Return to Thebes (32 page)

Sitamon

“I feel I have much time left,” he used to say to me often in his early days upon the golden throne. “I feel the gods have much remaining left for me to do.” Yet Pharaoh is nearing his eightieth year, the end obviously approaches, and little that he planned has come to pass.

Horemheb, moreover, is still here. He has not gone away. He has never abandoned his ambition—his father was wishful to think he would—and his demands become more insistent every day. The latest is this demand for marriage and co-regency, which has brought us all together again in family council—the last council, I think, that the House of Thebes will ever hold … because soon I think the House of Aye will fully succeed at last … and after that, unless I miss my guess—which I seldom do—the House of Ramesses.

My uncle likes to think that it was he who suggested that Ankhesenamon marry him and thus thwart Horemheb. I have never argued it with him, but it was I who proposed it in that hurried meeting after Tut was buried. We were filled that night with furious stratagems, desperate proposals, wild starts and stops; my cousin seemed to loom like some gigantic monster just across the river, waiting to consume us all. Perhaps he was. At any rate, when we were exhausted at last by all our futile thrashings about, I looked straight at Aye and said, “There is, of course, one man she might marry whose selection would settle it all.”

There was silence for a moment. Ankhesenamon was the first to grasp my meaning. “Yes!” she cried happily. “That would be it!” Then of course there was a great babble, Aye protesting, Ankhesenamon, Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, and I insisting, all of us getting more and more excited, all of us drinking much wine to celebrate, even Aye for once indulging (for we all thought we had killed the monster), so that presently it was forgotten who had really offered the idea in the first place. But I did not forget, because for me it was the settling of an old score. We were lovers for twenty years, he gave me three children whom I had to dispose of because we could not be married while my father lived; then when he could marry me he refused and went off in pursuit of other ambitions. So much, I thought that night, for
you,
my fine Horemheb, and so much for your ambitions!

But this was reckoning, of course, without Horemheb—and without the simple chances of life, which so often confound us all. To begin with, of course, there was never any question that Pharaoh and the Queen would live together as man and wife. My uncle, after all, was seventy-five then, and still devoted to gentle Tey, who over the years has been such a wonderful mother and friend to Nefertiti, to Horemheb and Nakht-Min, to me, to Akhenaten, to all of us. In official duties and on ceremonial occasions she has been his secondary Queen, because of course Ankhesenamon has the blood; but in his tomb and in other personal representations he has continued to present her as his consort. And to this Ankhesenamon, being as sensible and as practical as her mother (thank the gods the erratic heart of my poor brother did not find its way into the body of his only surviving daughter!), has readily agreed, for she too loves Tey. She did ask rather wryly once, “Grandfather, should you not give me
something
to signify this union blessed by all the gods?” So with a smile he said yes and within a week presented her with a beautiful ring bearing both their cartouches, which she constantly wears, as she told me once, “to symbolize my happily married state.” But aside from this, and their public appearances for government and ceremonies, they lead separate lives—though, with her mother’s determination and her father’s stubbornness, she has tried repeatedly to have children from another source who could be presented to the people as children of Aye, and so be accepted as legitimate heirs who might thus revive and perpetuate our dwindling, unhappy House.

For this honor, after long talks with Pharaoh and with me, she chose Nakht-Min. He and Mutnedjmet, born within a year of one another to Aye and Tey, are approaching middle age (how fast the years sweep over, how fast we are covered by time as by the whispering, ceaseless sands of the Red Land!) but both are still handsome and well favored. Mutnedjmet grows, if possible, even more eccentric as she ages. She still does much good among the people with many charitable ventures, and she is still much loved; but Ipy and Senna, who are also aging but somehow seem perversely eternal, continue to hop and cackle by her side, and the people still have much affectionate fun with this. Nakht-Min, on the other hand, continues with quiet dignity to serve the kingdom well as Vizier of Upper Kemet, general of the army, scribe, confidant and adviser to his father, firm friend to Her Majesty.

