A God Against the Gods (36 page)

Horemheb

My cousins dream away the days like two enamored fools, in some fantasy world where they apparently feel no one notices or cares.

But the real world notices and cares.

Kemet and all notice and care.

Word comes that even in far Naharin, even in wretched Kush, they notice and care.

Everywhere gossip, sniggers and outrage erode the throne.

It is not enough that Nefer-Kheperu-Ra has done all the rest that he has done: now he must do this.

It is madness.

He actually believes, I think, that divinity makes him immune to the restraints of ordinary men. True, it makes him immune to the punishments reserved for ordinary men. But there are punishments reserved for kings, even kings who are gods, and he is not immune to them.

It is madness.

I think the time grows closer when I must keep my pledge to our grandmother. But all must be ready, all must be done in due time. Mystical protections surround Pharaoh, even such a One as this, in the minds of the people: it takes much to make them ready for his removal.

So awesome is his place in the Two Lands that even I, who feel increasingly that the gods may have placed me on earth to help save Kemet, flinch inwardly when I think the word “removal.” But I do think it, and the day will come when I say it. I feel this in my
ba
and
ka
,
the very soul and essence of my being.

Akhenaten and I have an appointment with the gods. Everything he does hurries me to the day. I pray constantly that I may never have to do what the gods seem to hint they want me to do: but the time grows closer.

Perhaps the Great Wife can yet save her son, yet turn him back, yet bring them both to their senses before it is too late. We shall see tonight. But I am not hopeful. Nor is my cousin Nefertiti, nor my father Aye, nor dull, faithful Ramesses, nor Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, nor all the rest, great and small, who grieve for Kemet under such a One.

I do not want to do what we may all have to do. I shudder away from it as I know the others do.

But every day the time grows closer.

Now he has supreme power. Those who would remove him from it must be very careful, very clever, very discreet—and very strong.

All of these I am and have ever been. And daily, as he grows more profligate, irresponsible and uncaring, I grow calmer, more certain, more careful and more determined.

We shall see which of us has the final say.

I have done his bidding for twelve years, first in little things, then in great. He gave me high honors, raised me to his right hand, used me to kill our uncle Aanen, used me to enforce his decree stripping Amon of half his wealth and priesthood, gave me great administrative powers over the Two Lands, has depended upon me many times for the running of the kingdom and such fragments of empire as his uncaring ways still allow us. But aside from those instances where I have managed to act first and report to him later, he has been an erratic mentor, a dragging weight upon my arm, a wavering and uncertain force that now encourages, now holds back. He would rather hymn the Aten and lie with Smenkhkara than be consistent in his kingship. I have administered affairs rather in spite of, than because of, his support. It has not been firm, and since, in the past two years of his father’s final dying, he has become virtually sole ruler already, the wavering has been apparent in all we have done.

Kemet has continued to drift in spite of my best efforts, those of my father Aye, of the Great Wife, of Nefertiti, and of those closest to me such as Ramesses and my younger brother Nakht-Min, whom I have brought nearer to my side as the difficult months have dragged on.

Why, you might ask, does it take so long for us to move against him? Why, if we are so convinced of his unfitness, have we permitted him to remain in power until finally the inevitable day has come when he has indeed become the most high, the most holy and, in the still superstitious eyes of the people, the most unassailable?

The reason, if you understand us, is simple: because for twelve years he has been Co-Regent, Son of the Sun, Living Horus, Great Bull, Good God, King and Pharaoh of the Two Lands, divinity on earth, and, with his father, co-ruler of us all. That is why. You do not topple such a One overnight. You do not even do it in five years or perhaps even in ten, so high does he ride above us in the ancient and ongoing pageant of our history.

It takes much time and many careful plans to bring down such a One. It takes many, many errors on his part, accumulating until even the people, who go in fear and ancient awe of him, see at last what he is and determine
in their own hearts
that they must be rid of him. They are close to it now, I believe. But even then the people themselves would never rise to do it, for never have they risen against a Pharaoh, and never will they, so deep in ancient tradition and the belief of many centuries lies their worship of the wearer of the Double Crown.

It takes a small group within the Palace, close to and part of the Court, working patiently and most delicately over many years, aided by Pharaoh’s errors and capable of most subtly and carefully making use of them, to finally work the people’s will. And they must be very, very sure indeed that they correctly interpret the people’s will, else not only Pharaoh but the people they hope to serve will turn upon them and they will be utterly destroyed.

They must also have a suitable successor who carries the blood of Ra. And what have we?

My cousin Smenkhkara is a not very bright but charming boy, swept away by the adoration of his older brother, not knowing really, at seventeen, where his true duty lies. He thinks, for various reasons, that it lies with the King—and certainly he is fortified by every tradition in that. He does what his heart and body tell him to, but in his mind he has the absolute conviction that he does it
because it is his duty to Pharaoh.
My father has told me how Smenkhkara once turned white and cried, “
I
will never betray Nefer-Kheperu-Ra!
”
at the lightest, most innocent suggestion that he might inadvertently do so. Now love, which I am convinced is quite genuine, has fortified that early reaction. Piled on top of it lie all the overpowering weight and tradition of centuries. Akhenaten’s younger brother never will betray him, of that I am certain. (Nor would his youngest, Tutankhaten … if we wait too long.) Therefore Smenkhkara would be of no use to our purposes—those “ends” with which Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, chided me so long ago in Thebes, and which have finally become clear enough to me so that they dominate my every waking hour.

We cannot use the younger brother as the instrument of his deposal.

And the youngest brother, whom one cannot overlook in the royal equation? Tut is five, still the sunny, happy child he has always been—indeed as all the children of my uncle and the Great Wife have been, except for Akhenaten. He knows nothing yet of these worrisome, unhappy concerns of his elders. We cannot use the youngest brother either … if we wait too long.

But here I go beyond the bounds of safety, even in my own mind. Such speculation is treason, which is why I confide it only to my father Aye, who knows and understands all things—fully as well, I am convinced, as Akhenaten says
his
“father,” the Aten, knows and understands all things.

Yet even now, even after all these years, even after the judgment of time has begun to turn finally against him—at least in the minds of those of us who will have to do the things that may be necessary if he must be deposed—it is a strange thing:

I still pity Akhenaten.

I find that his “big brother” also still loves him, though the love is stretching very thin. Some tenuous tie of childhood affection—some deep, unerasable compassion for all that he has been through—old shared happiness, the uncaring innocence of the newly minted world—still holds me to my strange cousin. One does not so lightly shake the bonds of youth, and growing up, and the happy trusting years.

I find that I still hope desperately, hope against hope, that he will halt even now and turn back from the fatal course that appears to be leading him inevitably to disaster and death. I, even I, still want him to live and to be, still, a great King and Pharaoh.

Perhaps my aunt and all of us can do it when we meet in her apartments an hour from now. My intelligence and an unshakable sense of reality assure me this will not be so. But something Akhenaten can still draw upon, if he but will, tells “big brother” that he still must hope, fatuous and futile though it seems at this late date.

***