A God Against the Gods (34 page)
Read A God Against the Gods Online
Authors: Allen Drury
Tushratta of Mittani
To Tiye, Queen of Kemet, Tushratta, King of Mittani.
May it be well with thee, may it be well with thy son, may it be well with Tadukhipa, my daughter, thy young companion in widowhood scarce two years wed.
Thou knowest that I was in friendship with Nibmuaria, thy husband, and that Nibmuaria was in friendship with me. What I wrote to him and negotiated with him, and likewise what Nibmuaria wrote to me and negotiated with me, thou and Gilia and Mani, my messengers, ye know it. But thou knowest it better than all others. And none other knows it as well.
Now thou hast said to Gilia, “Say to thy lord: ‘Nibmuaria was in friendship with thy father and sent him the military standards, which he kept. The embassies between them were never interrupted. But now, forget not thou thine old friendship with thy brother Nibmuaria and extend it to his son Naphuria. Send joyful embassies; let them not be omitted.’”
Lo, I will not forget the friendship with Nibmuaria! More, tenfold more, words of friendship will I exchange with Naphuria thy son and keep up right good friendship.
But the promise of Nibmuaria, the gift that thy husband ordered to be brought to me, thou hast not sent. I asked for golden statuettes. But now Naphuria thy son has had them made of wood, though gold is as dust in thy land.
Why does this happen just now? Should not Naphuria deliver that to me which his father gave me? And he wishes to increase our friendship tenfold!
Let thy messengers to Yuni my wife depart with Naphuria’s ambassador, and Yuni’s messenger shall come to thee. Lo, I send gifts for thee, boxes filled with perfume and many good things.
Let Naphuria send gold as Nibmuaria thy husband promised, so that our friendship may increase tenfold as he says. Tell thy son Naphuria to send gold! Send gold!
***
Tiye
My world ends, and this little man cries gold! Had I the troops, the weapons, the means to transport them instantly to his land, I should strike him dead where he stands, this sniveling piss-pot of a grasping king! How can he bother me with things so petty at such a time! I wish the gods might do the work for me, and strike him dead this instant, this very moment! Aiee, I wish him dead…!
But—no. Of course—no. I, Queen Tiye, the Great Wife, for many years Pharaoh in all but name of the Two Lands, must be more responsible than that. Anger is no good right now, it only blinds and confuses. Tushratta and all the rest must be kept at my side, and if possible bound closer. I shall indeed speak to “Naphuria,” though if I know my son the cause is lost already.
Yet I cannot admit that the cause is lost already. I cannot admit that any cause, of the myriad I fear, is lost already. That would be to concede all things to Akhenaten. And that, for the sake of Kemet, our House and his own life, I cannot do.
My husband goes to lie beneath the Peak of the West, and I am left alone to save the Two Kingdoms if I can. To help me I have allies, but in the face of all the traditional power of Pharaoh we cannot be open about it: we must be close and we must be clever. My brother Aye—my nephew Horemheb—my daughter Sitamon—Amonhotep, Son of Hapu—and yes, my niece Nefertiti—stand with me. All the rest belong to Akhenaten now, some by virtue of his power and some by virtue of their own willing subservience. We must move subtly if we are to save the land from him, and him from himself.
Both of these I wish to do. I believe that—for the present, at least—the others agree. How much longer I can hold them to the gentler course I do not know. Aye is ever subtle but capable of reaching irrevocable decision in time. Horemheb has inherited the subtlety and the patience, but he too can eventually become adamant. Sitamon, as always, will do as he says. Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, is a philosopher, but his greatest love is Kemet and we have never tested the limits of his tolerance where its ultimate good is concerned. And my niece the Chief Wife? (No one, even now, gives her my title. I shall always be “the Great Wife,” to the day I die. And rightly so: I have earned it.) Her motivations are mixed and many, but in the final reckoning I do not care, as long as she stands with me. And I think she will.
In these final two years of my husband’s decline (he barely roused for his Third Jubilee—it was held at Thebes and was over in a day), my niece and I have become much closer than we have ever been. That perfect mask, always calm, always cool, always serene and never shattered in public, has shattered for me on one or two occasions of late. An anguished woman has looked out, turning to me for sympathy, not as niece to aunt or daughter-in-law to mother-in-law, but as woman to woman. I know her concerns and she knows mine. If the time is coming when we must all make a final choice, I believe we will be together—though she loves him still. As, may the gods have mercy on me, so do I.
