A God Against the Gods (5 page)

Amonhotep III
(life, health, prosperity!)

I pass them, exuberant and welcoming along the river and in the streets, or solemn and respectful as I come to worship in the temples, and I wonder what they think.

Do
they think? Do they have any comprehension at all of the world I live in? But quickly I answer my own question: of course not, how could they? I am the God, and gods are not understood by mortal men because, as everyone knows, they do not live like mortal men. Gods are not worried about their families, concerned for their power, surrounded by shifting shadows that may be friendly one moment, hostile the next.…

I live with other gods, hundreds of them: strange figures of men with heads of falcons, rams, baboons, dogs, crocodiles—women in the form of cows, lionesses, scorpions, vultures, cobras …

I am their equal, their companion, their master and their slave. They surround me in all I do.

They surround me.…

Today began, as all days in Kemet begin, with my awakening. When Pharaoh awakes the world awakes, for I am the incarnation on earth of Ra the Sun, and of Ra’s son Horus as well; and no life starts, and no life lives, without me. All things start with me. So it has always been in Kemet, and so it will always be, forever and ever.

I arose and went into my House of Morning, the small private chapel in the Palace of Malkata—and at once I was surrounded. Amon-Ra was instantly with me in the persons of a dozen white-clad priests led by my brother-in-law Aanen. Amon-Ra is the greatest of gods, the god of Thebes, the god of my House, the “King of all the gods” of Kemet and the Empire. He is also the god who owns half my kingdom: he is the god who surrounds me most of all.

Thus he surrounded me this day, as on all days since I inherited the throne, to watch me take the ritual bath in which I duplicate the way in which Ra bathes each morning in the ocean of heaven. As I bathed, I restored the life force that flows from me to the Two Lands, just as Ra’s bathing restores the life force that flows from him to the universe. When I finished, the priests, some wearing the falcon mask of Horus, others the ibis or baboon mask of Thoth, the god of wisdom and learning, anointed, robed and invested me with the crook and flail, the uraeus and other insignia of office. They gave me the most important of all, the “Ankh,” or symbol of life, which comes each day from the God Amon to the Good God, myself, so that I may in turn pass it on and thus give life to the Two Lands. Then I said the words that I say every morning to start life on earth going again after the night, just as Ra says them in heaven. And simultaneously, from the Fourth Cataract to the Delta, in all the many temples of Amon-Ra, priests representing me representing Ra received the Ankh and spoke the same life-giving words.

And so, in Kemet and in the whole world, life began again.

Now of course I would not have you think that in Kemet we actually believe that all life ends at nightfall and does not resume until dawning when Pharaoh-as-Ra says so. We are, so those who observe us tell us, a practical and pragmatic people, and we know, naturally enough, that many things go on at night—feasts, businesses, arrivals, departures, birth, death, love, robbery, murder—many things, while Ra is making the journey in his sacred boat back under the earth from west to east, passing through the stomach of the sky-goddess Nut so that he may be born again at dawn.

We know life goes on while Ra makes his journey. But we also know that ritual and order hold Kemet together, and we know that without them Kemet would not be the great kingdom and powerful empire she is. And since we wish to preserve her so, we preserve the rituals that preserve her order. Even on days when I am ill, the people never know that I do not rise and say the words for Ra. Aanen or one of his fellow priests of Amon says them for me, and it is announced, as it is every day, that I have done it. Thus the ritual is preserved—and the order is preserved.

Thus it has been for almost two thousand years, and so it will be, forever and ever.

So: I worshiped, I said the words, I discharged the first daily obligation of my divinity, and then, like mortal men, I ate. Priests and servants hovered, anxious to seize for themselves whatever sacred scraps I left. I took satisfaction in fooling them, this morning: I was hungry and I ate it all. Then I returned, still accompanied by Aanen, to my private rooms. At the door I told him firmly, “Brother, I would be alone with my wife.” “But she is my sister,” he protested sharply, looking as angry as he dared. “You may see her later in the day, if she wishes to receive you,” I said evenly, and gave him a firm but pleasant stare, both of us knowing that she would be receiving no one but the absolutely necessary this day. “Well—” he began, still sharply; but even now he does not quite dare defy me openly, and so after a moment his eyes dropped, his voice trailed off in a mumble: “Well …” “Go, Brother,” I said. “Make yourself ready to attend me to Karnak, for I go there to worship for her and our new son. I shall be departing in the fourth quarter of morning. Be ready.” And then finally he did say, “Yes, Son of the Sun, I go as you desire.” But it did not come easy to him, and I thought again as I have thought many times in the last two years: he is grown too great.

