A God Against the Gods (38 page)

Kia

It is chill. The wind whips off the Nile, unseasonably cool for the final day above the ground of my father-in-law, that good, amiable and lazy man, Amonhotep III (life, health, prosperity!). He would have complained of it, asking Queen Tiye to have the servants bring him extra robes. She would have complied, with the usual half-patient, half-exasperated air with which she always assisted him to do the things he should have done himself. Now it no longer matters: he is cold beyond the coldness of the Nile, chill beyond the dullness of the winds. But soon he will be warm, for awaiting him are the myriad servants and multiple pleasures of the afterworld.

I have been in Kemet, now, for twelve years, and I have come in time to understand their religion and their funerary beliefs. The former is unique but the latter are not so far from ours in my native Mesopotamia. We, too, conceive of a happy land where all is honey, incense and abundant pleasure. May the Good God find it when he gets there, for he has not known overmuch happiness on earth in recent years.

The procession is forming on the east bank just south of Thebes. We shall move slowly north through the city to the great temple of Luxor which the Good God built, and which now is almost completed. There we will pause for rites at the altar of Amon before proceeding down the avenue of ram-headed sphinxes to Amon’s most ancient temple at Karnak, where we will pause for further worship. From there we will be ferried back across the river to the west bank, where we will pass between the dead One’s two colossal statues and pause to do worship at his mortuary temple. We will be accompanied most of the way by the weeping and wailing of hundreds of professional mourners, by the outcries of the people, who genuinely loved him and are greatly worried about what comes next, by the somber bellowing of great bronze trumpets, the heavy beating of drums, the slow, rhythmic shaking of a thousand sistrums in the hands of the priestesses of Amon. Finally, alone at last save for the highest priests of Amon, we will come to the Valley of the Kings, and his final resting place.

In a few moments I shall be ferried across the river in company with Nefertiti to take our places in the baldachin that will come second after that of the Great Wife and Naphuria and immediately after the one of Sitamon, Smenkhkara, Tut and Beketaten. Earlier this morning there was a sudden stirring in the Family, a short, sharp argument, apparently almost a continuation of the one Horemheb told me they had last night. I understand that Naphuria’s first idea was that his mother and all the children should ride together in one conveyance giving her and Sitamon the leading seats and ranking the other children two by two behind them. This would of course have placed himself and Smenkhkara side by side just behind the Great Wife and Sitamon.

Naphuria and Smenkhkara side by side, “living in truth” on public display, would be exactly what Naphuria wants, of course—and exactly what the Family does not want. Thus the argument, settled by Aye, who suggested that logically the Great Wife, as principal widow (Tadukhipa is unfortunately too dim-witted to attend), and Pharaoh should ride side by side in the first baldachin. Then the four other children in the second; then Nefertiti and myself as principal wives of Pharaoh; then Akhenaten’s five surviving daughters; then Aye, his wife Tey and Horemheb; and lastly, Aye’s two other children, the General Nakht-Min, who is expected soon to be named Vizier by Naphuria, and his sister the Lady Mutnedjmet, an odd little character who, at twenty-six, seems already centuries older. (She always goes about accompanied by two dwarfs, Ipy and Senna, for some reason known only to her, and is becoming one of her half sister Nefertiti’s closest confidants as the coolness grows between Nefertiti and Naphuria.)

Mutnedjmet may yet come to wield considerable power in Kemet—as long as Nefertiti does. How long this will be remains problematical. There are rumors the break may fast become unhealable, which could mean drastic changes in the Family, very soon.

In any event, now Nefertiti comes; and I can see, as she walks toward me with head held high and lovely face perfectly composed, that she is determined to play her role this day as though nothing threatened it. I, too, have become quite close to the Chief Wife in these recent months, though I have no such cause as she to be affronted by Smenkhkara, for my relations with Naphuria were always formal and have long since dwindled to the barest of civilities. Nefertiti has gone so far as to offer me apartments with her in the North Palace if I should ever desire them, and I have thanked her warmly and said I might well accept her kind thought if the need arises.

“If Smenkhkara moves in, I shall move out,” I said matter-of-factly only last week. Her eyes flared for a second as she replied flatly, “I shall never move out unless he forces me to, and that I do not think he will dare to do.”

