The City of Refuge: Book 1 of The Memphis Cycle (36 page)

“He sent his reply to me by Huni, telling me to wait for fortune to turn once more, that he was prepared to die by his own hand rather than allow me to ride headlong to my death. He commanded that I come to him in the morning with my reply. He said this to Huni in the hearing of Neterkhet, his major-domo, who had spent his life in my father's service and had accompanied him to Akhet-Aten. He promised Huni a valuable bracelet as payment if he would go and then come again with me. You saw it when he came that last time.

“My father always planned for all possible outcomes. By Neterkhet he sent word to Horemheb and Ramesses telling them that he feared I was running headlong into folly, and asking they be prepared to stop me if he were unsuccessful. He told them he would send word of what developed.

“Huni returned to my father with word that I was resolved on my course of action, and if he chose to die, then so be it, but I intended to head north to meet with the Hittites. My father, stricken to the heart, nevertheless gave Huni the bracelet he had promised, and sent Neterkhet to Ramesses and Horemheb once more, asking them to stop me. He told them he would be dead by the time they received his message, and he counted on their friendship to save his son from disaster and his wife from disgrace.

“Neterkhet delivered my father's message and went on to Thebes, where my family's household was, to continue in my mother's service. His bitterness toward Neb-Aten, who he thought had callously caused his own father's death, never abated. When he learned I was alive he came to me at Memphis to give me a piece of his mind.

“I was able to convince him of my innocence, but any peace I was able to give to him did not touch me. It was as though I'd seen my memories shaken apart and reassembled into a dreadful parody of what I had once thought true.

“The means of my father's murder had been hideously cruel. He had gone to his death believing that I—I who had adored him as a child and loved him as a grown man!—was sending him with a glad heart! His last moments must have been filled with terrible anguish, and yet—and yet, Khonsu, mark this!—he endured even that to save me. I had no way to tell him how mistaken he had been. All that was left for me was my duty as his son to deal out vengeance.

“I set about that with a good heart, indeed! I provisioned my personal corps of guards and made plans to march upon Khebet at their head. Then I went to my father-in-law to tell him what I had learned and ask his blessing for what I intended to do.

“His Highness was as horrified and enraged as I was. He didn't try to stop me, but he urged patience. He told me that a little restraint at the beginning would ensure my success and make my vengeance all the more complete. He sent word at once to Pharaoh, who came posthaste to Memphis along with General Ramesses, and the four of us spoke long into the night.

“His Majesty gave me leave to avenge my father's death against all who were responsible, no matter who they might be, and he pledged his approval and support. I swallowed my fury, made plans, and followed them. His Majesty wished to complete the pylon of Akhenaten at Memphis and case it with virgin stone that would be carved for him. I thought I could achieve two aims at once by looking into opening the old quarries at Akhet-Aten.

“I'd been following Huni's career at a distance for some time, beginning with the ascendancy of that worthless, ill-placed city, Khebet, and the eclipse of Sumneh, which was superior to it in every way. I suppose it was a concession to nostalgia: we had been close as young men. Neterkhet's news put an entirely new face on things. I set spies upon Huni and learned that he had spent the past twenty years systematically despoiling Akhet-Aten a little at a time. He had cloaked this with his tales of ghosts and curses.

“It was amusing to learn that Huni had selected the son of the man he had murdered as his ghostly culprit, and he had used an oddly accurate account of Nakht's death in his explanation for Neb-Aten's haunting of the northern reaches of the city.

“I decided that since Huni had invoked my ghost, he would have to deal with it. My father had entrusted him with a message for me: it was time to make him deliver it. I started sending letters written in my own hand, which he knew by sight, and sealed with my old seal. Each time I used old papyrus and ink made to look old and faded. Among my other titles I had been a commander of archers: the letters were sent by way of arrows of a sort that he knew well from our years together, for I had designed and fletched them, myself. And then I arranged to travel to Akhet-Aten at the head of the expedition. Things happened as you observed, honor and vengeance are satisfied at last, and now Neb-Aten can be allowed to rest.”

“I saw you and Huni at the last,” Khonsu said, touching the udjat amulet at his throat. “I saw, and in seeing I finally understood what I had only guessed before. But—” he hesitated.

