Read A God Against the Gods Online
Authors: Allen Drury
Tiye
He baffles me: but then he always has. I do not remember a time since his illness when I have fully understood him, and I am getting beyond the point, and the time in my life and his, when I think it will be possible. We have drifted far apart, particularly in these five years of his co-regency. It saddens me, but I do not know what to do. I am his mother, the Great Wife, Queen Tiye who has been for many years Pharaoh in all but name of the Two Kingdoms—and I do not know what to do. Thus far have we traveled on our separate roads.
I still say “Pharaoh in all but name of the Two Kingdoms,” but in my heart I know it has become increasingly an empty boast. My husband continues his erratic decline in health, sometimes lapsing, sometimes becoming almost fully himself again—but each time, it seems to me, he falls a little further behind, regains not quite the ground he has relinquished. He still consults me in all things, still takes my advice on most of them, still comes to my bed with loving regularity: it is quite possible I may yet bear another god for the House of Thebes. But what will that matter when, of the three I have borne already, one is murdered and long dead, one is a tenderhearted child who may never live to rule and the third is a malformed giant who has become so obstinate and headstrong that even I, the Great Wife, his mother, have long since ceased to exercise any real control over what he does?
I think now that the co-regency was a mistake. I think Pharaoh could have continued to rule with my help and guidance until our son succeeded in the natural course of things. I do not think it was necessary for us to give him such power so precipitously and so soon. We were moved by pity and by what seemed to be my husband’s need.
But that is hindsight, of course, and neither Amon, whom he is pressing so hard, nor the Aten, with whom he is so besotted, can give even the Great Wife the gift to go back and erase the mistakes of the past.
So our son has the power, and when I attempt to caution him in the uses of it he turns upon me only that bland and enigmatic smile and says, with a shrug of those sadly emaciated shoulders, “Mother, I thank you for your kindness. No one is less deserving of it than I or appreciates it more.”
And goes his own way.
And where does that way lead us? To new temples to the Aten, to greater godhood for the Aten, to greater deification of himself as the spokesman and sole intervener with the Aten—and to an indirect but inescapable challenge to his father’s power, and mine. It seems to me that in these past five years, even though they have included his father’s first Jubilee and the building of the great temple to Amon at Luxor, it has been the young Pharaoh, not the old, who has made things happen in Kemet. And they have not always been good things, in the judgment of his mother.
There has come, with his increasing absorption in the Aten, what I can only describe as a general loosening throughout Kemet and the Empire. It has been hard enough for me to rule the land with an ailing husband, let alone a willful and wayward son.
In a sense, my husband has always played at being Pharaoh. He came to the throne at the height of our Dynasty, he had nothing left to conquer, he had nothing to do but enjoy his wealth and magnificence—
providing he would do the necessary things to hold it all together.
These were not, to begin with, very great. When we took power over the Two Lands the administration of the government was in the hands of wise and good men. We are fortunate that many of them surround us still: Ramose—Amonhotep, Son of Hapu—my brother Aye (though him, of late, I am beginning to question, something I never dreamed could be possible)—and many more. The machinery of ruling functioned smoothly throughout Kemet, in all our vassal states, and with those on our distant borders who were dutiful and anxious to be our friends. Pharaoh did not have to do very much to maintain what the gods and the blood of our House had given him. Presently I found that he was forgetful of even that.
So the glamor passed and the worrisome times, for me, began. “Amonhotep the Magnificent” became enthralled with his own magnificence. He began the great building projects which continue today and will continue to his death, and far beyond, until they are all completed. He acquired two harems, which were his right as Pharaoh and which I accepted without protest, for such is our custom, and I knew he loved me best and would always give me equal power. He contracted various state marriages, most notably with our somber Gilukhipa, who has never liked it here and never will, even though as the symbol of our alliance with Mittani she has received, the gods know, every possible luxury of her own. And in a casual way, he paid some attention to government and the Empire.
