Read A God Against the Gods Online
Authors: Allen Drury
Amonhotep,
Son of Hapu
Across the molten river the light lies soft and purple on the distant hills of the West. Soon it will be gone altogether and Nut will assume her dominion of the world. The silver boat of Khons, a narrow sliver in these early phases of his passage, rides low in the sky. It carries tonight Mutemwiya and no doubt many another who has departed Kemet for the afterworld this day. And it looks down, as always in these recent years, upon a troubled city and a troubled House.
He has offered us further wonders and with them, as always, further cause for concern and worry about his course and the future of the Two Lands. His appointment of Kaires—Horemheb, as we will learn to call him now—confirms my own judgment of the bright lad who came to us mysteriously so long ago. I am happy I have been able to assist his rise and I regard his new authority as perhaps the single most hopeful thing that has happened to Kemet in a decade. It does not surprise me that he has the parentage he has: like father, like son. Greater strengthening—and, if need be, greater discipline—for the House of Thebes and its reigning King there could not possibly be. Akhenaten will do well to trust him, to support him, and to be guided by his wisdom and the wisdom of Aye. To this, in my modest way, I also hope to contribute.
Leaving aside Kaires, what else is one to say of the Co-Regent’s performance this day? It has left many mixed emotions in the Court, in the city and, no doubt, when word of it is carried up and down the river, in all of Kemet and the world beyond.
He has finally, after all these years of patience and forbearance, moved against Amon. Yet it is, in a way, a curiously halfhearted attack. He has gone halfway, to take half of Amon’s goods and half of Amon’s priests, but in doing so he has stirred up far more than half of Amon’s wrath. Has he thought beyond this curious compromise, which Horemheb tells me was first suggested by Aye? Perhaps in this instance Aye’s advice was not as wise as it usually is. Or perhaps Aye, who sees far ahead in many things, has some purpose in mind that is not apparent to us now. In any event, it leaves neither Amon satisfied nor the Aten fully in command. If I had been asked, I would have said: strike completely or not at all, for time is not in the habit of granting second chances. I think he would have been better advised to do nothing or to do it all. But even now, apparently, his peace-loving nature will not permit him the unchecked anger, the necessary violence, to achieve his will. And so he finally declares a war but then hesitates to fight it to the full. He may in time pay bitterly for this.
And his marriages to his daughters? The desire for sons is understandable: it is also, I am afraid, rather pathetic and unnecessarily public. He antagonizes Nefertiti, who has given him complete devotion all her life, and to what purpose? Why was it necessary to announce it, if this is what he wishes to do? Why could he not simply do what he wishes in the privacy of the Palace and then declare the sons, if sons there be, the children of Nefertiti? I suppose he would not consider this “living in truth”; and I suppose, since she has always followed him faithfully in this very risky human pursuit, that she should not justly complain. But it is one thing to live in truth in an abstract sense and quite another to have one’s pride and dignity as wife and mother affronted before the whole world. This, too, he may live to regret, however proud he is of himself at the moment for his “living in truth.”
And his “Hymn to the Aten”? It is lovely and moving, and perhaps it may be that the gods will yet decide that this is what Akhentaten will be remembered for when all our present questioning has been forgotten. But whether the words are enough to persuade the people to abandon Amon and the other gods and willingly worship what he chooses to call the “Sole God” seems doubtful to me. The Hymn is the noble conception of a mind undeniably brilliant, for all its strange quirks; but no matter how omnipresent he may make it—and already, I understand, riders carrying hundreds of papyrus scrolls are taking the river highway north and south to post them in the market squares of every village and town—it takes more than reiteration to create faith. It may in time create a dulled acceptance, but whether it will create the living faith that he himself has in his “Father Aten” is at best, it seems to me, a tenuous hope.
