A God Against the Gods (7 page)
Read A God Against the Gods Online
Authors: Allen Drury
I hear the roar of greeting, enthusiastic but respectful, that greets Aye. I know it is time for me to leave. I stand back, survey myself in the full-length mirror held before me by two slaves; find all in order; grasp the crook and flail firmly, compose my face into the pleasantly smiling, serenely untroubled expression it must carry always in public; and proceed, in the midst of slaves, priests and attendants, to the dock, and so into the state barge, which today of necessity is not
Radiance of the Aten
but its sister vessel,
All Is Pleasing to Amon.
All down the river I barely hear, barely see, the hundreds of thousands who roar their greetings as I pass. Aanen stands at my shoulder. Our eyes have met once, as I stepped aboard. His were expressionless and fathomless. So do I hope mine seemed to him. He bowed very low and assumed his post slightly behind and to the left of the throne; we have not exchanged word or look since.
Confident, satisfied, happy and serene—for so they must believe me to be—I move slowly down the river before my people. In my mind I am desperately praying—for my son who is coming from Memphis, and for my son who is coming from the womb. No word comes as yet from either. Yet it must from both: it must. And from both it must be good.
It must.
It must.
***
Aanen
He worries, my arrogant brother-in-law: something in the set of his shoulders, which only I can see as I stand behind the throne while we move slowly down the river past the screaming throngs, tells me so.
He worries, and so he should.…
He is not alone.
To tell you the truth, so do I.
It is no small task to challenge Pharaoh, not something to be undertaken lightly. Death, instant and cruel, may await us all—if he lets impulse rule where only the cold and careful mind can be of any help. He may do so, for he is spoiled beyond his twenty-two years, heir to all the hard-won empire of ancestors stronger than he. Hatshepsut, the Tuth-mosids, his grandfather, Amonhotep II (life, health, prosperity to them all!), have left him a mighty heritage. He presides over it with three wives, two harems, infinite wealth, endless gold, and a populace that obviously adores him. This sound coming from both banks of the river is hardly a human sound: it surpasses welcome, it transcends loyalty, it rises into realms of love and worship given only to the Good God, and to few Good Gods with the absolute fervor accorded him.
This little Pharaoh is supreme in all things, and above all in the love of Kemet. But he is not supreme over Amon, though he thinks he can be. But he cannot, and today he will find it out.
Our brief exchange this morning was typical of the way his attitude toward the temple of Amon and those who serve it has changed in these recent months. Always, now, there is contempt, scarcely hidden, in his voice when he speaks to me. Always now there is as much ignoring of my wishes as he dares, an attempt to exclude the priesthood of Amon-Ra from its rightful place and rightful honors.
Most insulting of all to me personally, there is an open dislike for his own brother-in-law, whom he seems no longer able to separate from the god he has evidently come to despise.
Well. He put me here and here I shall stay. And we shall see who is the stronger, the God Amon-Ra or the God Amonhotep III (life, health, prosperity!).
This morning he could not even separate the brother-in-law from the Priest of Amon, he has come to dislike me so much in both capacities. My blood gives me the right to see my sister; my office gives me the right to attend her accouchement. Minor priests of Amon are at her side: It was the grossest insult to prevent the attendance of the highest, next to Pharaoh himself. Yet neither as brother nor as priest would he let me in. Contempt was in his tone, contempt in his action. It was flagrant in all degrees, and I shall not forget it. Contempt for me I could possibly stand, but not contempt for the god I represent
When we return to the Palace from the ceremony, I shall again demand entrance, and this time in the presence of those he fawns upon, such as my high and mighty brother Aye, and that pompous little scribe who scuttles about listening and learning all the secrets he can, Amonhotep, Son of Hapu.
We shall see then what he does … unless, of course, by that time he has other things to think about.
I believe this will be the case: and I perceive as we near the landing at Karnak that he too considers it a likely possibility. His shoulders are rigid with tension. It cannot be the tension of ceremony, because the Good God is the child and prisoner of ceremony: he does little from one year’s end to the next but follow ceremony. He has been on public display from the age of one, thousands of ceremonies have come and gone. It is not ceremony that bothers him now: it is worry for his son. And it is not the son perhaps even now entering the ranks of the gods in my sister’s bed at Malkata. It is the son who has already entered, and who comes from Memphis, at his father’s wish, as High Priest of Ptah to assume command of Amon’s ceremony, and thus be his father’s pawn in the dangerous game he plays with Amon.
This would be sacrilege, outrageous, unthinkable, unforgivable—if it happens. But I do not think it will.