But not enough, I fear: not enough. So it fell upon me to do all for him, in which he acquiesced with unfailing good humor—while he, too, went his own way. I did what I could, but there have been limits to how openly I could order things done. The forms of Pharaoh’s rule are often as important as the rule itself: sometimes the necessity for observing them got in my way. Thus the loosening began, and continues today. And it, too, will continue long after his death, with who knows what consequences for Kemet … unless the Co-Regent changes his ways most drastically and does the task which I appointed him to do.
And this he will not, of course, as long as he pursues his dream of the Aten, and as long as he keeps the priests of Amon constantly stirred up. My brother Aanen is a tiresome man, increasingly so as we all grow older, but his disaffection has spread throughout the priesthood and everywhere in Kemet. So far, in my judgment, he has been alarmed without much cause. It is true that my son has built fifteen temples to the Aten since he came to power, but aside from the labor involved there has been little competition with Amon. We always have more than enough workmen, particularly at the time of the Nile’s inundation, when our people are idle from July through September while Hapi replenishes the land. In very ancient times it is said that the people were enslaved and forced to work for Pharaoh, but that passed many, many generations ago. Now every ambitious herdsman, felucca pilot or peasant who wishes can find gainful work on Pharaoh’s payroll building temples or tombs or monuments. Labor is no problem for Ramose, or Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, or any of the others who oversee the work for us. Their problem, indeed, is often too many applicants for the work available. When this happens, both Pharaoh and Amon provide food from their granaries, and so the land comes safely through another season.
Thus the Co-Regent’s temples to the Aten have provided to Amon so far only competition for workers, not for priests, because it is his concept of the god that, as his temples are light, airy and open, so should his priesthood be kept to the absolute minimum. Thirteen of his temples, in fact, have four priests each: they do the minimal housekeeping, sweep the courtyards and accept the daily sacrifices of food on the bare stone altar. My son has no statue like Amon to represent his god, only the many-armed hieroglyph on the walls, and the rays of Ra descending benignly through the open roof. His priests also do very little proselytizing. It seems to be my son’s belief that only those who wish should come to the Aten. Very few have, and that is another reason why Amon, with his swollen temples and millions of worshipers, really need not fear too much.
Nonetheless, of course, Aanen fumes and fusses and professes to see great threats to Amon everywhere. In Memphis, where my son has built a major temple to the Aten covering many cubits of ground and employing more than a hundred priests, and at Karnak, where his temple is even larger, there is some visible ostentation that Aanen can cite when he makes his complaints to us and to his priesthood. But even in those two temples my son still does not direct his god to gather converts actively. He seems to be quite content that he himself should be the principal worshiper—and the only one through whom the blessings of Aten are to flow to the land.
For this reason I am as puzzled by my brother Aye as I am tired of my brother Aanen. I can understand my son naming his wife High Priestess of the Aten as he names himself High Priest, but I cannot understand my brother accepting the position of his assistant. It does not make sense to me, and since he has refused to confide in me about it, I am apparently going to remain mystified. I do not like this, but here, too, I am beginning to feel powerless. I am beginning to feel that many things are slipping from my hands. This is not a pleasant sensation for the Great Wife.
Now we are come down the river on this scatterbrained expedition whose purpose even Aye, I am happy to say, does not know. My son asked us to come, and since he made it very clear that he considered it an affair of such great importance that our absence would be regarded by him as an act almost of personal betrayal, we felt we must comply. But he refused to tell us why, and he refuses still. It is only apparent, most notably in such things as his startling overreaction to his brother’s mild little joke, that he is under very great tension about it. And one thing I have learned about my elder son, which I suppose is one more of those endless ramifications and results of his illness: when he is under very great tension, something drastic is going to happen.
I can only hope that it will not be something we will all regret, and he most of all; not some foolishness to end all foolishness, some tribute to the Aten which will really turn Kemet upside down, or some further outrageous example of his hectic determination to justify his favorite designation, “Living in Truth.”
If this were so, then Pharaoh—snoring loudly at my side while I lie awake staring up at the golden tent top and worrying, as always, about my family, my country and my son—might be forced to take very drastic action.
Would he do so? Could I force him to do so, if it became necessary to save the land? Would he want to do so? Would
I
want to do so, against my son who has already suffered so much in his short twenty years?
My son—my son … The Great Wife fears tomorrow and grieves for you thereby. Would that she were not your mother, for then she could be snoring happily too. But, alas, she is.
