Anser-Wossett
I have been first lady in waiting to Queen Nefertiti since we both were girls, and steadily in these past three years my heart has been wrung with pity for her, as hers has been wrung with sadness for her husband and the happy times they once knew together.
I have watched her age, something I never thought could happen when we were younger; and at the same time seen her become more beautiful, as maturity and suffering have eroded the youthful roundness and arrogant prettiness and transformed her into a stately, grave and truly beautiful woman.
Bek’s rising young assistant Tuthmose has captured this best, I think, in the portrait bust he has just completed. Wearing her blue conoidal crown, looking out upon the world with a subtle sadness, a knowing but indomitable serenity, she gazes quietly into the eyes of the beholder as I have often seen her gaze in these past three troubled years. Only once have I caught that gaze direct, and then it was to look into such depths of sorrow that I quickly found a pretext to excuse myself and went away to weep in private for the beautiful woman who has come, only to find that all has crumbled and turned hopeless in her hands.
For this I can never blame the Queen, for it is only Pharaoh who must bear the responsibility. Her fault, if any, has been in loving him too much, and continuing to do so long after all evidence and common sense said such devotion was foolish and fated to end in emptiness. She has refused to believe it—refuses, I think, even now. Of all the Court—perhaps in all Kemet—she is the only one who still clings to the hope that someday, somehow, they may be reunited.
But suppose they were, what would it profit her? Nefer-Kheperu-Ra has not much longer to live, I think, and it is better that she be far from his side when the vengeance of the gods falls at last upon his head.
This I believe it will, for I do not believe that even the Good God can so long and so outrageously challenge the gods and the very ka and ba, the very soul and essence, of the Two Lands, without coming eventually to judgment. In my opinion, though I know the Queen has always supported him in his heretical ideas (something it took me long to forgive her, and only my deep love for her gentle person and my ever growing admiration for her indomitable character finally persuaded me to do so), judgment is long overdue. Vengeance will come, and it will destroy both Pharaohs. So are we told who still believe in Amon: and our number is as the sands of the Red Land, however much the Good God may have tried to discourage us and force us to worship his way during the strange unhappy time he has been on the throne.
Fifteen years—fifteen years! To think we have had to suffer him for fifteen years! They have flown so fast it seems impossible to believe it has been so long—were it not that the weary sorrow of my lady is as nothing to the weary sorrow of the land. We carry a constant depression in our hearts because of him. Laughter and joy are gone from Kemet. It has been long, too long, and retribution for it has been long, too long, in coming.
I speak occasionally with him who is known in Akhenaten’s Southern Palace as Peneptah, meeting him casually at an appointed place in the market, appearing to the unnoticing passers-by to be chatting easily of ordinary domestic things. Secretly we exchange gossip and information as we seem to stand innocuously talking in the sun. I do not reveal to Hatsuret any of the private affairs of the Queen, for my loyalty is first to her, which he respects; but he knows me as a loyal follower of Amon, and so he tells me something of the whispers that are running through Kemet. We talk also of hidden things within the Family, which both of us are in position to overhear and to know. Vengeance is coming, he says; and he told me only yesterday that it will come “from those closest to Pharaoh, whom he does not suspect.” He also told me that when I receive the sign from him—“which before long I think you will”—I should be prepared at once to disguise myself and the Queen—as if one could disguise that classic face!—and flee to hiding in one of the villages south, toward Aswan.
“Our quarrel is not with Her Majesty,” he said, “though Amon knows she has abetted and encouraged the Heretic enough, through all these years. But Amon will forgive her if she will go quietly and nevermore appear upon the public scene. A modest house and a quiet living will be prepared for her and for you, and for three or four suitable servants to attend you. There you may live out your days unknown and unmolested. But she must not hesitate. When I tell you, and you tell her—go. Do not look back, either of you. Else will she, too, feel the vengeance of Amon, which is terrible and will devastate the land.”
“Must there be more devastation?” I asked, embittered. “Have we not had devastation enough? Must Amon compound Aten, and bloody us all in the process? Why will you not be content, Hatsuret—Peneptah”—correcting myself as he gave me a hasty glare of warning—“to simply reclaim the temples and the Two Lands from the Heretic? Must you run the risk of ruining everything as he has, in the bargain?”