She is spending increasing time, now, in her North Palace at Akhet-Aten (though she has not yet formally moved there), taking with her the two older girls. The three younger, too immature to be objects as yet of their father’s desperate desire for sons, remain with the royal nursemaids in the King’s House. Merytaten, married last year to Smenkhkara, is twelve, consumed by ambition for the throne: it is well her mother has her where she can keep her under constant watch, for if Merytaten can increase the alienation between her father and her mother and thereby assume her mother’s power, she is certainly going to do so. Ankhesenpaaten, ten, is pregnant by her father but has secretly asked both her mother and me if we cannot find a midwife who can arrange a miscarriage—“accidental,” as her father’s wrath might be great and unpredictable if the child were a son, and he ever discovered our plotting. We hope to do so. Ankhesenpaaten’s ambitions are as fierce as her sister’s—their rivalry has increased to the point where they barely speak—but she has prudently decided to remain her mother’s friend, at least for now.
At the North Palace there also reside my own sweet little Tutankhaten, now five years old, and my daughter Beketaten, now three. I have been too preoccupied with their father’s slow dying (as prolonged and sad, in its way, as his mother Mutemwiya’s) to give them the attention I should. Nefertiti volunteered to take them for me, and I was glad to accept. I have seen them when I could, but the care of their father and the crushing burdens of government, devolving increasingly upon my shoulders, have often kept me from them. Nefertiti loves them both and is a fine and gentle “substitute mother” to them, aided by her odd little sister Mut-nedj-met, always traipsing about with her two dwarfs in attendance. I am very grateful to my daughter-in-law for that.
I am also grateful to her for not having parted openly and finally with my son, even though she has been given much cause. As it became increasingly apparent that my husband was finally dying and that our son would soon be sole Pharaoh, it became increasingly important that the appearance of a united Family be preserved. The moment of Akhenaten’s accession would certainly not be the moment for a separation from his wife. Nefertiti has an earnest care for the fitness of things, and it is to her great credit that she is concealing her unhappiness from the people and doing all she can to make the transition smooth and acceptable.
I pray constantly that my son will be equally responsible. But I have great fears. Tomorrow my husband will be entombed at noon when Ra stands high above. We will then all travel by state barge downriver to Akhet-Aten, where ten days from now my son’s coronation durbar will be held. It is an occasion that cries out for more of his “wonders.” Knowing him, I do not think he will be able to restrain himself. I shudder at the possibilities.
I weep over them, too, more than the world, or anyone save Nefertiti, will ever know. There was one time recently, the time when we finally opened our hearts completely to one another and spoke candidly of our mutual fears, when we wept together.
But it happened only once. And there is a difference.
She weeps for one of my sons.
I weep for two.
Ever since the night of the day when Akhenaten revealed his Hymn to the Aten, he and Smenkhkara have been more than brothers: of that their mother is certain. There has been about my elder son too much of an air of secret satisfaction, about my younger too much of a glow. He is seventeen, now, married to Merytaten, but I do not think he goes near her: his feeling for his brother enthralls him too much. This suits Merytaten, who cannot have further children anyway, and of course it suits Akhenaten, who has no rival. So the two gods consume one another, having moved far beyond the innocent idealism with which both, I believe, began. And Kemet gossips, sniggers and stands appalled; and my elder son continues headlong down the path he has set for himself, which can only lead to disaster for his marriage, for our House, for the Two Lands, for his brother—and for him.
He comes to me tonight, very late, at the hour when Pani tells us all will be ready in the embalming house. There, too, will come Nefertiti, Smenkhkara, Aye, Horemheb, Sitamon and Amonhotep, Son of Hapu.
Together we senior members of the Family and our most faithful servant will pay our last private respects before we go before the people tomorrow morning in the long procession that will move through Thebes from Luxor to Karnak and thence across the river to the Western Bank and the final resting place.
Before we watch my husband’s mummy being sealed away forever in his sarcophagi, I have arranged that we will have a time to talk. I have mentioned my purpose to my niece, to my brother, and to all save the two lovers. They will be surprised and no doubt furious with us. It does not matter. There are things that must be said. I, Queen Tiye, the Great Wife, for many years Pharaoh in all but name of the Two Lands, have decided it must be done. I am prepared for the consequences and so are the others. It will not be pleasant. But it must be done.