“But?” Nebamun repeated.

“But what made you decide to spare Huni? He had admitted what he had done. He felt no remorse, that was plain to me. But you held your hand and would have let him go.”

Nebamun sat back with the hint of a sigh. “At that moment I remembered my father saying once, Vengeance must give way to justice, and justice must always be tempered with mercy. I had defeated him and made my answer to my father. There was nothing more to do, and spilling Huni's blood would not have changed anything. I think withholding my hand would have pleased my father.”

“Horus showing mercy,” Khonsu said softly.

Nebamun's brows contracted.

Khonsu said, “I think each moment comes on two levels, mortal and divine, and the division between them is terribly thin. I saw you in my dreams, fighting with Set, and each time it was as though I were watching a dance of set movements until the last dream, where it seemed that your success or failure depended on my action.”

“It did. And you stepped into legend and saved Horus for this time.” He smiled and added, “But we are mortals now, and the danger is past. And the heartache.”

“Is it truly, Your Grace?” Khonsu asked.

“Yes,” Nebamun said firmly. He saw Khonsu's expression and said, “But why do you frown, Commander?”

“Huni deserved his death—and I remember it was his own choice, for you had spared him—but Huy died before he could be brought to account for his part in your father's death. I hate to think he sleeps in honored peace in a splendid tomb at Thebes.”

Nebamun smiled slowly. “Is that what you think?”

Khonsu's eyes widened.

“But the past is past,” Nebamun continued. “By Pharaoh's decree, Neb-Aten is no longer dead and his silence is no longer required. My father's estates, forfeited to the crown upon his death and mine, have been returned to me.”

His smile had a reminiscent edge to it. “It was fascinating to see the faces of those who had spoken ill of me and my house over the years as they swallowed their bile and, I do believe, their tongues, when I came into Pharaoh's presence, knelt before him and received back my birthright. It would seem that my appearance has not changed much over the years.”

“It hasn't,” Khonsu said. “And you need no longer keep silence... I'm glad.”

Nebamun shrugged. “It isn't such a blessing,” he said. “I have gotten into the habit of silence now, and I find it comfortable. You are the first I have spoken to, and I would have done so even without Pharaoh's permission. As for the rest, I am a wealthy man, but so have I always been.” He lifted an eyebrow at Khonsu. “Although I can certainly dower Sitra satisfactorily now.”

Khonsu lowered his eyes. “Lady Sitra's person and character are dowry enough for any man fortunate enough to win her,” he said.

“Do you think so?” Lord Nebamun's voice held the hint of a smile. “You will be interested to learn that my lady and my daughter have asked me to speak with you on that subject.” He smiled at Khonsu's expression. “Oh yes,” he said. “Sitra comes from a line of people who know their hearts at once. And she has saved me the trouble of trying to convince her, myself.”

“Your Grace?”

Nebamun's smile flashed again. “I'd had an eye to you for a son from the moment I learned you were no longer married,” he said. “I regret your grief and pain, but I think you and Sitra will be happy together.”

“I'm a nobody from the provinces,” Khonsu said. “How could anyone think me a suitable match for her?”

“You're a fine man, a loving father and an excellent officer,” Nebamun said. “The new Vizier of the North has expressed a desire to place you in high command in the northern armies, and the Commander in Chief of the Armies has agreed. That's why the Governor has replaced you. You need only regain your strength. There is no hurry. And assume your new post.”

“The new vizier?” Khonsu repeated. “Then Your Grace has—”

Nebamun's smile altered slightly. “Not I. There will be no vizierates for my family in my lifetime. Pharaoh isn't such a fool, nor am I. General Seti is the new Vizier. I think that man will be one to watch in future.”

“Your Grace is probably right,” Khonsu said.

Lord Nebamun smiled and rose to his feet. “And you will have a long future in which to watch him if you come inside with me and have some supper and retire,” he said firmly. “It would never do to have my daughter a widow before she is a wife.”

**   **   **

Thank you for reading this. If you enjoyed
The City Of Refuge
, I would be delighted if you could leave a review.