And I thought further, as I have also thought:
They have all grown too great.

Struck by this knowledge, which haunts me too often nowadays, I paused where I was with my hand on the edge of the door. I watched his back, its lines indignant, as he hurried off down the long corridor, pretending to himself that his departure was his own idea, that he really had other business and had to leave me of his own accord. At the distant turning in the hall he met Amonhotep the Scribe, Son of Hapu, and with him the new young scribe, Kaires, whom I have glimpsed a couple of times, always in the distance: he has not attended me yet, though I understand Amonhotep is training him with great care and has assigned him principally to my mother. She likes him; he is a bright lad apparently: I must keep an eye on him and promote him to higher service if he deserves it. I need “King’s men,” loyal to me above and beyond the fear-loyalty that is given the God.

As I watched, Amonhotep the Scribe returned Aanen’s hasty and almost contemptuous greeting with a grave air, followed by a grim little line of amusement around his lips which Aanen, hurrying away, did not see. Then Amonhotep saw me and paused, so abruptly that young Kaires, tumbling along behind like an eager puppy, bumped into him. They laughed together—I could see from Amonhotep’s lack of annoyance that he too already thinks well of this youth who has been added to the household staff at his father’s request—and then, abruptly grave and suitably respectful, they bowed low to me. I bowed also, and then smiled. Emboldened by this, Amonhotep smiled back. So too did Kaires, which for just a moment produced a somewhat shocked expression on Amonhotep’s shrewd and amiable face. But the boy meant no harm, so again I smiled. Amonhotep relaxed, they bowed again and withdrew; but not, I am afraid, before they both perceived the unhappy expression that recaptured my face as I sighed and turned back toward the door. I did not mean for my unhappiness to return so rapidly and so openly, but against my will, it did. I must be more deeply concerned than I admit to myself.

Must be?

Of course I am.

Within the private apartments all was hushed and quiet. Doctors, nurses and the inevitable priests of Amon stood huddled about, attempting with their earnest expressions and low-murmured talk to convince me of a depth of knowledge which is limited by spells, incantations, and foul-smelling poultices on the one hand, and by the hoped-for kindly interventions of Bes, the guardian of childbirth, and Hathor the cow goddess, deity of motherhood, on the other. There is no reason to believe that Bes and Hathor will not attend Tiye kindly today, as they did with both Sitamon and Tuthmose. Both births went smoothly, Sitamon being delivered in three hours, Tuthmose a little more slowly, but with no great difficulty, in four.

Tiye is a very healthy woman, and a very determined one; and also we have both prayed long and faithfully for this new son—prayed, ironically, to Amon, who does not know that in this birth he faces yet another challenge to add to those I have already given him.

For this reason I worry, of course: Amon does not take kindly to challenges, and those that are given him must be given with subtlety and with skill. I think the challenge of Tuthmose has been so given. I am hopeful I may in time give the challenge of this new son in the same fashion.

These thoughts were mine as I entered the bedroom where my love lay, and saw the pert little face that conceals such a loving heart and such a fiercely protective and determined will. She stared at me with great dark eyes; a welcoming smile, sweet, patient, indomitable, touched her lips. “It is beginning,” she said. “May Amon give us a strong and healthy son,” I said. For a second a gleam of amusement that was for me alone flashed into her eyes. She beckoned me close and I leaned down. “He would not if he knew,” she whispered; and I, who know, unlike my people, that Amon does not know all things—only those that his priests overhear for him—whispered back, “He will not until it is too late.” A sudden fear came into her eyes, shielded by my body from the doctors, nurses, and priests standing respectfully silent against the wall at my back. “Is Tuthmose…?” she whispered. “Tuthmose is well and on his way. He should be here in the third quarter of morning.” “He is all right?” “He is all right,” I said firmly. “He is escorted from Memphis by Amon,” she said. “But for every priest of Amon there are two of Ptah,” I said. Her eyes stared into mine for a long moment. “I will feel better when I know he is safely here.” “Do you think I will not?” I demanded with a sudden naked honesty. She started to say something, then was cut off by pain. After it passed she managed a smile and gripped my hand tightly for a second. “We must not be afraid,” she said. “We are not,” I whispered fiercely. “We are not.”

