Sitamon
My mother Queen Tiye invited me to go with her this time to Akhet-Aten, and I was bored in Thebes, so I came. But she has not invited me to accompany her to the North Palace tonight, so I can only speculate what is going to happen there. At first I was annoyed by this, but then I thought: One more family row, this one probably the most bitter we have ever had with my peculiar brother. I am probably well off out of it. I have had enough wrangling and disputation over the years. The last battle of wills can proceed without me. At thirty-eight the Queen-Princess Sitamon is beginning to reach an age where she is just as happy not to be involved in angry things. I shall hear the results soon enough.
Sometimes I look back on these three years since my father died and marvel at what has happened in the land of Kemet. Partly I suppose it began with him, who married me when I was very young in order to secure his own legitimacy to the throne (the Double Crown passing, as it does, through the female line, though I sometimes wonder what good that does us, who have no real right of our own to happiness but must always be subject to whoever marries us). He spent most of his life enjoying the luxuries our ancestors handed down to him and managed by his amiable ways to persuade the people that this was good government. Already Kemet looks back with heavy longing to the “golden age” of the Good God Amonhotep III (life, health, prosperity!). They call him “Amonhotep the Magnificent” now, forgetting how he lolled away the Empire and let civil government slip, beginning all the things my poor brother has carried grimly on to the point of near destruction. But in retrospect, as with most rulers whose people perceive their personal foibles and are so astounded to find them human that they gladly forgive them all their trespasses, he has emerged in an increasingly favorable light.
“We loved your father!” they shout at me when I pass in procession, adding commendation for him to the obvious love I can truly say they bear for me. I have never quite shouted back, “So did I!”—such informality does not become a royal princess and Queen to Pharaoh—but they can tell from my expression that our sentiments coincide. Their shouts of joy redouble and they always conclude by looking sad because he is gone forever and they cannot have him back.
Such unity with the people as our father had, Akhenaten has never achieved, except in the very early days when he first returned to public view after his ailment, and when he married Nefertiti. For a brief year or two they had such adoration as only my father and mother enjoyed, excepting one difference: my father and the Great Wife had it as long as he lived, and she has it still, whereas poor Akhenaten—and poor Nefertiti, whom I have come to feel dreadfully sorry for in these recent years—enjoyed the people’s love for a fleeting moment and then lost it forever.
I suppose I have become so sympathetic toward my cousin Nefertiti because to some extent my situation parallels hers. You will remember that for many years I and he who turned out to be my cousin Horemheb have been lovers. I helped him keep this secret, bore him three children whom I had to dispose of, since I was married to my father (in name only, but nonetheless irrevocably) and it was thus impossible for us to acknowledge one another openly, however open our secret eventually became in the Court and, I suppose, in the Two Lands. Then Horemheb (“Kaires,” as we knew him then) declared himself to be Horemheb, son of my uncle Aye; my father died; and I assumed—naïve girl that I was at thirty-five!—that all was now clear for us to announce our love and be married by my brother, who gave me his blessing after enjoying the pleasure of frightening me for a moment with possible refusal. But when I took the glad news back to Horemheb it was suddenly no longer as simple as it had always seemed. Horemheb, I began to perceive, had other plans.
He was, I found, not so eager as I to rush into marriage. He was not, in fact, eager to rush into it at all. He preferred, he said, to keep “our loving relationship,” as he called it, exactly where it was—officially secret, officially unacknowledged, officially no restriction upon him at all. He told me this was necessary because his duties as general and chief scribe of the army took him too often from home. These journeys had never interfered with us before, and I could not see why they should now. But he was adamant, and although I perhaps could have tried to insist, we both knew it would probably not succeed. It would require my brother’s full support, and Horemheb and I both know I do not have it; and Horemheb would have to be much lower than my brother has raised him for my brother’s command to be effective. Above all, my brother would have to be a much different and more powerful Pharaoh than he is. He would have to be more like Horemheb.
In fact, I said almost as much the other day and apparently hit closer to the mark than Horemheb found comfortable.
“You treat me as though you were some Pharaoh!” I shot out angrily in the midst of our most recent quarrel on the subject. For a second he looked at me with complete and almost ludicrous dismay: he actually turned pale. He grasped my arm so tightly that it hurt, which is what he meant it to do. I cannot be quite so melodramatic as to say he hissed at me, but it was certainly a furtive and emphatic sound.
“Don’t you ever say that again!” he ordered in a savage whisper. “Don’t you ever say that again!”
I gave him stare for stare, since I am daughter and wife of a Pharaoh, but I must admit that for a moment I was genuinely frightened by the enormous suppressed anger in his voice. I have been his wife in all but name for almost fifteen years, borne him three children—and now I no longer think I even really know him.
Except that I know one thing now, after that exchange.
He wants to be Pharaoh and fully intends to be, if he can.
Somewhere down the years we have lost Horemheb, too—bright, cheerful, willing “Kaires” who came mysteriously and unexpectedly to the Palace of Malkata and charmed us all with his enthusiasm, diligence and idealism. He loved Kemet then, and I think he loves her now; but down the years he has also become enamored of power. I think he thinks he wants it only that he may better serve Kemet. And perhaps this is true: but, men being men, perhaps it is not, entirely.