My brother-in-law thinks—or rather he did think, up to a few minutes ago: now he is so sure, and every second grows more worried—that his secret plans for my nephew have passed unnoticed by Amon. But Amon-Ra is king of the gods and all things are known to him.
A slight but not quite normal stirring in the palace at Memphis—the ordering up, quite casually, of chariots for a “hunting party” to take the little Prince for a few days along the boundaries of the Red Land—the gathering of supplies and provisions for an expedition much longer than that—and it occurred to our temple in Memphis that something we should know about was under way. A few judicious bribes were dispensed from Amon’s vast wealth, a little judicious torture was administered in two or three cases by our special corps of protectors of Amon, and soon we had the whole story.
The Crown Prince was to be secretly brought to Thebes, was to displace me and my fellow priests, and was to be given control—the High Priest of Ptah in Amon-Ra’s own temple!—of the ceremony of prayer and greeting for his new brother.
It would have been a direct insult that Amon could never forgive. It would have meant a constitutional crisis of such magnitude that one or the other must go down before it.
It could not be permitted to happen.
For all our sakes, the mad plan of my arrogant fool of a brother-in-law had to be thwarted.
When word reached me, brought by a courier who had ridden two of his three horses to death along the way in his frantic haste, I made up my mind at once. I went directly to the Good God. I was received with the usual undertone of scarcely veiled insolence. I was pleased to see that it vanished, very soon.
“Son of the Sun,” I said, after bowing almost to the ground and rattling off his titles according to the prescribed ritual, “I understand the Crown Prince comes from Memphis to attend his brother’s birth.”
I had the satisfaction of seeing a look of blank dismay touch that round, smug little face for a second. But I will give him credit: he has will power, and with it he mastered his expression almost instantly and returned it to its usual bland serenity.
“Oh?” he said. “Is this what you hear, Brother?”
“It is not true, then,” I said promptly, and though he concealed the struggle inside, I knew it was going on. He decided to be honest.
“Such is my desire,” he said calmly.
“And plans are well advanced for his journey?”
“Well advanced.”
“Would it be too much to ask,” I said, and I am afraid I could not keep a certain dryness from my tone, for contempt breeds contempt, “that Amon-Ra be permitted to do suitable honor to his noble brother Ptah by accompanying the Prince in suitable numbers on his journey?”
“It is kind of you to ask, Brother,” he said, “but it is not necessary.”
“Not necessary,” I agreed, not revealing that I knew the monstrous plan behind the journey, “but fitting to the order of things in Kemet—that order which has existed unchanged for thousands of years and will continue for thousands of thousands, into eternity. It is right that Amon-Ra pay respect to Ptah, it is right that priests of Amon as well as priests of Ptah accompany the Prince. To do otherwise would be to violate
ma’at
, the eternal order of things. The land of Kemet would be puzzled and dismayed were the order of things to be so disarranged that Amon could be deliberately ignored and egregiously offended.”
He hesitated, and for a second looked uncertain. My brother Aye stepped forward, and whatever his thoughts (and it is not the first time that I have suspected him of plotting secretly against Amon), his voice was grave and decisive as it always is, thereby lending a spurious air of deliberation and authority to one whose ambitions are no secret to me, his brother, however he attempts to dissemble.
“Majesty,” he said, “Son of the Sun: my brother the Priest of Amon speaks sense. It would be only fitting that Amon, too, accompany the Prince from Memphis. However,” he said, raising his hand a little at my instinctive movement of gratification, “since the Prince is High Priest of Ptah, it would seem right that for every priest of Amon there be two of Ptah; and that in any event there be no more than fifteen priests for such a journey. Otherwise it would become unwieldy and a slow public progress, instead of the speedy journey made necessary by Her Majesty’s imminent confinement.”
“They should come by water, then,” Pharaoh said. “Ramose”—the Vizier stepped forward, bowed low—“do you send word at once that the Crown Prince be accompanied as the Councilor Aye suggests, and that the company for safety’s sake be given also an escort of a hundred soldiers from the garrison at Memphis.”
Ramose bowed low again and withdrew. We three were left alone.
“Thus,” my brother-in-law said, staring at me with insolent eyes, “will my son be safe.”
“Thus will Amon be suitably honored, even as Ptah is honored,” I replied, staring back.
“Thus will the peace and order of Kemet be kept,” my brother Aye said quietly, “as it is the duty of all of us to do.”
This was a month ago, and in that month spies went to Memphis (my own, and Aye’s on Pharaoh’s service), plans were revised, supplies were increased; the agreed-upon number of priests and soldiers was assigned, two barges—
Ptah Is Satisfied
and
Amon Is Gracious
—were outfitted; and two weeks ago my nephew and his company set forth upon the river, heading south into the northward-flowing current.