I leaned down and we kissed as desperately as though we were youthful lovers again, attempting to reassure one another that the world is not full of shadows threatening happiness. She grimaced once more and turned her face so I would not see. I stepped back. Doctors, priests, nurses hurried forward, hissing like geese who would impress me with their diligence. I uttered a silent prayer to Bes and Hathor, that they might be kind to my wife, to me and to our son; and withdrew to walk alone through the painted mud corridors of Malkata to the robing room where I was to consult, as I do every morning, the Vizier Ramose, and then be made ready for my departure, shortly before noon, to Karnak.

Thus the conflict intruded, even there—there, perhaps, more than anywhere, for it is through my sons that it will be expressed hereafter.

You may ask why it must be so: why does not Pharaoh, the all-powerful, the omnipotent, the owner of all things and all men in the land of Kemet, put down the overweening priests of Amon, reduce their power to manageable proportions, break up their holdings of land, cattle, granaries, gold, jewels, swollen beyond conscience—say the magic word, and return them overnight to the influential but reasonable status they held up to the time of my great-grandfather, the brilliant Tuthmose III (life, health, prosperity!)?

I will tell you why: Because, starting with my great-grandfather, Amon-Ra has become so inextricably entwined with the fortunes of my family, with its foreign conquests, its empire-building and its steady accretion of wealth and power, that it is now impossible to remove the growth on the House of Thebes by some simple, ruthless surgery. It must be done, if done at all, by the most delicate and skillful of excisions. It is to this that I have increasingly devoted my thoughts and my talents as I have matured from the ten-year-old child who came to the throne on the death of my father, Tuthmose IV (life, health, prosperity!) to my present status as the Good God who has already worn the Double Crown for twelve years.

By now I am sanctified not only by blood but by custom. Kemet is used to me. Each year I can do more. But each year, of course, Amon has grown stronger too. And so it is not a simple matter.

When my family came to the throne there were great intrigues between Tuthmose I, his two sons, Tuthmose II and Tuthmose III, and his daughter, the great Queen-Pharaoh Hat-shep-sut (life, health, prosperity to them all!). Suddenly, one morning in this same temple of Amon to which I am about to depart to pray for my new son, Amon intervened. At that point Tuthmose I was on the throne; but Amon, even as Tuthmose I was offering prayers, suddenly turned (his golden image carried high by the usual band of white-clad priests) and bowed low to Tuthmose III, then only a minor princeling of the royal House. At once Tuthmose III displaced his aging father, assumed the crown, and began the struggle with his half sister Hat-shep-sut which was to give her some years of independent rule but resulted ultimately in his own supreme power, the deliberate obliteration of her name and memory, and the start of his great conquests through the Middle East that created the empire to which I am heir.

Thus, as you can see, our House owes much to Amon, for his priests deliberately intervened to settle a dynastic conflict that was gravely threatening the existence of the Two Lands. Thereafter, though Hat-shep-sut for a few years managed to keep both the priests and her half brother and co-regent, Tuthmose III, under control, they worked ceaselessly to confirm Amon’s choice, which they had so dramatically and skillfully arranged that morning in the temple. And when Tuthmose III came finally to full power, it was Amon who was responsible, Amon who encouraged, sanctified and thus guaranteed popular support for, his military conquests. And it was Amon, naturally enough, to whom in gratitude he gave the power, the influence and the actual physical wealth, drawn from his conquests, which was the start of the priests’ overweening power today.

I was not aware of all this until I began to study the records of my House in greater detail after my formal education was completed. Pharaohs receive a rigid schooling: we are scribes, we are skilled in military arts, we are readers—we are well-equipped men, the equal of any in the Two Lands, by the time we leave the hands of the tutors in the Palace school. This fits us for rule. It also makes some of us think—particularly those of us, like myself, whose eyes do not look outward from Kemet because they do not need to look outward: because all out there belongs to me already, so that I have no need for conquests to keep me busy or to distract me from my thoughts.