But we both knew the bravado of that, though we did not spell it out to one another: we did not have to.

Now she steps forward, looking lovely and serene in her gorgeous sheath of gold cloth, her gleaming jewels and her favorite blue conical crown. Gravely she gives me the kiss of welcome on both cheeks.

“Be of good cheer,” I counsel in a whisper as I return the gesture to the wild applause of the massed thousands waiting for us on the east bank.

“I am trying,” she replies as we both turn and begin to walk with stately tread out onto the landing stage and so into the royal barge that will take us across the Nile.

Her faithful Anser-Wossett has concealed with the cleverest of makeup all traces of strain about her mouth and eyes. She looks absolutely stunning, and I flatter myself that I too, though somewhat taller and darker and not by any stretch so beautiful, look sufficiently glamorous and royal on this solemn day.

How can Naphuria be such a fool?

But he is: and as we land on the other side and are carried high in litters to our baldachin, above the shouted love and greetings of the adoring masses, it becomes apparent that he is an even bigger one than I imagine.

But this time, he pays.

Already we see that the Great Wife is seated in the first baldachin, and that behind her Sitamon and the two youngest children are also seated and waiting. In back of Nefertiti and myself Aye and his family are ranged in the order he suggested: even today, Nefertiti and I note with a brief smile to one another, Mutnedjmet has insisted on her dwarfs. The three of them are chattering together like little magpies as they wait, while shrewd and handsome Nakht-Min, beside them, looks both amused and bored.

Naphuria and Smenkhkara are nowhere to be seen.

But then from the landing stage across at Malkata there come the military shouts and noises that indicate the approach of Pharaoh. It swiftly becomes apparent that, partially, at least, he has decided to have his way—as it soon becomes apparent that for it he will pay an unprecedented, an unheard-of, a terrible and a terrifying price.

While the thousands fall silent, and the Great Wife turns with a piercing glance that sweeps the two of us and her brother Aye and Horemheb—and says many things before she turns back and stares stiffly straight ahead—the two gleaming figures, the misshapen one leaning heavily on the arm of its straight and arrogantly challenging companion, move slowly forward to the royal barge, which has returned for them.

They walk slowly up the plank, Smenkhkara steadying his brother as they come; move to the center of the barge and stand facing the eastern bank. The boatswain shouts his orders, the heavy paddling begins, they start across the river … and there is no sound.

They reach the middle of the river, the brisk wind ruffling their gorgeous raiment, the oars splashing—splashing—splashing … and there is no sound.

The prow of the barge touches land, the waiting crewmen leap to secure it …
and there is sound.

Faint and far away, starting who knows where but growing instantaneously louder until it seems to fill the world, there comes an awful, unbelievable, unimaginable greeting.

Nefer-Kheperu-Ra Akhenaten, Living Horus, Son of the Sun, Great Bull, Lord of the Two Lands, He Who Has Lived Long, Living in Truth, tenth King and Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty to rule over the land of Kemet, is being hissed.

For a long, fantastic, utterly unreal moment, the ugly sibilance continues. Then, as if by some instinctive signal that moves the body of the crowd as it would move the body of a great animal, it ceases. And once again an absolute silence falls.

The two figures have stopped thunderstruck. Their frozen immobility lasts almost beyond bearing. Then abruptly the misshapen one shakes itself, as if coming awake from some inconceivable nightmare, and starts to shuffle forward. Beside him his brother, no longer rigid and arrogant but now oddly crumpled and unsure, moves to his side. Only swift-flowing Hapi, lapping gently at his banks, breaks the silence as they are lifted carefully into litters and borne to the head of the procession, Naphuria to his mother’s baldachin, Smenkhkara to that of his brother and sisters.

They are hoisted up. Queen Tiye looks straight ahead, acknowledges in no way the presence of her eldest son. In Smenkhkara’s baldachin, Sitamon and the children are too shaken to speak.

In a clear, strong voice that carries forcefully through the deathly silence, the Great Wife cries:

“Bear up the body of the Good God and let the procession begin!”