You might enjoy its sequel,
Mourningtide
, which is the second book in The Memphis Cycle, followed by
Pharaoh’s Son
.
Another, Kadesh, is due to be published in 2015.

For more information on
The Memphis Cycle
and my other books, you can visit my website,
here
.

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AFTERWORD

A story, once told, has as much reality as a piece of embroidery or a painting. The fabric of legend surrounds us every day like coats of many colors that we can no longer see or feel for their familiarity. We move through landscapes of myth with the heedless nonchalance of treasure-house guards grown accustomed to treading upon a rainbow of precious stones in the course of their daily work. And yet the beauty and the color are there to be seen by any who are willing to look and see. A good storyteller is one who can somehow touch these legends and bring them to renewed life in his tale. This is what I tried to do with
The City of Refuge
when I told the tale of an Avenger of Blood and his quarry.

In ancient societies, the 'Avenger of Blood' was a close kinsman of a murdered person, usually the victim's most senior male relative. The Avenger of blood had the duty to hunt down the killer and exact the blood-price, usually the killer's life in exchange for that of the victim.

The book of Deuteronomy states:
But if any man hate his neighbour, and lie in wait for him, and rise up against him, and smite him mortally that he die...then the elders of his city shall send and fetch him thence, and deliver him into the hand of the avenger of blood, that he may die.
(Deut 19:11, 12 [King James Version])

But what if the death were not deliberate? Numbers 35:19 provides for the founding of six cities of refuge for those not guilty of deliberate murder.

The earliest myth to deal with the Avenger of blood is the tale of Horus and Set. Other Egyptian myths echo it. The office of the avenger of blood also figures in the story of Oedipus.

Nebamun’s pursuit of his father’s murderers owes something to the story of Orestes, perhaps the most famous avenger of blood in all western literature. Orestes was the son of Agamemnon, the high king of the Greeks and leader of the forces that besieged Troy. The story of his vengeance upon his father's murderers is recounted in the magnificent cycle of plays by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides.

The writer of any story taking place in New Kingdom Egypt will sooner or later come up against the most controversial figure in ancient Egyptian history, Neferkheprure Amenhotep IV, who took the name Akhenaten. His name and memory, deliberately destroyed in dynastic times, were only rediscovered in the last century thanks to some brilliant archaeological sleuthing.

He is considered by many to be the first monotheist in recorded history; during his reign the worship of the Egyptian pantheon, with the exception of the solar deities, was proscribed, and the worship of the disk of the sun, with Akhenaten as its divine representative on earth, became the state religion to the exclusion of all other concerns, including international politics. By the end of Akhenaten's reign Egypt had lost almost all the territory it had won during the XVIIIth dynasty.

Anyone researching Akhenaten and his times will quickly discover that the vast majority of books on Akhenaten and the aftermath of his reign are seriously warped by the nature of the axe that their writers happened to be grinding at the moment of composition. The researcher will be assailed by theories as plentiful, as bewildering, and about as valuable as a tangle of mushrooms sprung out of the soil after a heavy rain.

On one hand we are told that Akhenaten was a Christ-like figure who had caught a glimpse of the True God and was murdered and then publicly anathematized for having the courage to follow that glimpse. On the other hand, we learn that he was a deformed monomaniac with a father fixation and delusions of grandeur.

He is also presented as a frail dreamer, easily persuaded by his beautiful foreign wife and his masterful foreign mother to follow in the ways of their exotic religion. But it is obvious from her body, which is in the Cairo Museum, that the great queen Tiy was Egyptian born and bred, and there are strong indications that Nefertiti was the same.

Some of the theories do have the redeeming feature of being very amusing. Some intense but well-meaning students of the period, operating from a medical frame of reference, have resorted to the laughable extreme of performing a hypothetical autopsy on one of his statues in an attempt to find an explanation for Akhenaten's actions. A serious writer trying to fight his way through such a snarl of conflicting information must be prepared for the vigorous application of his own common-sense and knowledge of human nature. It is not a task for the lazy, indecisive or humorless.

My own view of Akhenaten should be apparent from this story. The series of devastating personal blows that he appears to have suffered within a short period of time toward the end of his reign is sufficient explanation for me of dreaminess or isolationism in his character or his foreign policy.