“Vengeance will not be complete until he is dead and all his doings laid waste as he has laid waste Amon and the other gods,” he said in a harsh and unforgiving tone.
“You men love vengeance too much,” I said. “Why must there be more weeping in the Two Lands?”
“So that the Sole God will die forever,” he said in the same cold way. “Forever and ever, for millions and millions of years—so that no man hereafter will ever again dare to blaspheme and say that there is a single universal god supreme above all others. This is the reason we will destroy the Aten, and the Aten’s worshipers, and the sick cripple who has conceived blasphemy, and all his works of all kinds, forever.”
“You cannot destroy what is in men’s minds, Peneptah,” I said, “and though many condemn what he has planted there, not all will be able to forget it. It may outlive us all, for all your vengeance.”
“First we will have the vengeance,” he said with a grim assurance, “and then we will see.”
“I shall try to persuade Her Majesty as you suggest,” I said, dropping the subject because I could see that he could not and would not accept my prediction, which I think to be, unhappily, more likely to be true than his. “But I do not know that she will listen to me. It is not in her nature to flee.”
“Then she will die with him,” he said with a cold indifference. “And you, too, unless you abandon her and return to Amon in time.”
“I shall never abandon Her Majesty!” I exclaimed, shocked into a loudness of tone that brought his hand instantly clamped upon my arm.
“You will have the chance,” he said softly, “because you have been a loyal daughter of Amon. But it will not be offered twice. At the moment you receive word from me, in that moment you must decide. And so must she. There will be no second chance.”
“You do not frighten me, Hatsuret,” I said in a whisper that trembled despite my attempt to keep it steady.
“Amon is not interested in whether or not anyone is frightened,” he said. “Amon is interested in justice.”
“Vengeance!” I snapped. “Vengeance only, not justice!”
“The two are the same,” he said with an indifferent shrug, and turned away to leave me staring after him with too much dismay on my face, for I soon became aware that several were giving me curious looks. I quickly gathered up the two earthen pots with their characteristic blue-striped design which were my excuse for being in the market, went to my waiting litter and was carried home to the North Palace through the city’s bustling streets.
As we passed the King’s House there was a sudden stir, a blare of trumpets, a hurried falling away of crowds before the entrance. Out they came, arms about one another’s waists, no doubt on their way to worship at the House of the Aten. Pharaoh Akhenaten seemed sicklier than when I glimpsed him last, a month ago; it seemed to me that he leaned more heavily than usual upon Pharaoh Smenkhkara. Their chariot dashed past, the crowds instantly resumed their chatter and bustle, we all went swiftly on about our business. Oddly, it was almost as though the two Kings had never passed, so quickly did life resume its pattern and close over them like the Nile over a handful of sand.
I returned to Her Majesty much troubled, both by Hatsuret’s warnings and by this new sign that the Good God and the young Pharaoh really have no support at all among the people to sustain them: for I do not really wish them ill, knowing how terribly Her Majesty would be hurt if harm came to her husband. Knowing me so well, she of course perceived my mood and demanded to know what had disturbed me in the city. But I had neither the heart nor the courage to tell her of either thing. I passed it off with some story of seeing a child slip and fall fatally beneath the wheels of a passing donkey cart, but I do not think she believed me. In fact I know she did not, for she responded with a searching look from the lovely thoughtful eyes and remarked only:
“It is a time when many things trouble us. Let us pray to the Aten—or you to Amon, if you like—that all will come well for the Two Lands.”
“And for you, Majesty,” I said fervently. “Particularly for you, who have endured so much.”
“And with yet more to come, I think,” she said in a faraway tone, as if to herself, “… with yet more to come.”
Since then she has been lost in thought, withdrawn, remote, not participating as she usually does in the games and prattle of her daughters and of Tut and Beketaten. Now as we prepare for the arrival within the hour of the Great Wife, Her Majesty’s father Aye, her half brother Horemheb and Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, she remains silent, unresponsive, almost listless under my skilled hands as I assist her once again with the unguents and oils, the kohl for her eyes, the ocher for her cheeks, the sweet perfumes, all the familiar beautifications with which I have helped her prepare for appearances so many, many thousands of times.
She will rise to this occasion as to all others, of that I am certain; and I know even more certainly than I did when I spoke with Hatsuret that she will never flinch or flee from the vengeance of Amon, which now seems to be coming very close and surely will not be long delayed.
***