And there is one other matter, whispered in the Palace, but as yet, I believe, unknown in the streets: and that is the matter of the golden brother. If this comes about, which many little signs seem to indicate, will he eventually try to “live in truth” about that, too? If so, I would really fear for him, because I know the common folk from whom I come: they are deeply conservative, and some things they will never accept. That, though he might try to impose it upon them, they would in truth never accept. Yet, as I say, the signs are there and he seems determined to do it; which, I think, Smenkhkara expects and does not—alas for them both, and perhaps for the Two Lands as well—reject.
Even now they are alone together on the ledge that runs along the front of the Northern Tombs: I can see in the far distance the brightly lighted place where they stand, and I can visualize it well as twilight hurries on into night and stillness begins to fall on the heat-exhausted land.
I was there myself scarcely an hour ago: so were Amonhotep III (life, health, prosperity!), the Great Wife Tiye, Nefertiti, the Princesses, Sitamon, Aye, Horemheb, Smenkhkara, even little Tut, crowing and gurgling in the excitement of it all.
Great flares burned on either side. Below, the servants waited in humble curiosity. What would happen now?
There sounded the booming of a great drum and the blare of trumpets; and then in a loud voice he cried:
“Let us now give praise to Father Aten!”
And each of us obediently opened the roll of papyrus we had been handed as we stepped at his command upon the ledge; and facing the city, we all began to chant in unison as he led us in his high, shrill voice:
“
Thou arisest fair in the horizon of Heaven, O Living Aten, Beginner of Life. When thou dawnest in the East, thou fillest every land with thy beauty. Thou art indeed comely, great, radiant and high over every land. Thy rays embrace the lands to the full extent of all that thou hast made, for thou art Ra and thou attainest their limits and subdueth them for thy beloved son, Akhenaten. Thou art remote yet thy rays are upon the earth. Thou art in the sight of men, yet thy ways are not known.
“
When thou settest in the Western horizon
—”
Three times he had us repeat the Hymn in unison, following him. Then he directed me, Aye, Horemheb, Sitamon and the servants to leave; and as we left, he began the chant again. As our chariots moved slowly down the hill the voices grew fainter but we could see them still: his parents, his brothers, Nefertiti and the Princesses standing on either side of his ungainly, unmistakable body.
Still farther down we turned and looked again, and this time he had reduced the number again: other chariots were coming slowly down. In the brightly lighted space only he, Nefertiti, their daughters and Smenkhkara remained.
And farther down yet, we turned again, and this time yet another chariot was descending, and on the ledge only two tiny figures remained, their voices carrying very faintly on the soft wind rising out of the Red Land to the east: the young Pharaoh and his brother.
And so we all came back to the city, and far in the distance the lighted space still glows and apparently the chanting still goes on.
It is a strange and somehow frightening spectacle, both impressive and saddening: as if he thought by sheer insistence to invoke his Sole God and have him work his magic upon the city, the plain, the Two Lands and the world.
It is all very typical of this strange Son of the Sun.
He lies with his own daughters, he seduces his own brother, he lets the Two Lands and the Empire slide to a point which will soon mean actual disaster—and he produces something as powerful, as reverent and as moving as his Hymn to the Aten.
What is one to make of him, Nefer-Kheperu-Ra Akhenaten, Living Horus, Son of the Sun, Great Bull, Lord of the Two Lands, tenth King and Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of the land of Kemet?
I do not know.… I do not know. I am an old man and getting older, and the more I know the less I know, particularly about this One.
I am beginning to suspect, now, that none of us will ever know, that there is no consistency, there is no answer—at least visible to us, his contemporaries. We can only follow, while he lives: however long his god—and all the gods—may permit that to be.
I look once more to the north, though I know already in my heart, with a sad, unhappy protest, what I will see.
The city lies dark and hushed.
Khons rides above in his silver boat.
Nothing stirs.
On the ledge along the Northern Tombs, the lights have been put out.