The aftermath of his 'heresy' is also not difficult for me to comprehend. A review of the religious literature that has survived from ancient Egypt shows a searching for a First Cause, an awareness of personal unworthiness, and a need for, and granting of, forgiveness by the Deity, followed by an amendment of the supplicant's errors. Even as the great Hymn to the Aten is offered as an example of the majesty and beauty of Akhenaten's religion, some point out that nowhere in any of the Atenist literature is there ever a mention of a god who heals the afflicted and forgives the penitent, attributes of both Amun and Ptah, two of Egypt's greatest gods. Time and again, the writings that the great cults produced in the post-Akhet-Aten period stress what are the proper beliefs, somewhat in the manner of a Sunday School teacher drumming the short version of the Catechism into his student's heads.

The controversy surrounding Akhenaten is not limited to his personal attributes and the nature of his religious convictions. The circumstances surrounding the end of his reign and the fate met by his successors is also hotly debated, and has given rise to a number of sensational-type novels. Was he murdered? Who succeeded him? Was Smenkhara a man, or was he really Nefertiti acting as regent? Who was the queen who wrote to Shupilluliumash of the Hittites asking for the hand of his son? Was it Ankhesenamun, daughter of Akhenaten, and Tutankhamun's widow, or was it Nefertiti (writing, if such is the case, at a rather ripe age)? Was Tutankhamun murdered, as the hole in his skull seems to suggest? (Current science indicates that he was not.) Or was the royal family decimated by decades of inbreeding and, perhaps, a debilitating disease like malaria? Who was Ay? Tiy's brother? And how did Horemheb come to power?

Dynastic endings throughout history have generally been attended by violence, and I have chosen to use this premise in my story, but I have departed from popular modes of thought in assigning blame for the violence.

General Horemheb is usually selected as the villain of the piece, the vicious soldier who murdered Tutankhamun, Ankhesenamun, Smenkhara, the Hittite prince, and, sometimes, Nefertiti and Akhenaten. Interesting, certainly, and definitely dramatic, sounding, for those of us old enough to remember them, an echo of the Vietnam war era's general mistrust of anyone in the military. But I personally find a blustering, overbearing soldier, which Horemheb historically does not appear to have been, a less convincing villain than a smooth-tongued, calculating courtier with high connections and higher ambitions. For that reason, and since I don't like to slander the dead, I invented a fictitious pharaoh, Huy, and inserted his brief reign between those of Tutankhamun and Ay. In view of the thoroughness with which the Egyptians were able to eradicate the memories of Akhenaten and Hatshepsut for several millennia, it is quite possible that such a pharaoh existed.

All the characters in
The City of Refuge
are my own invention with the exception of Seti, Horemheb, Prince Thutmose, General Ramesses, Nakht, and Ay, but I took considerable liberties with what we know of these characters and their antecedents. As an example, one of Seti's grandmothers was described as a 'Singer of Ra'. I expanded on this and made him the grandson of the High Priest of Ra at Iunu (Heliopolis) through his mother.

While Akhenaten's death probably led to the fall of many of his closest associates, I have found nothing at all to indicate Nakht's ultimate fate. Akhenaten had a brother, Thutmose, who was High Priest of Ptah at Memphis. Everything I have been able to discover about this man indicates that he was Amenhotep III's original Crown Prince and predeceased his father by some years, leaving Akhenaten to inherit.

Theomorphic names, which are names compounded with a god's name, were very common in Egypt. At the time of the Atenist heresy, Akhenaten required that the 'Amun' in any theomorphic name be changed to 'Aten'. This was also done, though not as consistently, with names compounded with the names of other major gods in the Egyptian pantheon. After his death the names reverted back to their original forms, and any names compounded with 'Aten' were also changed. Thus, Neb-Aten (Aten is lord) would have become Neb-Amun, Tutankhaten (The living image of the Aten) became Tutankhamun, and Pa-Aten-em-heb (Aten at the feast) became, possibly, Horemheb.

