Return to Thebes (30 page)

Aye

I have received a message from Suppiluliumas of the Hittites declaring war upon us for the murder of his son Prince Zannanza, surprised upon our borders on his way secretly to marry my granddaughter. I do not know how actively he will pursue this, or how far he will get into our territories, but I do not blame him: I do not blame him. Horemheb has volunteered to muster a force and go at once to meet him, which I suppose is right .Horemheb manages both effects and consequences, these days, and it is only fitting that he should now attempt to settle what he has begun. Also his work on this has given him an excuse to be absent from my nephew’s burial, which has now started with ceremonies here at the temple of Karnak on a bright, sunny day, in the soft winds of spring. This saves us all from embarrassment, for I doubt that Her Majesty could look upon him without open hatred and I doubt that I could without showing the dismay and revulsion I feel.

As surely as Akhenaten ever did, Horemheb is moving away from us. I shall tell him so someday before I die. He deserves to be forced to face the parallel before it is too late: because sooner or later, somehow or other, he is going to take the Double Crown. It is still not clear to me how this will come about, particularly after this latest episode, but I have no doubt of it any longer. The will is too strong and the ambition too fierce. Having done so much, he will not blink at more. It will come.

It will not come, however, without one more struggle on the part of the Co-Regent Aye to preserve the order of Kemet. If it has to come, it will come in a legitimate and orderly way. I am as fiercely determined as he on this point. I will sacrifice myself, actually throw myself on his sword if need be, to stop him from stealing the throne and thus overturning the very
ka
and
ba,
the very soul and being, of the Two Lands.

At my granddaughter’s suggestion I have recently added to my titles a new one which describes me as “
Aye, who is doing right.
”
And so I shall continue, as long as the gods give me breath. My son’s will is fierce but mine, for all my seventy-five years, is still the fiercer. I do not know how events will proceed from this day forward, but I am not afraid to face them, whatever they may be. I shall do right until all ends for me, as I have all my life for Kemet. I cannot change now.

Not, mind you, that it will be easy, or that I see my way clear to save the land from being ravaged by Horemheb’s ambition. But it will come to me, I think. I am giving it much thought, assisted by my granddaughter, by Sitamon, and by my oldest living friend, Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, that faithful one who continues, like myself, to serve our House in his final years. We are discussing many plans, considering many possibilities. It is not only Horemheb who plots, these days. He is forcing us to plot, too.

Meanwhile, the ceremony proceeds. The beautiful coffin of solid gold, bearing the likeness of my dear nephew as he used to look before the years began to harry him, round-faced, youthful and serene, rests on the platform before us. At its head presides the new High Priest of Amon, one Nefer whom Horemheb and I selected together: probably our last compromise, as he wanted one loyal solely to himself, I wanted one beholden to no one in the Court. We settled finally on Nefer, hitherto a minor priest in the temple of Amon in Memphis; a weak and elderly man who will last my time. After that Horemheb may do as he pleases. But while I live Amon will not take sides in the struggle for the Double Crown.

Now Nefer intones the ancient phrases, goes through the ancient ritual. Tut, I think, would have liked to be buried in the Aten faith, but this I did not quite dare attempt. Had I done that, I too would have been guilty of upsetting the balance. I would also have invited reprisals from Amon and fierce demands from Horemheb, whom Amon would then support even more openly than his priests do now.

Instead I decided, with Her Majesty’s approval, that we would use the rites of Amon. But in return for that concession we have made sure that in his tomb there have been placed the cross and flail of Aten, the throne of Aten, and many other things of Aten including wines from Aten’s vineyards and scarves from the linen mills of Akhet-Aten marked “Year 8” and “Year 10” of Akhenaten’s reign. And on Tut’s shaven skull there rests a beaded uraeus with four raised cobra heads, each bearing the cartouches and titularies of the Sole God.

Into the tomb also, small, cramped and limited, prepared as it was in great haste because of the tragically sudden nature of his death, we have been forced to jumble together without much order some two thousand other things—some taken from the tombs in the Royal Wadi at Akhet-Aten (where I am preparing, as he wished, to move the bodies of my sister, Akhenaten, Nefertiti and the rest back here to lie beneath the Western Peak), some newly fashioned just for him—some taken from the storehouses that hold funerary items originally prepared for other royalty but for one reason or another never used. Included also are the mummified remains of two of their stillborn daughters, and mementos of two of the Queen’s dead sisters, an ivory palette bearing the name of Merytaten and an inlaid box that once belonged to Nefer-neferu-ra. Maya offered a miniature of the King on his bier, Nakht-Min five
ushabtis,
tiny figures of the King wearing various crowns. Smenkhkara’s cartouche is on one of the coffins, and there is a gold pectoral that belonged to Akhenaten.