Therefore when she summoned him, two months after she married Aye, and told him what she had in mind, he was perfectly willing to comply—particularly since he is very fond of her, as she of him, and no fonder of his older brother than the rest of us. Indeed, he has put his faith in Aye and Ankhesenamon to protect him, and Aye and Ankhesenamon have; but this is another question that remains unresolved. I am sure Horemheb has plans for that, too, as he always does for everything. He is not Aye’s son for nothing. (The generations repeat their patterns in all of us. I think I am like my mother, Queen Tiye: at least I hope I have shown something of her strength and her loyalty to Kemet. I have tried.)

Nakht-Min, in any event, has been willing; and three times in these past four years Ankhesenamon has secretly become pregnant by him—only to see, each time, her child born dead. The event has been even sadder because twice they have been boys: she could have given the Two Lands a Crown Prince at last. But the curse of poor Akhenaten still seems to hold; though now, I believe, she is pregnant again and we must pray once more for a son who will live … if Aye lives.

But Aye, I think—and I think he thinks—is not going to live much longer. He is failing very noticeably now. His eyesight is almost gone, he has difficulty hearing, he moves very slowly and always with a cane and on the arm of a page. There are many days when he does not rise from bed, when Ankhesenamon must come to him to secure his seal on state papers. Sometimes he scarcely seems to know she is there. Increasingly in this past year she has made decisions alone and Tey has guided Aye’s trembling hand to make the necessary marks in the proper places. It is all very sad; and will not, I believe, last much longer.

He has built his mortuary temple on the west bank near my father’s. He has built a rock chapel to Min and other local gods at his family seat of Akhmim. He encouraged Horemheb to mount a counteroffensive against Suppiluliumas which drove him back a bit in Palestine, though our frontiers continue in sad disrepair all through the region where we once could walk unchallenged. He has brought all the Akhet-Aten bodies save those of Akhenaten and Nefertiti back to lie beneath the Western Peak; and they will soon be also returned, now that we think the bitter passions they aroused have finally died, so that they, too, may safely rejoin our ancestors. And he has continued to lend his enormous prestige to Ankhesenamon’s determination to keep the Aten officially equal to Amon, so that their uneasy balance of tension has been maintained in reasonable degree except here in Thebes where Amon again reigns supreme.

And this, in truth, is about all that one can say of the rule of Aye, who came, at my suggestion, almost too late to the power he had earned through all his long and frequently tormented years of duty and devotion to the good of the Two Lands.

Now as he comes to die—for this he is doing, there is no point in closing our eyes to it—Horemheb again seeks to take the Double Crown. And this time, I think, there will be no stopping him. He has been patient these past four years because he has had to be, but it has not been easy for him. Now at sixty there is nothing to stand in his way. He will be King and Pharaoh at last, my poor Horemheb—for whom I use that adjective as automatically as I do for poor Akhenaten. I wonder if the Double Crown will make him any happier than it did my brother?

I find that I am the first to arrive at my uncle’s chambers. He has been in bed these past three days, and it is Tey who ushers me in, with finger on lips. Though we are very quiet, some signal transmits itself to the fading brain: he rouses, his eyes open, he peers up at me. I lean to kiss his forehead, he manages a feeble smile.

“Well, Niece,” he whispers, “so we all meet again, for one last time.”

“You must not say that, Son of the Sun,” I tell him firmly. “We shall meet many times again.”

“In the afterworld, dear Niece,” he whispers with the trace of a smile. “In the afterworld … Tey, help me. I must rise and be seated on my throne for them.”

She starts to protest and I say quickly, “Nonsense, Majesty, you stay where you are. We will not respect you less if you lie abed where you will be comfortable.”

“
One
might,” he says with a ghost of a laugh. “But he would rather see me in bed, anyway. It will make him happier.”

“Well, be that as it may,” I say, “you stay where you are. We will handle
him.
”

“Can anyone, now?” he asks, again with the ghost of a laugh. “It is getting less easy all the time.”

And as the others arrive, very shortly thereafter, it is apparent that he will not be easy to handle this night, at all. First comes Ankhesenamon, looking tense and determined, followed by Nakht-Min, doing his best to appear unconcerned; Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, stronger than His Majesty but also becoming quite frail; and then Horemheb and Mutnedjmet, Ipy and Senna, all of whom seem to have reached the door at the same moment. This leads to immediate friction.

