Amonhotep,
Son of Hapu
They greet us like two golden statues, seated on their double throne. In spite of all we know, all we think, all we plan, it is impossible not to be awed by the ancient mystery. Aye, Horemheb and I fall to our knees, touch our foreheads to the floor in ritual greeting. Only the Great Wife remains standing, rigid and unyielding in her golden garments, crowned head high, eyes staring fearlessly into theirs.
“You have not provided chairs for us, my sons,” she says in a clear, level voice. “I did not rear you to show such discourtesy to those to whom courtesy is due.”
She pauses expectantly while Aye, Horemheb and I rise. No expression crosses Akhenaten’s face, and after a lightning sidewise glance to see what he should do, Smenkhkara sets his face in the same unyielding pattern. The silence lengthens, begins to turn awkward. Anger, for her and for us, begins to fill our hearts. Once again Nefer-Kheperu-Ra has misjudged the world in which he lives.
“You wished to see me about something?” he inquires, ignoring her question. For a split second we can sense her debating whether to force the issue, order Aye to call up servants with chairs—which I do not think even Pharaoh, lost as he is in dreams of the Aten and arrogance, would dare countermand. We can also sense Smenkhkara’s instinctive protest at this brutal treatment of their mother, even as we sense his immediate helpless resignation as he realizes he cannot defy his brother.
Then we sense her decision: No, let him act like this, if he is fool enough. It will only strengthen our resolve.
“Very well,” she says, and with serene grace turns gravely and beckons us forward. Not looking at the two Kings, we advance, Aye at her right hand, Horemheb and I respectfully a half step behind, he on the right beside his father, I on the Great Wife’s left.
“Are you comfortable now?” Akhenaten asks with a biting sarcasm; and serenely she replies, “Yes, my son, and we thank you for your courtesy in granting us audience this night.”
“What is it you wish to discuss?” he asks; and as she did with Nefertiti, Queen Tiye decides to be blunt. Her resolve, we realize, goes even deeper than we imagined.
“Your shameful order to Huy and Meryra that their tombs should depict the durbar solely with your brother and yourself, instead of in the traditional way with the Chief Wife, your daughters and the tribute of the Nine Bows and all our vassals and allies, as befits the dignity and honor of this House,” she says calmly, biting off the concluding phrase with an emphasis that shows she does not desire to take any nonsense.
Neither, of course, does he.
“Mother!” he says sharply, hunching forward awkwardly on his throne and glaring at her from his slanting, wide-set eyes. “Madam! The dignity and honor of the truth are more important than the dignity and honor of this House. And do you not forget that this is what my Father Aten tells me, and this is what I believe.”
“Then you are a fool,” she says coolly, and instinctively we gasp, for no one has dared talk to a Pharaoh like this before, not even a mother. But the Great Wife has made up her mind at last, and there is no mistaking, of course, where his iron comes from. She gave it to him: it is only natural that she should get it back. Which she does.
“Not as great a fool as those who would deny the truth!” he says with a sharpness equal to hers. “In which category, Madam, I find you now. I have given my order to Huy and Meryra that the durbar shall be pictured as it was, Ankh-Kheperu-Ra at my side, the few paltry tributes we had—”
“And whose fault is that?” she interrupts angrily. “Who has let the Empire dwindle to nothing? Who has been so lost in his games with the Aten—and with his brother—”
“Careful, Madam!” he cries angrily, his voice beginning to get its emotion-filled croak. “Mother, be careful!”
“So lost with these things that he has paid no attention to keeping Kemet strong, he has let all slide, he has abandoned all, he has been no Pharaoh but a play-King doing futile things for empty and futile purposes!” she shouts above his bitter protest, and then, womanlike, begins to cry. But there is no question of this being weakness. They are tears of anger, and she dashes them angrily from her eyes as she hurries on, permitting him no chance to reply.
“You have let the Two Lands fall into chaos and corruption! You have made a mockery of government! You have made of Kemet, and of yourself and your poor brother, a laughingstock to the world! You have lowered this House and this Dynasty to the ground! You have debased not only yourself but all of us with your foolish Aten and your wild crazy doings! And it must stop.”
And, breathless, she stops, continuing to cry, continuing to dash away the tears with a furious, impatient anger. Only her heavy breathing and his fill the room: the rest of us, including poor Smenkhkara, who now looks scared to death and even younger than his twenty brief years, scarcely dare breathe at all.
It is obvious that he is going through an intense inner struggle. Tentatively at last his brother reaches out and grasps his arm, with something of the same soothing gesture we used so often to see Nefertiti employ with his rages in his younger days. But he is much older, the rages go deeper and last longer: it will take more than Smenkhkara’s frightened little gesture to calm him now.
“Majesty,” he says at last, words barely distinguishable in the harsh croak of his terrible emotion, “I think you had better go and take your fellow traitors with you. I shall not punish you as you deserve, for you are my mother, and all of you are—” He hesitates for a second and then changes the word as he appears to be swept by a sudden gust of feeling—can it be regret and sadness, can those actually be tears in the eyes of our strange, strange Nefer-Kheperu-Ra? “Since all of you are—my—my family. But I do not want you come near me again, or try to communicate with me in any way, or defile and defame Father Aten, or Ankh-Kheperu-Ra, or me, ever, ever, ever again. Go! Go! Go!”
Again there is silence while he stares at us like some wounded animal cornered and filled with bitterness and hate. We are stunned, we do not move. He is pale and quivering with the emotion and effort of it all, looking suddenly as though Anubis, guardian of the grave, were touching him urgently on the shoulder and might not long delay calling him to the West. At his side his brother looks equally stricken, but in a way typical of poor Smenkhkara, who must now pay the penalty we have decided upon for his brother’s intransigence: he looks stricken for his mother, whom he loves, for his brother, whom he loves, and for us, whom he loves. His concern is all with others, not with himself. How sad that such a goodhearted lad must die for no other crime, really, than simply being too goodhearted.
But this will come a little later, in some way no doubt already planned by Aye and Horemheb. For the moment they must make one last attempt to bring the Good God back to reason, before they can finally feel themselves free to proceed as they must.
“Does Your Majesty mean to strip me of all my powers and duties as Councilor?” Aye inquires at last in a low and trembling voice.
“I have told you,” Akhenaten replies, obviously with a great effort but unrelenting: “Go!”
And so, after a few further seconds of uncertainty, Queen Tiye, still weeping, gestures us toward the door. Aye is weeping, Horemheb (quite genuinely, I believe) is weeping; I, too, weep for them all, for tragedies past and tragedies yet to come.
At the door I cannot resist a quick glance backward.
There on their thrones, holding one another in a desperate grasp whose terrible desolation communicates itself to me like a blow, the two mighty Kings of the Two Lands are weeping too.
How strange and terrible can families be, whose members sometimes do such awful things to one another.
We go to the beautiful little palace of the Great Wife on the bank of the Nile, there to set in motion the fate the gods have decreed for him who thought he could destroy the gods.
***