And so now Pharaoh and I are arriving at the landing at Karnak, and no word has come from the High Priest of Ptah and his flotilla. Last night they were encamped within half a day’s journey, as my spies told me and Aye’s, I am sure, told him; but nothing has been heard today, though they were expected in the fourth quarter of morning, in time for the boy to accompany his father to the temple.
We had to leave without him: how sad.
I see in my brother-in-law’s carefully veiled eyes and tensely held posture as he steps ashore, smile fixed and eyes straight ahead while he takes back his crook and flail from Ramose and prepares to follow me into the temple, that his worry is now beginning to consume him.
My eyes do not meet his, I make no slightest gesture, no smallest sign of my own worry lest the venture go awry. I cannot afford to indicate by so much as the flicker of an eyelash any knowledge, any concern; and really, why should I?
I am supported by the right, after all. It is not I who tried to pick a quarrel with Amon-Ra.
***
Tiye
The new god fights to be born: Bes and Hathor are helping him. Amon’s priests, doctors, nurses, stand twittering about. What are they to me? Bes and Hathor and I will do it all, as we have done it twice before with Sitamon and Tuthmose, and as we shall do it again many times, until the House of Thebes has so many princes and princesses that not even Amon will dare attack us then.
Aiee
,
it hurts! But it is the new god, and I will stand the pain.…
I would stand any pain for my husband, any pain for the House of Thebes, any pain for the land of Kemet, which I love. Nothing shall defeat the House of Thebes. Nothing shall betray the land of Kemet. I, Tiye, say so. I, Tiye, shall see that it is always true. I do not wear the Blue Crown but I am of the mettle of those who have. I could do it if I had to. I, Tiye, could rule, for I am as strong as Hatshepsut (life, health, prosperity!), as strong as Tuthmose I (life, health, prosperity!), as strong as Tuthmose III (life, health, prosperity!).
I am stronger than Amonhotep III (life, health, prosperity!) though he is my husband and to him I owe much, for he has made me great.
I give good measure for it. The Great Wife Tiye does not accept her honors without keeping her part of the bargain. I give him children. I give him counsel. I give him love. I give him strength. I know now, after twelve years in his bed, that I have sufficient strength to give him what he needs and still keep within, in some secret place known only to me, enough more to meet for us both whatever the gods may bring. I am not weak. I am stronger than he. This I know now.
I did not know it when we married. Then I was as shy as he, pushed forward by my parents, Yuya and Tuya, and by my aunt Mutemwiya, when there was no sister he could marry, no heiress to the throne. We were ten, and pawns.
We are not pawns now.
At first it was a children’s game: Kemet loved us, we were taken everywhere, for months we were on constant display. Of Kemet’s five million people, probably two million at least came out to see our triumphal progress up and down the river, from Nubia to the Delta. Everywhere we went, all day, all night, crowds lined the banks of the Nile on both sides: the cheering never seemed to stop. Even when we were sleeping, when we were in our private quarters, when they could not see us, it continued. We were their dolls, two little figures clad in gold who held Kemet in our hands.
So do we hold it still.
Then came growing up. The marriage became real, passion woke, we were lucky: real love followed. In commemoration he gave me the small cartouche of royal blue porcelain, bearing on both sides his given name, Neb-Ma’at-Ra, which I wear always on a gold chain around my neck. The dolls were dolls no longer. The Good God began to take more and more power unto himself. My aunt the Queen Mother Mutemwiya, my parents Yuya and Tuya, aided by those court officials whom they trusted, aided by the priests of Amon who then were friendly to our House, gracefully yielded authority into his hands. They perceived that he was growing into a clever boy who could handle it. They perceived that I, Tiye, could handle it too. They perceived more than that: they perceived that I was becoming as astute at statecraft as he. They did not object when he raised me to be always at his side, when he published scarabs in my honor, when he listed my titles with his on our monuments, temples, palaces, such as had almost never been done before with a Great Wife in all of Kemet’s history—such as had never, ever, been done with a commoner Queen.
They knew he needed me. They knew that without Tiye, the Great Wife, he might weaken and falter. They knew I would keep him strong, because I am strong.
Our first child came, Sitamon the laughing and happy: another doll for Kemet. He married her immediately, with my acquiescence, indeed at my urging, for thus was the royal succession established once and forever, beyond all challenge. Relieved of his worry about that—for until then, in the eyes of the people, he was somehow not quite legitimate, though they loved him—he loved me more. The great years began. And presently, too, began the struggle, and the pain.