It is a great huddle of things, but all do suitable honor and will be ready for him when he awakens in the afterworld. We have made up in riches what we have lacked in space.

Nefer has finished now. The bearers lift the coffin to its baldachin, Akhesenamon, Sitamon and Mutnedjmet (and, of course, Ipy and Senna) begin their ritual wailing; Nakht-Min, Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, and I follow gravely after. We, too, are lifted into our baldachins. Slowly the procession begins.

Before the temple, through Thebes, along the east bank of the Nile, the vast crowds stand silently as we pass. Now and again someone bursts suddenly into a cry of sorrow, quite genuine; each time this happens a low, sympathetic groan passes from one end of the enormous crowd to the other. It is an eerie, yearning, wistful sound: they loved Neb-Kheperu-Ra, they wished him well, and now they fear a future without him.

Slowly, slowly, we pass through Thebes to the beat of muffled drums, the muted mourning of trumpets, the repeated regretful groanings of the people. Slowly we come to the landing stage, slowly we board the golden barge, slowly we set out across the Nile: once again, as so many times before, Hapi bears the burden of the House of Thebes.

The world is silent now; only the splash of oars breaks the stillness of the river. Behind on the east bank they watch us go, our gleaming banners fluttering at half mast in the gentle wind of spring, Ra high overhead as this, his latest Son, returns to him.

We reach the west bank, are greeted by more priests of Amon. We are taken to the necropolis, move slowly toward the entrance to the Valley of the Kings. We dismount from our baldachins. The other members of our family group utter their final ritual cries, fall to their knees, bow their heads in silent farewell: they will remain where they are until we return.

Her Majesty and I go on alone behind the group of slaves who bear the coffin high, and who later, after the final rites are done, will return with the priests to place the last objects in the tomb and close its doors forever.

We move on through the barren rocky gorge, through the naked earth as raw, harsh and savage as it has forever been and will forever be. We come to the entrance to the tomb, we pass within. We reach the antechamber, turn right to the crypt. Carefully the slaves lower the gold coffin into its two enormous interfitting sarcophagi, remove the lid so that we may look down upon the mummified remains of Tutankhamon, and withdraw. My granddaughter and I draw near. She begins to weep, softly and steadily in a release she has not until now, I suspect, been able to achieve. I weep with her, as deeply as she. I have loved all my nephews: and all have come, before their time, to this.

I am clad in the leopard skin of a high priest. At Ankhesenamon’s insistence I have reserved for myself—and no one, not even Horemheb, has dared challenge it—the privilege of performing the rite of The-Opening-of-the-Mouth.

Normally this honor is reserved for the successor to the dead Pharaoh. With a startled glance at my granddaughter, standing head bowed, tears streaming down her cheeks, I suddenly think:
And perhaps it is this time, too.…

This is the thought that comes, at last, to me.

But I remain impassive, though my heart surges wildly with many things. I take the iron prong, I lower it gently to touch the lips of the dead boy (I shall not make the mistake of poor Akhenaten with his father and actually damage the teeth in my strain and nervousness), I cry his name three times, and I say to him with a loving gentleness, because this is how I feel for him, though I know that duty forced me to be as responsible for his death as Horemheb, and the anguish and ordeal of that decision will eat forever at my heart:

“
You live again, you live again forever! Here you are young once more forever!
”

Silence answers, though we know that with my calling of his name and the utterance of these gentle words the long process of coming to life again in the eternal afterworld has begun for Neb-Kheperu-Ra.

Hardly able to see through her weeping, Ankhesenamon leans down and places a wreath of fresh flowers on the mummy.

In tears, clinging to one another, we turn away. Maya, superintendent of the necropolis and close friend of His Majesty, enters with priests of Amon as we leave, to supervise the final nesting of the coffin within its gilded sarcophagi, the final placing of the funerary furnishings, the final closing of the tomb.

For some minutes we stand and watch, still holding tightly to one another while Ra looks down upon the young girl and the old man who must decide the fate of the Two Lands. Was there ever such a pair had such a heavy task?

Presently the work is done. Maya and the priests bow to us and withdraw. Only we and the slaves remain.

The slaves who, unknown to them, will see no tomorrow, begin their labors to their characteristic low-voiced chant. Plaster slaps against the heavy stone doors. Hammers pound against their edges to seal them forever.

So we lay him to rest—slain by Hatsuret and Horemheb but slain even more, I think, by the beliefs of his brother, still doing their work from beyond the grave: my darling nephew Tutankhamon, that sweet and gentle boy—safe at last for all eternity—nevermore to be disturbed by hand or eye of mortal man.

We turn, eyes still blinded by tears, and walk slowly back toward the others.

I will permit myself this night to weep.

Then I must face my son.

***