Instantly in front of her baldachin, where her husband’s mummy inside its four great sarcophagi has rested on a wooden stand, relays of soldiers who will spell one another every two hundred paces, so great is the weight they must carry, leap forward to lift it high. The wooden stand is swept away. The great trumpets begin their somber mooing. The sistrums of Amon begin to rattle in the chilly air. Drums beat. And the procession commences.

We wind slowly through the narrow streets of Thebes, many of them fallen into disuse and neglect as the once proud capital has dreamed away the years far from the hustle and bustle of flourishing Akhet-Aten. All along the way there is heard the weeping and wailing that we expected. Combined with it comes an undercurrent of discreet and loving applause for the Great Wife as she passes. And with it also comes, furtive, fugitive, fleeting but ever present, its sources never quite perceived, its perpetrators never quite discovered—though obviously there are many, many of them—a steady escort for poor, misguided Naphuria.

The hiss keeps him company, all the way.

We stop at the temple of Amon at Luxor. Doddering Maya and fanatic, ambitious young Hat-sur-et make us formally welcome. We pause to do suitable worship, which Pharaoh and the Great Wife perform together, dismounting from the baldachin, placing offerings on the altar, chanting (her voice clear, impervious and steady, his emotion-choked croak barely audible) the words we know he hates, to Amon … and even there, distant on the wind, the gently ominous susurrus comes.

They remount, we move on along the avenue of sphinxes to the great temple of Karnak and the ceremony is repeated at Amon’s most ancient altar … and the soft, insistent sibilance comes.

They remount, we return to the Nile, we cross, we pass between the Colossi, we worship at the mortuary temple, we move on through the barren rocky ravines beneath the Peak of the West, take the turning pointed out for us by the white-robed priests of Amon standing rigidly at attention, come to the entrance of the Good God’s tomb, dismount and follow the enormous sarcophagi beneath the ground, down 533 steps to the final resting place … and still, even in the Valley of the Kings, seeming to emanate eerily even from the harsh bare rocks themselves, comes the secret, sinister, hostile sound.

In the burial chamber, finally, we hear it no more. The soldiers remove, with great sweat and grunting, the enormously heavy lids of the four interlocking sarcophagi and withdraw. Shrunken, shriveled, leathery but recognizable, the features of Amonhotep III (life, health prosperity!), still vaguely amiable even in death, stare up at us. There remain now only the Family, Maya and Hatsuret.

Maya, leaning shakily on a wooden staff, defers to Hatsuret, who intones the sacred words and hands to Naphuria the hooked iron instrument used for the Ceremony-of-The-Opening-of-The-Mouth. With a glance of pure hatred for the priests that none of us has ever seen upon his face before, Pharaoh accepts it and steps forward.

“In the name of the Aten—” he cries loudly, and as instinctively as ill-fated Aanen once did, Hatsuret blurts out, “Amon!” But this, fortunately for him, is not the time nor place for vengeance.

“In the name of the
Aten
,”
Pharaoh repeats angrily, voice slurred and almost unintelligible with emotion, “in the name of the
Aten
,
I call upon you, Father, O great Lord Neb-Ma’at-Ra Amonhotep—
speak
!”

And taking the iron bar, he forces it with hasty revulsion between the mummified teeth (while we all shrink back instinctively in both dread and awe of the ancient ritual), and pries the mouth open. It does not open easily—there is a horrible cracking sound as the jaw hinges give way and several broken teeth rattle down the parchment throat—but it is done, as the tradition of millennia says it has to be.

He flings the instrument away with a shudder of horror and disgust—utters the ritual chant:

“You live again, you live again forever, here you are young again once more forever!”

—and so begins for his father the long process of coming to life again in the eternal afterworld.

We return above the ground, the soldiers go back down to replace and permanently seal the sarcophagi. After we leave they will seal the entrance to the tomb and cover it over with earth. Then the priests will kill them, so that no one will ever know where the Good God lies resting, and he will be safe forever from the grave robbers of Qurna who have desecrated so many tombs.

We stand at the entrance to the tomb, blinking in the sharp, cold sunlight that has now replaced the earlier scudding gray clouds, and suddenly the rigid control of the Great Wife collapses at last and she begins to cry, a hopeless, helpless, sobbing wail in which all of us women soon join, moved as we are by the loss of this Good God and the terrible tensions of the day. But swiftly we learn that her grief goes deeper than that.