“You are in our way,” Mutnedjmet says—flatly, for, like Nakht-Min, it has been years since she liked or trusted her half brother.

“‘Our’ way?” he snaps angrily. “Must you have those two hobgoblins with you cackling like geese wherever you go?”

“Yes,” she says coolly, while Ipy and Senna cling to her legs, peering up at him with a deliberately exaggerated fear that only makes him angrier. There are times when neither she nor they show any sense, and this is one of them.

“Mutnedjmet,” I intervene sharply while Aye looks about in a half-bewildered way as old, sick people do, “this is a private conference with Their Majesties. Those two
will not
be permitted in here. You will remove them
at once.
”

“Well—” she begins, still defiantly, trying to decide whether to continue annoying Horemheb, whom she despises, or obey me, whom she likes and respects; while behind her back Ipy and Senna stick out their tongues at me and I come very close to striding over and slapping their silly little faces. But fortunately their mistress decides that appeasing me is more important. She leans down, whispers in their ears, and with a last insolent look at me and a leer at him they go scurrying away down the corridor—cackling like geese, exactly as he says.

“Now, Majesties,” he says, breathing hard, “perhaps we can have a little sense here and get on with our business. Father,” he adds almost perfunctorily, going over to lift Aye’s trembling hand and kiss it, “how are you?”

“I hear them calling me from the Peak of the West,” Pharaoh whispers with a wry expression, “but I am not in quite such a hurry to answer as you would have me, my son.”

“I am in no hurry,” he says with a scowl that does not conceal the flush that rises in his face—can there be some shame left in Horemheb? “I wish only Your Majesty’s continued health and well-being, Son of the Sun.”

“Yes,” Aye whispers, “I know.” He starts to say something else, then seems to lose the thread of it. Ankhesenamon surveys Horemheb calmly and asks:

“What would you with us, Cousin?”

“May we sit?” he asks.

“There are chairs,” she says indifferently: so he decides to remain standing. So do the rest of us, save for Tey, who seats herself on the bed beside Aye and tenderly takes his hand.

“I have made no secret of it,” he says bluntly. “I think it time that I be made Co-Regent to aid His Majesty, who we all pray will be with us long but who nonetheless might welcome some assistance in his burdensome duties; and I would marry.”

“Why must you come to us about marriage?” Her Majesty asks, carefully avoiding the other issue for the moment. “You may marry whom you please, as far as we are concerned.”

“I think not,” he says, “for the one I would marry is in this room.”

“But I am married to His Majesty!” she cries indignantly, even as I also cry out, with all the bitterness of the long, scorned years. “Even so, I would not have you were you the last peasant left in Kemet!”

“What about you, Lady?” he inquires, ignoring us as we stand with mouths open in amazement, realizing the audacity of his thinking—or the farseeing nature of his plan, depending on how you look at it.

Her face is a study in many things—first disbelief, then shock, then repugnance, then scorn, then a sort of wild, fey hilarity. It is finally the scorn and the hilarity that struggle for victory on Mutnedjmet’s face, and eventually the scorn wins out.

“You do me great honor, Brother,” she says with scathing sarcasm, “and I must remember to sacrifice to all the gods, particularly to those who may presently take our father, so that I may thank them suitably for it. But having done so, I must tell them that I have to decline with thanks. I am entirely unworthy of so great a position.”

“It
will
be great,” he agrees icily, “and you
will
be unworthy of it. However, I am offering it to you. You would be fool indeed not to take it.”

“
She
has the blood,” she says, gesturing toward Ankhesenamon, who has turned paled with both fear and anger as the full impact of his audacity sinks in.

“
He
is the Living Horus,” he says, pointing to their father. “Therefore, dear Sister, the blood has passed to you.” He turns sharply upon Ankhesenamon, so sharply that she jumps. “Is that not so, Majesty?”

“If I have children—” she begins, breathless with shock and anger, while Nakht-Min, fortunately standing at the side where Horemheb does not see his expression, struggles to remain impassive.

“
If you do, they will be no children of his. Is that not so?
”