***
Book V
A God Against the Gods
1364 B.C.
***
Pani
He lies now in his bath of natron, where he has been for seventy days. This afternoon he will be taken out and placed upon a mat of reeds, which will absorb the excess moisture from his body. This will be done—like all things preceding and all that will come after until he goes beneath the ground—to the chanting of priests, court officials and professional women mourners, who have appeared in the streets twice each day since his death to extol his virtues and offer appropriate tributes in the temples for his safe passage into the afterworld.
Tonight his body will be smeared with heavy oils and unguents. With great care my corps of expert embalmers will take long linen strips, about three inches wide, dip them in water to moisten the gum with which they have been impregnated, and will bandage individually his hands, fingers, arms, legs, penis and toes. Then they will begin to bandage his entire body, working upward from the feet. After they have swathed his body to the armpits, with many thicknesses of linen, extra linen strips will be knotted across to keep all in place. Then beneath his shoulders one end of a thick bandage of twenty-five folds of linen will be placed. The other end will be drawn over his head and down upon his shoulders to rest evenly upon his chest. Further strips of linen around the neck will hold this head-wrapping in place
Thick pads of linen will be placed around his ankles so that his feet will not be damaged should his sarcophagi be placed upright in the tomb. (In his case, of course, he will rest recumbent, but the wrapping has always been done in this fashion, and so it will always be done, according to the eternal ways of Kemet.)
A heart-scarab of lapis lazuli, inscribed with a chapter from “The Book of the Dead,” will be placed above his heart, and within the linen folds will be tucked jewels, items of gold and the blue faience and steatite
ushabti
,
small figurines representing those who will serve him in the afterworld. Upon his mummified head the wig and gold uraeus will be placed for the last time. Heavy jeweled pectorals will be placed around his neck. His tightly wrapped arms will be drawn into place across his chest and in them, in their proper position, will be placed the crook and flail.
Then still more bandages will be wrapped about the whole. These final bandages will be painted with special prayers for his safety and further chapters from “The Book of the Dead.” And finally his mummy will be placed in the sarcophagus of gold that bears the image of his face, youthful and handsome as he was, and as he will be when he is returned to life in the afterworld.
Over the inner sarcophagus three more, made of wood gilded with gold, will be tightly fitted and sealed.
Further prayers and incantations will be said.
And finally, about the time that Ra’s first faint flush appears in the east to begin the day of entombment, Amonhotep III (life, health, prosperity!), Son of the Sun, Living Horus, Great Bull, Good God, ninth King and Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty to rule over the land of Kemet, will at last be ready to make his final journey through his capital of Thebes to lie beside his ancestors in the Valley of the Kings beneath the Western Peak.
I, Pani, overseer of the Theban necropolis as my father Maya was before me and as my son Maya will be after me, have given to the preparation of this great King my deepest care and devotion, for he deserves it. He was much beloved in the Two Kingdoms, wise, generous, farseeing, ever alert to protect his people and to guard Kemet against all her enemies. He was a good servant and father to us all. He was a
good
man. It appears unlikely that we shall soon see his like again.
Great fear stalks the Two Lands because of this.
During these prescribed seventy days of mummification, I have not been tied exclusively to my duties here. I have excellent assistants, including my son who will succeed me: in deference to my advancing years, they have begun to assume much of the burden. There is, in addition, a long period of waiting while the natron does its work.
So for the first time in many years I have not been captive here. I have been able to go to Memphis and Sakkara, I have been to Akhet-Aten and Heliopolis and many other cities, making arrangements for the ceremonies that will accompany and suitably honor the interment of the Good God at the precise moment he goes beneath the ground tomorrow. And what I have found has greatly disturbed me.
We live, in the necropolis, in a world of our own—the world of the dead, in which we are constantly preparing new bodies for mummification as they come to us daily from the nobility, the court officials and all the higher ranks of Kemet. It is only because my son has recently become old enough to relieve me of some of the burden that I have finally gotten out. It must be twenty years, literally, since I left the necropolis. Reports and rumors have of course reached us over the years, even in our special hushed world. But I had no idea of the actual state into which the Two Lands had fallen.