***
Amonhotep III
(life, health, prosperity!)
I snore loudly so that she will think I am asleep: but I am not asleep. I am thinking of our son, and given such thoughts, how can Pharaoh sleep?
How could any Pharaoh sleep, given such a son as no Pharaoh before has ever had?
I think back upon my life and I see no cause for this. It cannot be Amon’s further punishment for his mother and me, because we have appeased Amon in many things, and we have given our son every strengthening of love and support that a child could possibly receive. We have made the expressions of our love even deeper and stronger because of his illness. Never have we failed him. Why, then, is he failing us?
Many years ago, on the day he was born and his brother murdered, I decided I would dedicate him to the Aten: but it has gotten out of hand. The counterweight to Amon, the balance of gods which I thought would restore to the House of Thebes its rightful powers without having to worry about the constant inroads of Amon, has not come about. Instead he has pushed far beyond what I contemplated, and tomorrow, apparently, intends to push even further, toward—what? We do not know. As with everything that goes on behind that secretive face, he does not tell us. Only my niece Nefertiti knows what he really thinks, and I suspect that even she is frequently in the dark. But her strength, of course, is that she believes—still believes, as devoutly as she ever did.
Tiye and I no longer do. Now we worry, though it is rare that we express it to one another candidly. If we did I should probably stop this pretense of sleep and we would discuss it now. But it has been one of my bad days, and I do not feel like endless discussion of the riddle we have produced. My teeth hurt, my limbs ache. Three draughts of wine for relief have proved more skull-splitting than medicinal. Min did come to my aid sufficiently an hour ago for me to render dutiful tribute to the Great Wife and all her many remarkable qualities, but that is enough. I am exhausted now, and who knows: Perhaps the result will be another such as keeps us awake tonight—though I cannot really believe that Amon would take such further revenge. The Co-Regent has given him enough to think about: he would not want two of the same kind after him!
Not, of course, that there could ever be two of the same kind. The older he grows and the more he does, the more I believe Nefer-Kheperu-Ra to be unique among men, perhaps unique in history. Certainly he is unique among Pharaohs, for never has there been one who so openly and determinedly challenged
ma’at
and the accustomed order of things. He is very stubborn, our son. We set him on a certain course, thinking maturity would mellow and moderate it into a smooth and diplomatic approach that would enable him to accomplish what we wished without creating antagonisms that could ultimately bring him down if he goes too far. We reckoned without his illness, which changed all things. It brought him, I think, great visions; but it also, I fear, removed in him some balance that is necessary if a Pharaoh is not to place himself beyond the area in which ordinary men can understand him. For on that understanding, though we be gods, rests the acceptance of our divinity. Without it, even we must fail.
With almost no exceptions, we Pharaohs have been, though divine, what one might almost call “ordinary men.” We have in our ranks no great madmen, no great fanatics, no great monsters killing and murdering. It is on the whole a gentle record, a record of averages, a record of decent and kindly things in which most of us have taken seriously, and worked hard at, our task of ruling the Two Lands with fairness and with justice. The Double Crown is ours by divine right, but we have taken it as a sacred trust. Witnessing the constant chaos on our borders, I do not think any other nation has been equally blessed.
So in my time have I also ruled, though I know there have been occasions when this dear little head beside me has not thought so. It is true I have not led great conquests to win new lands: I did not need to, all the land Kemet requires Kemet has. It is true I have not promulgated many new laws: it has not been necessary, the laws handed down have for centuries proved sufficient to govern the Two Kingdoms peaceably. It is true I have not shown myself along the borders, made expeditions to frighten allies constantly quarreling among themselves: but why should I? Babylon, Mittani, Gebal, Syria, Megiddo, the Hebrews—let them squabble, it only makes Kemet stronger. Or so I see it, though I know that Tiye, Aye and many others, including Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, and Kaires, have often urged that I take such journeys. I have always refused: I like it here.