We could understand why our House needs a strong priesthood at its side, we knew the history of Amon-Ra and how he had become so entwined with us. We could not understand that he should be our equal, that he should own as much wealth as we, that he should attempt sometimes to override our wishes and flaunt our orders, in ways silent, secret, subtle, apparent to us if not to the people. We made clear our displeasure in ways as silent, secret and subtle, but unmistakably. A mutual hostility was born. Presently we could imagine another such intervention as had lifted Tuthmose III from obscurity and toppled his father Tuthmose I (life, health, prosperity to them both!) from the throne. We did not see where the threat might come from, for no one else had the royal blood, but we felt that Amon might be ready and capable, should the chance arise. Then the God brought me to bed again, and this time we had a son, Tuthmose. Now there was a Crown Prince. Now Amon had his weapon.
But so, of course, did we.
Aiee, aiee, aiee! May Bes and Hathor help me! I shall not cry out, I shall not let them see my face! I shall be strong. I shall be … strong
.…
Tuthmose is a sunny child, like his sister yet with an instinctive gravity that indicates awareness of his position, which we have explained a little, in simple terms. We have educated him at Memphis as much as possible, using as our excuse the fact that many of the Pharaohs have been educated there when they were princes. To placate Amon, and—he foolishly thought—to give our House control of his priests, my husband decided to name my next older brother, Aanen, to be Priest of Amon, second only to Pharaoh himself, in the temple at Karnak. It was perhaps the only time he ever went directly against my advice: some instinct told me to beware of this dour, impatient older brother. The Good God disagreed, but within a month he knew, too late, that I was right
Aanen liked the power of Amon. He became loyal to it. Never quite daring to oppose us openly, he nonetheless took the side of the god. He became a threat; and now his nephew, our son, was the pawn.
We could not turn to Mutemwiya, growing somewhat vague as she becomes older, or to my parents, retired now and living in our ancestral home of Akhmim, capital of the ninth province of Upper Kemet, near the Nubian border. It was a problem we must solve ourselves. Soon I saw the way.
For centuries the Aten, the sun’s disk, has been a secondary deity, one of the many forms of Ra. In the past hundred years our House has raised him gradually to a greater prominence. The purpose of the Good Gods before us has been the same as ours: not to eliminate Amon but to balance him.
This is our only purpose.
We have no quarrel with Amon: it is his grasping priests who concern us.
We ordered a temple built to the Aten near the temple of Amon. At first my husband wished to make it huge and grand, “a message they cannot miss.” Both I and my oldest brother, Aye, who is very wise and very close to me, cautioned against this. Pharaoh scaled down the plans, made it more modest: even so, the message, as Aye and I had known, was not missed.
My husband gave me the “lake” at my favorite town of Djarukha. He decided to publish a scarab. I suggested that it show him riding in a barge to open the dikes of the Nile to flood my land and bring me wealth. “What shall I name the barge?” he asked. I laughed: “You know.” He nodded and smiled with sudden comprehension.
Radiance of the Aten
sailed the Nile. We built other small temples to the Aten, as far north as the Delta. We built Malkata on the west bank of the Nile, bringing life to the land of the dead where no Pharaoh, defying Amon, had ever dared build a palace before.
Four months ago Aanen appeared before us both in the throne room. Aye was also there. It was a frightening conversation, for Aanen wanted nothing less than our son.
“The Crown Prince,” he began cautiously, “is now six years of age.”
“Yes?” my husband said, an ironic puzzlement in his voice. “We, his parents, are aware of that.”
“It is time,” Aanen said, “that he should be brought more fully into the life of Kemet.”
“Is that not something for us to decide?” Pharaoh demanded sharply; and my brother Aye added quietly, “Surely, Brother, you presume too much when you seek to instruct the Good God and the Great Wife on how they should handle their son.”
“He has been too long at Memphis,” Aanen said stubbornly. “He should be here in Thebes.”
“Why?” I asked. “He will come to Thebes in due time.”
“The people want him here,” Aanen said, and my husband snorted.
“Are you saying they do not want him in Memphis? I am told he is enormously popular there. Why should he be brought to Thebes right now? He is not educated yet. He is just beginning scribal school, he has much to learn.”
“Cannot your favorite Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, teach him?” Aanen asked, not bothering to conceal his sarcasm. “I thought
he
knew everything.”
“He may not know everything,” my husband said with a dangerous quietness, “but he is wise enough not to defy Pharaoh.”