Everywhere I have found dismay and disarray, the spread of internal corruption, the intimations of distant chaos and disaster along the outer reaches of the Empire. And universally I have found that the people blame, not the Good God, whom they have come to love ever more deeply as he has slipped inexorably away from them, but his son, whose rule—if rule it can be called—has become ever more erratic and unsettling in these past two years as his father has grown weaker and less able to exercise the care that has for so many years guided and protected our beloved land.
Everywhere I went I was told that the King Akhenaten—whom many refer to secretly as “Horse Face,” but many more are coming to call (in whispers, but they are increasing whispers) either “the Heretic of Akhet-Aten” or “the Criminal of Akhet-Aten”—has embarked upon strange courses and followed strange paths, both in the pursuit of his god the Aten and in pursuit of other things.
He has reduced the temples of Amon substantially, but the only result apparently has been to make the people love Amon and the other gods more. He has built further temples to the Aten and has caused his “Hymn to the Aten” to be inscribed on stelae, in tombs and on walls in many public places throughout the land. But it has not increased his converts outside the Court, where those who seek preferment and riches must necessarily do as Pharaoh wishes.
He has sought sons from his daughters, but so far has achieved only two dead daughters, of the Princess Merytaten, who survived the experience, and the Princess Meketaten, who died only two months ago as a result of it, and was followed within two weeks by her child. (They were buried at Akhet-Aten in the new necropolis there that I know nothing about.) Now it is rumored that his daughter Ankhesenpaaten is pregnant by him.
He has become openly enamored, apparently—or so goes the crude gossip in the bazaars—of his younger brother the Prince Smenkhkara, and openly neglects the Chief Wife Nefertiti, whose loveliness and goodness all people everywhere admire. He pays little attention to civil administration, ignores or deliberately flaunts the overtures of Kemet’s friends and allies abroad. His days pass in prayers and dreaming, so it is said; and
ma’at
and the safe protected life of centuries falls away into confusion, uncertainty and fear.
And now he is sole King and Pharaoh, supreme in power over all Kemet. And the Two Lands lie helpless beneath his hand, because Amon, who might choose a successor to displace him, no longer has that power, and there is no unity in the people that could rise against him. Insurrection, indeed, would be unthinkable, because after all: Is he not the Good God, King and Pharaoh? Only the gods could displace him; and he has weakened them so that they cannot. The people themselves never have done such a revolutionary thing, and never would.
So I have returned to the necropolis as to a special refuge, which indeed, for me, it is. Here I have spent my life, here before too long I also will lie for seventy days in natron, and go in my turn to the Valley of the Nobles to join my ancestors in the beautiful life of the afterworld.
I stare down into the tub wherein lies all that remains of a great King. His once heavy body is thin and shrunken now, the face that smiled so often and so pleasantly upon us is tight and leathery, drawn in death.
Tomorrow when the procession is over and he lies in the enormous tomb that awaits him beneath the Western Peak, the King Akhenaten, who rests this night in the Palace of Malkata, will stand before him and, using the sharp-pointed iron instrument that tradition prescribes, will perform the Ceremony-of-The-Opening-of-The-Mouth, so that his father may speak when restored to life hereafter.
I wonder what he would say at that moment, could he actually speak? Would he call down imprecations on Pharaoh for all his strange, unsettling ways? Or would he, as we hear he did in life, still love, still try to understand, still forgive?
The speculation is pointless, of course, but I think it might be the latter. Because everywhere I have gone in these recent weeks I have heard that the Good God whose mortal shell lies here before me did indeed love and grieve over his son, and tried to understand and help him.
I think perhaps that is what we, his people, must still try to do, though it is not easy, and our time of tolerance, I sense, is running out.
***