***
Sitamon
My mother has summoned us to her apartments tonight before we go to the embalming house. It promises to be an interesting conversation.
I wish it might touch, though I know it will not, on the future of the Queen-Princess Sitamon and her plans to marry her cousin the General Horemheb. These plans appeared to be quite feasible seventy days ago when my father died. Now they are not so clear. I wonder why this is.…
I think perhaps it is my fault. I should not have approached Horemheb so soon. I should have waited several days. I should not have gone to him immediately upon leaving my father’s deathbed, still in tears (increased by the ridiculous ritual wailing we women must always do on such occasions), to throw myself upon his compassion and, I thought, his love.
Now I am not so sure of either. Now I begin to see my lifelong companion in a new light. Is Horemheb capable of compassion? Is it possible for him to love? Or does he have purposes that preclude both?
I cannot believe it of one who has been so kind and tender with me for so many years, the father of my three lost children. It is simply that he is distracted by events, absorbed in affairs of state, deeply enwrapt in the problems of transition which now confront all Kemet. Great responsibilities fall to him and his father in this difficult time. Indeed, they fall to us all, who must somehow bring a control and balance to my brother’s rule that he may not wish and may violently resist.
Akhenaten is twenty-seven and embarked upon strange courses. His marriages with his daughters have caused uneasiness in the Two Lands, particularly since they have not produced the sons that have been their ostensible purpose. Unfairly, perhaps, but nonetheless inevitably, a harsher interpretation gains ground, so Horemheb tells me. Simple lust is easier for the people to understand, particularly when at heart they do not approve. I do not believe this. I think his purpose, while pathetic, has been genuine. But not everyone is so tolerant. The ugly gossip grows.
With my younger brother Smenkhkara he has become as besotted as he is with the Aten, and alas, almost as openly. Again, there may have been some more innocent original purpose there, some pathetic grasping, perhaps, after a physical perfection taken from him by the dreadful illness that changed so many things in him, and thus so many things in Kemet. But here, too, the gossip has it that the end result is the same. And here even I, who like all the Family have always loved and tried to protect him from himself, find that I am wavering. Much can be forgiven a Good God, Son of the Sun and supreme ruler of us all. But there are areas where, in time, forgiveness ends and sniggering speculation begins. And sadness comes, in the hearts of those who love him.
With Amon he exists in a half truce so tense that it affects everything in the Two Lands. Doddering old Maya and his white-robed underlings had no choice but to bend to my brother’s will when he halved their wealth and their priesthood with the Aten. But a deep and vengeful hatred has resulted in their ranks. Those who were assigned to the Aten have of course subverted him as much as they dared, and the rest have kept the people constantly stirred up with their agitations against what they whisper to be an unnatural order of things. And so, of course, in the context of our ancient history, it is. Aten is the newcomer here, not Amon. Ancient tradition, sympathy, loyalty, power, aid Amon. To this day, Hymn to the Aten and my brother’s orders notwithstanding, the people as a whole still belong to Amon.
And now, without challenge, and without my father’s easygoing influence to soften the fact, the people also belong to Akhenaten. And in the Palace we are constantly informed, by those whose business it is to find out for us, that they are terrified of what he may see fit to do to them.
I myself do not think it will be so severe—and yet, I must confess, this rises more from hope than knowledge. I see him very rarely now, not being one who has to fawn upon him in Akhet-Aten, but one who spends most of her time here in familiar, comfortable old Malkata. Half-deserted Thebes dozes beside the Nile and for the most part I doze with her, since Horemheb, knowing my aversion to the new city, visits me often here. He is very diligent on my brother’s business, but he still manages to come to Thebes every few days … which leaves me even more puzzled by his evasiveness concerning our wedding plans.
For these, I have already obtained Akhenaten’s consent, which I do not necessarily have to have, but which makes it easier—or would make it easier, were Horemheb so inclined. There was a moment—apparently wry for him, more than a little tense for me—when I suddenly thought that my brother had other ideas. It turned out to be but one more of those ironic games he plays increasingly with the Family. It is, I think, part of his growing isolation from us: he jests to hurt now, not, as he once did, as a form of self-defense.
“Sister,” he said slowly when I asked my question, “are you very sure this is what you want to do?”