But I have built. How I have built! At Medinet Habu and Malkata I have built an enormous complex of palaces, temples, granaries, court offices, nobles’ houses, army barracks, servants’ quarters. At Sakkara I have built the Serapeum for the burial of the Serapis bulls sacred to the Sun. At Karnak I have added the first row of pillars for what may someday be an even greater hypostyle hall leading to the altar, and I have erected the massive Third Pylon in tribute to the god. I have also built a temple at Karnak to Mont, the original god of Thebes. I have built a viewing-temple for Amon on the west bank of the river at Thebes, and have built a temple to him at Sulb just north of the Third Cataract. I am building the Southern Sanctuary of Amon at Luxor, the greatest single temple ever erected to the god, to his wife Mut and to their son Khons.
For myself, I have built a palace at Memphis and a hunting lodge in the Faiyum, the great oasis southwest of the Delta where many Pharaohs before me have relaxed to hunt ducks, geese, lion and other game. And connected with the Palace of Malkata by a causeway across the Nile marshes, I have built a mortuary temple to myself which exceeds in size and beauty any mortuary temple ever built by any Pharaoh, even Hatshepsut (life, health, prosperity!). This beautiful temple to myself (where I go frequently, attended by the Court, to worship myself) is made of the best white sandstone, inlaid with gold. Its floor is silver, its pillars and portals are painted with electrum. It has a great stela inside, covered with gold and precious stones, which proclaims my glory. Along its mammoth hallway stand many beautiful statues of myself, some carved from the fine granite of the Elephantine Islands at Aswan, others of hard red quartzite and many other fine stones and jewels. It has a sacred lake which is filled by the Nile, and many priests and officers care for it. It is guarded by two colossi of myself which stand side by side at the gates, so that the visitor must pass between them as he enters. Thus may he pause as he does so and marvel at my greatness.
And my wife, my brother-in-law and my most trusted lieutenants say of me that I have done nothing for Kemet! I believe there must be jealousy there, for the gods know I have done more than any other king.
And furthermore: at my first Jubilee three years ago, I made a deliberate attempt to restore the balance with Amon which my son by then had already done so much to overturn. He had already started eight temples to the Aten, including the enormous ones at Karnak and Memphis; he had named his first two daughters for the Aten as he was subsequently to name his third; and he had begun to abandon the daily rituals that all Pharaohs have always performed for Amon at the dawn of each day. It is true that last year he named a senile old man, Maya, to be High Priest of Amon, but this was regarded by everyone as simply a gesture, and an insulting one at that. It did not please Amon and it only blunted the nose of my brother-in-law Aanen, who remained the still all-powerful Second Prophet of Amon and became even more embittered and subversive toward his nephew. So I felt I should do something.
Therefore when the time came for my First Jubilee—and what a magnificent ceremony I caused that to be!—I formally changed the name of Medinet Habu and the Malkata complex from “The-House-of-Neb-Ma’at-Ra-Shines-Like-Aten” to “The-House-of-Rejoicing.”
My first intention was to rename it “The-House-of-Rejoicing-Which-Is-Pleasing-to-Amon,” but that was not to be. The idea brought the first open argument between the Co-Regent and me, and it proved to me beyond all doubt how headstrong he had become. Because, I regret to say, he won.
The Great Wife and I had returned from our northern capital at Memphis, where the Jubilee was celebrated in conjunction with the festival of the falcon death-god Sokar. These secret rites, which only Pharaoh is permitted to attend, are a reminder to Pharaoh of his mortality and also a reminder of the very ancient time when the thirty-year Jubilee was held for the purpose of killing and dismembering the King, presumably by then a fairly old man, so that a new and vigorous ruler might assume the crown. If this ever really happened it is lost in the mists of time, but the priests of Sokar over the centuries have taken it upon themselves to act as what they like to call “the conscience of the King” by re-enacting it in mime for each of us who reaches Jubilee. They deem it good, and the people seem to agree, that Pharaoh be reminded of this presumed grisly fate of his probably mythical forebears. It is the custom of ages. So one attends, solemnly—all participants knowing full well that if anyone nowadays dared so much as touch the hem of Pharaoh’s garment without permission he would be instantly struck down.