All of this is complicated by the gaps in our understanding of the ancient Egyptian language. I have seen several excellent novels that have, somewhere within them, the statement by the author that he or she has used the 'genuine' Egyptian names for (take your pick) gods names, kings' names, place names, defying modern practice, which obscures the truth. The problem is that 'the truth' is impossible to establish.

Of all the dead languages we know, with the possible exception of Etruscan, Ancient Egyptian is perhaps the most defunct. No one has spoken it for two millennia, at least. Scholars are still arguing about how it would have been pronounced. Coptic Egyptian, the language spoken in Egypt after the advent of Christianity, has shed some light, but it is the Egyptian language at its stage of development two thousand years beyond the golden age of Pharaonic Egypt. The difficulties with this state of affairs can perhaps be illustrated by Caedmon's Hymn, written around the 7th Century A.D, 1,300 years before our era, a lesser distance in time than that which lies between Coptic Egyptian and ancient Egyptian. It is in English, and the first four lines are as follows:

Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard

metudæs maecti end his modgidanc

uerc uuldurfadur sue he uundra gihuaes

eci dryctin or astelidæ

Those four lines in a modern translation read this way:

Now let me praise the keeper of Heaven's kingdom,

the might of the Creator, and his thought,

the work of the Father of glory, how each of wonders

the Eternal Lord established in the beginning.

If you listen to a recording of the hymn, you can pick out some words: 'uerk', for example, is definitely 'work', and hefaenricaes uard sounds like 'heaven's riches' ward (or keeper).

In addition to the question of idiomatic changes, scholars trying to decipher the verbal language using hieroglyphs and hieratic (handwritten) texts are hindered by the fact that the written words are composed only of consonants. Roman letters have been assigned to hieroglyphic symbols, but that is imprecise at best. Standard practice among Egyptologists is to assign the letter 'e' when there is any doubt of the vowel properly put in a spot, but this is an arbitrary rule of thumb.

Obviously, there is room for a lot of variation, and you'll certainly find it. The characters spelling Akhenaten's name have been variously written as 'Akhenaten', 'Akhnaten', or 'Ikhnaton'. Nefertiti has been written as 'Nofretete', 'Iyneferti' or 'Astnofret'. I chose the spellings and pronunciations that were comfortable for me.

Some people dislike the Hellenistic names given to places and people (Amenophis, Hermopolis). I have used the ancient names when possible: Khemnu instead of Hermopolis, for example (though some scholars feel it should be pronounced 'Khmun'). I have kept Memphis instead of 'Men-Nefer' and Thebes instead of 'Waset', because of their powerful historical associations. 'Hundred-gated Thebes' of Memnon...the fall of Memphis under the onslaught of Cambyses' armies, bringing with it the demise of dynastic Egypt... Besides, if I apply the latitude given to someone putting in vowels where none are known, and ignore the customary 'E', I have, variously, 'Waset', 'Wosat' 'Woosit', 'Wesit', 'Weesut' or 'Wusot'. They all look bad.

I take seriously a storyteller's duty to tell stories and not to give his readers a headache. Peppering a fast-moving story with names and concepts that are unfamiliar enough to wrench their thoughts from the story and are not, in themselves, essential to the flow of the narration, is a bad idea. A 'go forth and read' admonishment (rather like this one) is better.

I had to make some decisions concerning the mode of address for various characters. While we do know the full titulary that would be applied to Pharaoh, we do not know how he was addressed by his courtiers, or in what way they referred to him when they were not in his presence. People being people throughout time, I have chosen to adopt the old European terms 'Your Majesty' and 'Sire'.

Another problem involves the titles for high-ranking ecclesiastics. I chose to have the High Priest of any cult referred to as 'His Holiness', much as one would refer to the Pope or the Dalai Lama. His second would be 'His Grace', much as one might address the Archbishop of Canterbury. 'His Reverence' is a very adaptable term for any priest, as is 'My Father'.

I have followed my own judgment in the question of place names in
The City of Refuge
. As previously stated, I used whatever names were most familiar: Memphis instead of Mennefer, and Thebes instead of Waset. When the Egyptian names were less ponderous and the other names were unfamiliar, I used the Egyptian names: Khemnu rather than Hermopolis. And when I had need of a city that was a major trading port along the Nile (Sumneh) I invented the city and its name.