Power for its own sake is enormously attractive, particularly when, as is the case with my headstrong brother, it is being so sadly misused by those who have it
In any case, the quarrel did not advance the cause of our marriage, for which I have now almost abandoned hope. If he will not marry me, he will not, and there is little I can do about it. He talks vaguely of marriage “later, when it is more fitting.” But when is “later,” and when will it be “more fitting”? In the meantime, he says firmly, we will continue as we are. Unfortunately this, too, I will accept, because I suffer from the same disease as Nefertiti: I love him, as she still loves my poor, misguided brother, against all fitness, logic and common sense about what is best for us, not them.
There was a time long ago when I rather made fun of my perfect cousin Nefertiti, always so steady, so cool, so icy calm and self-contained in the face of all adversity. No hair was out of place on that beautiful head, no trace of consternation ever creased that perfect brow. Each eyelash was in perfect order above those lovely, contemplative eyes. Nothing seemed to disturb the serenity of the remote and impregnable fortress of her being. But I learned, in time, that a woman as vulnerable as any lived inside the fortress, and I came to admire her for the great dignity with which she conducts herself in the very difficult situation in which she lives now.
My brother is in his special world, my younger brother has followed him there, and now only the youngest of all, solemn little Tut, stands between the House of Thebes and extinction. Tut—and, of course, my mother the Great Wife, my uncle Aye, and my cousin Horemheb. But Tut carries the blood of Ra in direct line, and he it is who will rule next … if, as now seems steadily more possible, some move is made to remove our two brothers from the throne.
I feel sorry for Smenkhkara, who goes smiling and amiable through the world like our father, but without our father’s genius for abiding by the eternal order and ma’at of Kemet. Our father also had Queen Tiye, of course, and Smenkhkara has only sour little Merytaten, who tries to lord it over us all and pretend that she is a greater Queen than any of us. This is nonsense, and I hope the gods will render her suitable justice when the time comes. Why Akhenaten permits it I do not know, unless it be some lingering feeling that it looks more fitting to have a woman in the King’s House. He does not seem to feel the necessity in other respects, but it may be he wants her there for ceremonial reasons. And in her waspish little way she does have a good head for household management. Par-en-nefer, the major-domo, is a careless old man behind whose back all sorts of thieving and cheating goes on among the servants, particularly in the purchase and distribution of foodstuffs for the palaces. I do not know how much is spirited away to the servants’ families every day, but it must be an enormous amount. At least Merytaten tries to keep that under control. Her nagging voice is often raised to Par-en-nefer, and he can then be seen bustling busily and angrily away, protesting as he goes that he will “set all to rights—set all to rights!” These reforms last a day or two and the pilfering begins again. I do not envy my niece her task, though this is the only sympathy I can find in my heart for her pinched and spiteful personality.
So Smenkhkara has no one to help him keep his balance in a situation in which I do not think he has ever really wanted to preserve it anyway. I think he has been quite content from the beginning, being lazy and easygoing and also adoring his older brother, who did not hesitate to take advantage of this. Now they pretend to rule the country, though actually it is the Great Wife, our uncle Aye and Horemheb who carry out the orders, and indeed originate them, half the time.
Were I Akhenaten I should be disturbed by this, but as nearly as he shows us, he does not appear to be. He drifts along: Smenkhkara drifts along: the Two Lands drift along. Smenkhkara makes some pretense of running things, makes his trips to Thebes and Memphis, issues proclamations and decrees in Akhenaten’s name, prides himself on being, as he confided to me recently, “our brother’s eyes and ears.” Real power resides where it has resided for many years, with my mother, my uncle and, lately, Horemheb.
They do not quite dare challenge Akhenaten openly, for he is after all the Living Horus, Son of the Sun, King and Pharaoh of the Two Lands. By adoption, as it were, Smenkhkara has comparable, if somewhat lesser, stature. It takes much—very much—for anyone to openly challenge Pharaoh. It has been done, in our history, but only after the most grievous and long-continuing provocations. And it has not been done until those who did it were sure they could win. The vengeance of Pharaoh, even such a generally peaceable one as my brother, does not fall lightly on those who fail in such a revolutionary and awesome attempt.
Now, however, I suspect the attempt may be made. It is a possibility I hardly dare think about, so terrible are its implications and so awful its consequences, no matter who wins. To overturn a Pharaoh is to shake to the very foundations the being of Kemet, for Pharaoh is all things to Kemet. Such an act violates the very ma’at of the Two Lands. Only a Pharaoh who himself has violated ma’at could ever be threatened with such a thing.
Tonight, I suspect, may be the start of it, though I do not expect the event itself to occur then. There will be a last attempt to reason with my older brother, who is responsible, and with my younger brother, who is not responsible but only the amiable and appealing dull-wit he has always been. If that fails, then I shudder to think what may happen next in the land of Kemet.
The argument at hand is very small: two paintings on two tomb walls. Around them rise issues so grave and great that their settling can convulse the earth from the Delta to the Fourth Cataract.
Knowing my mother, my uncle, my cousin Horemheb, Nefertiti and my two dreaming brothers, I expect the worse.
But I do not want to be there.
I shall walk by the Nile and try to think of peaceful things; though I think it will be long, now, before peace returns to the Two Lands.…
***