“I am not defying Pharaoh, Son of the Sun,” Aanen said with a sudden obsequiousness that fooled no one. “I am only telling Your Majesties what Amon hears the length and breadth of the land: the people would like the family reunited.”
“I know what the people think as well as Amon!” my husband snapped; and for just a second there was a sly, sardonic amusement, instantly banished, in my brother Aanen’s eyes.
“We do not dispute that, Majesty,” he said with a sudden gravity. “But if you know, then you know that the people also wish the Crown Prince to spend more time with Amon. He has reached an age when he should be included in our ceremonies here. It is time for him to pay his respects to Amon-Ra and take his rightful place in Amon’s house.”
“And what is his ‘rightful place in Amon’s house’?” Pharaoh asked, again the dangerous quietness in his voice; and again my brother Aye followed softly with, “Yes, Brother, what is it you are proposing here?”
“I propose nothing,” Aanen said quickly. “I suggest only that if”—and he dared say this, not using our son’s title as he should have—“if my nephew is to be brought down to Thebes, then in addition to his other studies he should rightfully take his place among the acolytes in the temple of Amon. And he should be given, as befits his rank, a suitable title and suitable duties there.”
“And then, I suppose—” my husband began angrily—and then he stopped. But suddenly in all our minds was the same picture: the golden statue of Amon leaning down a hundred years ago to touch a priest in the ranks named Tuthmose III and raise him thereby instantly to the throne at the expense of his father.
For a moment no one said anything further: it was as though Pharaoh and I could not draw breath, so vast and fearful was the abyss that seemed to open at our feet. But the insolence of my brother Aanen had not yet run its course, for presently he shifted a little and asked softly:
“Surely, Son of the Sun, you do not fear that Amon will mistreat or mis-educate your son? Surely you know that we will treat him as tenderly as you yourselves, during those hours when he is with us? On what grounds can you object?”
Again there was silence while my husband and I, too astounded and dismayed by such effrontery and such danger, sought vainly for words. My brother Aye came to our rescue.
“On what grounds do
you
insist?” he asked our brother Aanen, a sudden harsh bluntness in his voice: and now it was time for Aanen to give way, which he did at once, smoothly and with just the right degree of affronted surprise.
“I do not ‘insist,’ Brother!” he exclaimed. “How could I possibly ‘insist’? I make a suggestion only, one so obvious and natural that it is desired by all reasonable people who have at heart the welfare of the Good God’s throne and the House of Thebes. And that means all the people of Kemet, and the Empire as well. What is so treasonous about that?”
“No one said anything about ‘treasonous,’ Brother!” Pharaoh snapped, recovering speech and determined now, as we all could see, to end this ominous conversation. “We are pleased to hear your suggestion, we shall consider it, but I do not think I can promise you that anything will be done about it.”
“Amon and the people will be disturbed and puzzled,” Aanen said in an elaborately aggrieved tone.
“I would not advise Amon,” my husband said in a remote and chilling voice, “to disturb and puzzle the people too much, Brother. That might lead to trouble. And none of us wants that.”
“Oh no,” Aanen agreed hastily. “None of us wants that, Son of the Sun.” He bowed low and began to back out. He paused at the door. “Am I to tell Amon, then, that for the time being the Crown Prince will not come to do him honor?”
“You may tell Amon,” my husband said, and his voice grated with anger, “that the Crown Prince does him honor daily in his temple at Memphis, and that there the Crown Prince will remain until such time as the Great Wife and I deem his schooling to be sufficiently advanced.”
“Very well,” Aanen said, his voice a regretful sigh as he left us. “Very well, Son of the Sun, if that is your desire, and my sister’s.”
After his ostentatiously worried face had disappeared and the curtain of beads across the door had ceased to sway from his elaborately humble departure, there was silence again in the room.
Pharaoh broke it at last in a firm and decisive tone.
“I see,” he remarked to my brother Aye and me, “that we are going to have to move much sooner than I had thought. Your sister has an idea about this, Brother. Tell us what you think of it.”
And so three months later Tuthmose became High Priest of Ptah at Memphis, and in Amon’s temples my brother Aanen and his friends muttered and were furious. But it was done, and we had captured the pawn, not Amon.
Ah! Ah! Ah! Aiee, Bes and Hathor, help me! I will be strong! I will be strong! Bes! Hathor…!
help
…
me
…
ahhh …
But now I worry. And Pharaoh worries. And Aye worries, though he has worry enough, with Hebmet in her usual difficult labor scarce half a mile from here, across the Palace compound. May Bes and Hathor help her to safety, too, and give them a healthy child to serve our House.