“But, yes, Majesty,” I said, unable to keep the surprise from my voice. “You know how it has been with Horemheb and me for many years. What else would I desire, now that our father has returned to the Aten?”
“I am glad you do not say ‘returned to Amon,’” he said dryly. “Many of my people still do.”
This was the first time, I think, when I really realized, with a chilling inescapability, that they are indeed, now,
his
people. I tried to turn aside what I feared to be his anger with them.
“But many do not, Son of the Sun. Many say, as you and I do, ‘returned to the Aten.’”
“He wished to be buried at Thebes in the old faith,” he said moodily, his eyes getting their faraway, brooding look. “After all these years, he still wished to be buried by Amon.”
“Will you permit it?” I asked. He gave me a sharp glance, eyes abruptly direct and angry.
“I loved our father,” he said flatly. “I shall do as he wished, even though it galls me to give Amon the satisfaction.”
“I am glad,” I ventured to say, “for I think a little satisfaction for Amon once in a while will not do harm.”
“Any satisfaction, now, for Amon will do harm,” he said. “But it cannot be helped. After—” His voice trailed away and the enigmatic eyes grew clouded and distant again. He repeated softly: “After … we shall see … But,” he resumed abruptly before I could question, which I would have done—we all have grown more challenging lately in our attempts to divert him from his course—“you have a different problem, Sister. Are you sure what you propose would be best for our House? Might there not be another plan that would better serve the Dynasty and the Two Lands?”
“What is that?” I demanded, unable to keep the alarm from my voice, for we have always, even in these recent months, been very close, and I thought I could perceive his meaning; which I did, right enough.
“I need sons,” he said, almost dreamily, eyes narrowed and watching me carefully. “You are a ‘widow’ now, you have the blood of Ra. You are my sister. Why should not—”
“Brother,” I said sharply, and I am afraid my voice grew a little shrill with tension, but I did not flinch before him: “
We will not.
”
“Oh?” he said sharply. “Do you defy Pharaoh?”
“I live in truth,” I said with an angry sarcasm that might have cost me my head but I no longer feared, I became the daughter of my mother and her iron was in my heart, “and I do not care if you kill me for it. Yes, I defy Pharaoh! There are enough—” I almost finished, “
affronts to nature going on in this land!
”
but very fortunately restrained myself and repeated only, “I defy Pharaoh! Will Pharaoh take vengeance on his defenseless sister for this?”
He stared at me from the eyes which can so quickly grow so blank and cold and for several moments said nothing. I returned him stare for stare, for, as I say, there are times when I am the daughter of Queen Tiye, and I no longer cared. Then abruptly his face relaxed. He smiled—but not, as he used to do, in a kindly way. Instead it was mocking, almost harsh, contemptuous.
“Sister, I would not steal you from your love. Marry Horemheb, if he will have you, with my blessing.”
“He will have me!” I said with an assurance strengthened by the anger of relief. “You may be very sure, he will have me!”
“I hope so,” he said, turning away, dismissing me with a discourtesy that also was unlike him—or at least, unlike him as he used to be. “I should hate to see such eternal devotion gone for nothing.”
“Do not mock, Brother,” I said, not bothering with “Majesty,” or “Son of the Sun,” or other courtesies, for I was too angry. “The day may come when you will need the support of those who love you. Do not drive us away with mockery.”
He turned back abruptly and his eyes filled with a naked unhappiness that still could touch my heart, even then.
“I have always had it,” he said, very low, “and what good has it done me?”
“Much good, Brother,” I said, suddenly filled with a desperate pity and a desperate need to reassure him. “Surely you realize that!”
“Yes,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I do realize, even though …” But he did not finish, and this time when he turned away, I knew I really was dismissed and he would not speak longer with me.
So I left him, frustrated and saddened as we all are these days when we try to talk to Akhenaten, and went to find Horemheb. And there received, as I have recounted, excuses and evasions and half promises and uncertainties. At first this crushed me: then my anger grew. Now I do not know whether I love him or hate him. But he is much too strong in the land for me to take any vengeance, even were I so inclined. I must be patient and approach him more softly. He is, as I say, distracted by events. Tomorrow my father will be buried. All will be changed. Perhaps when we meet at the Great Wife’s apartments tonight he will have a friendlier sign for me.
Certainly we will all need to stand together then, for I do not think my mother intends anything gentle with my brothers.
***