That pleasant duty performed, and suitable time having been spent in Memphis to satisfy our loyal subjects of Lower Kemet, we embarked upon the river and sailed north through our adoring people to come again to Thebes. There the Great Wife and I were towed in a barque along a canal in western Thebes, our passage an imitation of Ra’s as he moves through the final hours of night to emerge once more in the east for glorious rebirth. So did we emerge at the end of the canal, which terminated at the foot of my two colossi, and there were once more formally recrowned by Aanen and his priests of Amon.
I announced, amid wild rejoicing (led noisily by Aanen), that I intended to rename Medinet Habu in Amon’s honor and would presently issue a scarab containing the new designation. Tiye, Aye and I had just returned to Malkata, congratulating ourselves that we had done much to make Aanen happy and pull the sting of his anger, when word came by flustered messenger that the Co-Regent, instead of recrossing the river to the small palace he has chosen to build for himself and his family in southern Thebes, was on his way to Malkata to see me.
“I came to warn you, Son of the Sun,” the messenger said humbly from his position face down, prostrate at my feet. “His young Majesty is angry.”
I reached down, touched his shoulder in a kindly way, and said:
“Thank you, good friend. I think I know why, but it need not trouble you. Take this jewel, and go.”
And I detached a small carnelian from my ceremonial belt and gave it to him. He backed out, bowing low and uttering many grateful sounds, arriving at the doorway just as my son started to enter. Bowing to me, he did not, of course, see my son, and, in fact, bumped into him. When he turned around and saw who it was, he turned so completely white that we all thought he would faint
“Here!” the Co-Regent said, grabbing his arm to steady him, though the sudden movement almost upset his own somewhat precarious balance. “You are all right, my good man. You are all right! There is no harm. Go, now!”
And for a moment, as he watched the poor devil flee in relieved confusion down the corridor, he could not suppress a smile. It did not last as he turned to face us.
“Father,” he said evenly, “what is the name you intend to give to this place?”
For a second I contemplated some evasion; but he has an instinct, sharpened no doubt by adversity—one more of the damnable consequences of his damnable ailment—which very often permits him to see through evasions. And I am, after all, his father and Pharaoh, and hardly afraid to speak.
“The-House-of-Rejoicing-Which-Is-Pleasing-to-Amon,” I said with a calm indifference I did not entirely feel, for I did not know what explosion this might produce.
“I forbid it,” he said, very quietly but with unmistakable force.
“
Forbid
it?” I cried in astonishment, and at my side Tiye cried also, “
Forbid
it? How dare you address Pharaoh like that?”
“I, too, am Pharaoh,” he said, still quietly, still evenly, still with the same soft but adamantine force.… “Would you uncrown me, Son of the Sun?”
There have been times, I must admit, when I have thought this might not be such a bad idea; but he knows as well as I that it is impossible. Once done, it is done, forever and ever. He also knows that his mother and I love him too much to do him the violence which has disposed of some other obstreperous heirs to the Double Crown over the centuries. So it was not with gratitude but with something close to mockery in his voice that he repeated calmly:
“Would you uncrown me, Father?”
“I may not do that,” I said, keeping my own voice steady with great difficulty, “but I could send you on an expedition to Punt or Kush or Mittani or Naharin and keep you away for as long as it pleases me.”
I was aware of a small warning movement from the Great Wife, which of course instantly weakened my authority; followed by a discreet but insistent clearing of the throat by my brother-in-law Aye, which did not help either. My son, who for a split second had looked shaken, took these signs to mean exactly what they did.
“I should refuse to go,” he said.
“I should
order
you!” I shouted, aware as I did so that the shout in itself was an abandonment of authority: I should somehow have managed to keep as calm as he, but for the life of me I was unable.
“Then you would have to kill me,” he said with perfect control, “for I still should refuse to go.”
“You would
have
to go!” I cried.
“Son of the Sun,” he said, “I would
not
go.”
For several moments I am afraid I glared at him, simply too frustrated and angry to speak. He returned me gaze for gaze from those long, narrow eyes that reveal so little he does not wish them to. And presently, once again, my brother-in-law Aye gently but insistently cleared his throat.
“Yes?” I snapped, turning on him sharply, relieved to be able to vent my anger on someone who at least thinks and acts like a normal human being. “What is it, Brother?”