost the will to live and the desire to govern—in whose name we did things, but hesitantly, tentatively, not knowing when his interest might suddenly revive and we might find ourselves facing punishment for things we had done in good faith and love for Kemet because he would not.)

With Tutankhamon—until today—we have had no such problems. He has been a malleable and apparently contented child, appearing to look with approval on all that has been accomplished in his name. He has obligingly given his seal to all that we asked, conferred on us the titles and powers we have requested. (Horemheb, I think, has requested a few too many, but I have acquiesced in this, since he seemed to need them for reassurance. I have known his reasons, and my bland agreement has in itself been a kind of triumph for me, as he is aware with a chagrin he strives to keep secret from me, but which I know as I know many things.)

So we have kept Tut happy, given him the first traditional coronation in more than forty years, married him to my granddaughter Ankhesenamon, a child almost as beautiful, and fully as shrewd, as her mother; taken him on lion hunts and expeditions, shown him to the people on regular inspection tours which both he and they have seemed to enjoy, arranged for envoys to bring him interesting gifts from far places, done all we could to keep him entertained and happy while we have done the necessary business of government in his name. The education of both children has been entrusted to Amonhotep, Son of Hapu—what would we have done in the House of Thebes without that wise contemporary of mine!—and everything has been ordered to make sure that he would grow comfortably into the eternal mold of the ideal Pharaoh, steady, reliable, predictable and sure, as most of his great ancestors have been before him.

Until today and his surprising remarks on his official return to Thebes. I had been disturbed by our argument on the journey from Akhet-Aten but I had no real idea until he spoke today that another independent mind might have been developing under our very noses, so clever have both children been at concealing their real feelings. I am still not convinced of it, though I suspect Horemheb is.

It is nearly midnight: I go to the window and look across the Nile at Thebes. It is still brightly lighted with the flares of welcome and rejoicing. Across Hapi’s dark surface, covered now with many hundreds of boats riding at anchor while their owners, crews and passengers celebrate ashore, comes a steady hum composed of rollicking music, good-natured shouts, coy screams and raucous laughter. I have never been one to join in the drunken revels that always accompany our great state occasions—or indeed any other occasion, for that matter, since in Kemet high and low alike have a great fondness for wine and all that frequently happens in its wake—but tonight I almost wish, rather wistfully, that I did.

It would be nice, sometimes, to simply let go and forget the cares of government. It would be nice to be a common drunkard like everyone else. It would be nice to let the heart and mind reel happily down into that spinning forgetfulness that is the solace of so many lesser men.

It can never be. Duty is the life of the Regent Aye, duty is the burden of his family. Duty killed my sister the Great Wife, duty—as he saw it—killed my brother Aanen, duty killed my daughter Nefertiti, duty sometimes almost kills me.

But it will not occur yet awhile. I am the last survivor of the elders, and my course has a time to run before it is over. That I know, and Kemet can be thankful for it—as many signs of public gratitude show me Kemet is.

There is a knock on my door, furtive but firm. I say softly, “Come!” and turn to face my son.

I can see at once that he has worked himself to a pitch of anger and determination, and I can tell that he, too, has been fortified by wine. I decide it will do no harm for me to have one, and much to my advantage for him to have possibly two or three more, so my first move after he has bowed and kissed my hand (he is always very circumspect about observing the courtesies due the Regent) is to offer him a cup.

Surprisingly, he refuses.

“I have had too many already,” he says. “But you have one, Father, if you like. It will help you celebrate the unveiling of our new Akhenaten.”

“My son,” I say, taking my ornate chair of office, itself so elaborately gilded and decorated as to be almost a throne, “seat yourself and discuss this with me without dramatics, if you please. I do not propose to let myself be disturbed by a thirteen-year-old boy, particularly since I do not believe he intends at all what you anticipate.”

“How do you know?” he demands, not accepting the invitation for a moment, but going to the window himself to stare moodily across at riotous Thebes. “Listen to them! They would not care if he re-established the Aten full scale and began the whole business over again.”

“Oh yes, they would,” I respond sharply. “They are forgetful now but tomorrow they will remember. They were made very uneasy by his words today.”

“And you claim you were not?” he demands with equal sharpness, turning to seat himself. “Tell me truthfully, now, Father.”

“I was surprised,” I admit carefully. “Unprepared—startled—unsuspecting. But not, as I said, disturbed. Or alarmed.”

“You should be both,” he says moodily, “for he means no moderation though he babbles of it.”

“Your cousin does not ‘babble’!” I snap, for I learned long since it does no good to disparage without admitting the stature of one’s opponent. (“Opponent”? Do I already consider him so? I must not think such things even to myself, else Horemheb will have me off balance and on his side before I know it.) “Neb-Kheperu-Ra is a fine and thoughtful lad, and what he said showed much deliberation. Wherein lie your fears about it?”

“Where any intelligent man’s lie,” he says. “In the ghost of the accursed Aten.”

“Accepting the fact that I am of course very unintelligent,” I say dryly, “I cannot find myself as frightened as you of a simple boy.”

“I apologize for the word,” he concedes, “but he is no longer a boy, and he is not simple. I am beginning to believe that in his heart Tutankhamon is as complex as the Heretic.”

“I know you like that designation,” I say, again sharply, “but I prefer to let the past go. He is dead and can harm us no longer. He is Nefer-Kheperu-Ra Akhenaten to me, and will always so remain.”

“He is dead,” Horemheb says, “but I do not agree that he can harm us no longer. He is still alive in the hearts of his brother and his daughter, and he can still do his hateful work through them.”

“He will not,” I say calmly, “for I will not permit it.”

“You think I will?” he demands. “I am as sensible of what the kingdom needs as you, Father. That is why I am with you now.”

“I am Regent,” I remind him coldly, “and need no lecturing on my duty to the Two Lands.”

“Lecture not and be not lectured,” he retorts, and for a moment a genuine hostility flares between us. But before the moment becomes irrevocable his eyes drop and he says more calmly, “I am sorry, Father. But I
am
much disturbed by this day, and I do not think it wise to let ourselves think that it had no far-ranging significance, for I feel it does.”

“What did he say?” I inquire, making my own voice reasonable. “He said he wished to restore a balance between the gods. He said he did not want to exalt either Amon or Aten at the expense of the other, neither did he wish to take from one to reduce the other. He said he wished his reign to be one of reconciliation, harmony and peace for all the people of Kemet and for all the gods. He said he wanted love to rule again in the Two Lands, as it used to do. He said he wished all to be at peace with one another. I see nothing so unreasonable or frightening in that.”

“And he decreed—he
decreed,
Father, the first time he has ever dared use the word—that the temples of Akhet-Aten remain unspoiled and open to worship, that the temple of the Aten at Karnak be extended and enlarged, that Tuthmose make him a new crook and flail bearing the name of the Aten, and a new throne bearing on its back himself and Ankhesenamon being blessed by the Aten, together with the Aten’s titularies and cartouches. Quite a lot to say in a ‘reasonable’ address!”

“I will admit he may have gone a little far—”

“A little!”

“—a little far in his attempt to be conciliatory, but essentially there is no harm in any of these, is there? I hope you have not contemplated diverting the funds and energies of the kingdom to destroying the temples of Akhet-Aten when there are so many more pressing things to be done! Leave them alone and they will be forgotten. Shu will blow the sands of the Red Land over them soon enough. You will see.”