Ramose
Tonight I am tired and I am sad, but I must not admit it.
For look you, what a great man I am and what a great office do I hold!
My distant predecessor Rehk-mi-re, Vizier to Tuthmose III (life, health, prosperity!), described himself thus:
“There was nothing of which he was ignorant in heaven, in earth, or in any part of the underworld.”
I do not claim quite such omnipotence, being kept sensibly modest by many things including my own nature and the constant advice of my busy half brother, Amonhotep, Son of Hapu: but I do much, and know much.
This is what the Good Gods advise those of whom they appoint Vizier:
“Look after the office of the Vizier and watch over everything that is done in it, for it is the constitution of the entire land. As to the office of the Vizier, indeed, it is not pleasant; no, it is as bitter as its reputation. He is one who must give no special consideration to princes or councilors nor make slaves of any people whatsoever.… Look upon him whom you know as on him you do not know, the one who approaches your person as the one who is far from your house.… Pass over no petitioner without hearing his case.… Show anger to no man wrongfully and be angry only at that which deserves anger. Instill fear of yourself that you may be held in fear, for a true prince is a prince who is feared. The distinction of a prince is that he does justice. But if a man instills fear in an excessive manner, there being in him a modicum of injustice in the estimation of man, they do not say of him: ‘That is a just man.’ … What one expects of the conduct of the Vizier is the performance of justice.”
This is my office and my charge: to do all things evenhandedly, and all things well; to assist Pharaoh in all the daily details of the kingdom and Empire; to hear litigations over land, to establish and enforce the laws by which herds, flocks, harvest, fish, game, trees, ponds, canals, wells are taxed; to determine justice in civil cases; to dispense the common law, which is not law as it is written in books, but law as it falls from the lips of Pharaoh, derived from his three divine qualities of hu—authority; sia—perception; and ma’at—justice. And derived also, of course, from the hu, sia and ma’at of all his predecessors, back into the mists of time to Menes (life, health, prosperity!), first ruler of the Two Lands and fountainhead of all the wisdom of all the Good Gods since.
Such is my position: overseeing all, guiding all, knowing all.
For the first time since Pharaoh appointed me Vizier of Upper Kemet, I wish tonight I did not hold this post. Tonight I know too much, of death and birth and tragedy. Tonight for the first time I feel old. Intimations that Anubis and the judges of the underworld are waiting surround me in my silent room, in this palace sleeping uneasily now in strange mixture of jubilation and sorrow. I would not mind being back with Amonhotep, my half brother, in our home town of Athribis in the Delta, playing innocently along the mudbanks of the Nile, long before our native brilliance called us both to the attention of the Great House and started us upward on our rise to power in the land of Kemet.
Tonight the Palace sleeps: all is quiet. The family, with all its heavy burdens, has long since gone to rest. In the painted corridors and down the long palm-lined avenues the soldiers stand at attention; in hushed tones the guard is changed at the usual four-hour intervals.
The savage heat of Ra’s full vigor in the afternoon has faded into the gentle yet still oppressive exhaustion of the summer night. A soft wind blows off the Red Land. High above, Khons in his silver boat transports the souls of the dead across the sky; his cold white light shines down to cast strange shadows on pillar, cornice, tree, and massive temple, on obelisk and monstrous statue. Even the river is quiet now, only lapping gently at the dock: all boats tied up, all sailors snug ashore in their stopping places. Once in a great while the soft hooting of an owl breaks the silence. Which god or goddess inhabits his furry form tonight? I do not know, but bow my head and wish well whoever it may be. For it is not wise to antagonize the gods of Kemet, who are everywhere, in everything, most present when we see them least.
It is not wise to antagonize the gods: but it has been done, and now I suspect, as I patiently write down the final records of the major happenings of this one day in Kemet’s eternal history, that tonight the Palace sleeps but its principal residents do not. I can imagine, for I know them well, how the Good God and the Great Wife still lie weeping in one another’s arms, even as the gentle fretting of the newborn god at their side reminds them that life does not stop when one life stops. In her little palace in a far corner of the compound, Gilukhipa probably lies awake, staring at the ceiling, not knowing whether to be pleased or sad at the strange events of the strange House to which statecraft has assigned her, unwilling but helpless, for as long as she may live. In the house of Aye in another quarter, the good man, yielding to open emotion for once in his life, weeps for gracious Hebmet, dead too young in giving birth, while at his side the Queen Mother from time to time wrings out cloths in cold water and places them with loving tenderness across his eyes. In another room the young wet nurse Tey suckles the baby girl, whose occasional gurglings remind them, too, that continuity survives in change. Only Sitamon in her little doll’s palace will be soundly asleep in the innocence of childhood: troubled while awake but instantly forgetful of it all the moment her head hit the pillow.
Sitamon and one other rest soundly tonight. Down the silent river behind the secret walls of Karnak, cold Aanen presides in the vast stone room, dimly lit by tapers flickering in the Red Land’s breath, where on a catafalque the body of a little boy lies sleeping. The priests are preparing to place a heart-scarab on his breast to preserve the seat of life, to draw out his brains through his nostrils, to remove his entrails and other organs, to place them in four canopic jars in which they will be preserved forever, and to fill all his cavities with natron, that resinous material which for the next seventy days will mummify his body and make it ready for its final journey to the Valley of the Kings.
Is Aanen satisfied this night? I suspect not, for Amon-Ra won this battle, but both Aanen and I know this Pharaoh and the Great Wife. The war will go on.
And the five million people of Kemet, in all the cities, towns, villages, farms and empty places, all up and down the life-giving river where Hapi holds sway? Many sleep, I suspect, innocent and unknowing as yet of what has happened here, and destined, perhaps, to be uncaring, save in a remote and general way, when they do know. But many others will be lying awake as Khons’ silver boat passes slowly overhead, and in its lovely and impersonal light they will be greatly aware and greatly disturbed, and they will be wondering, as I wonder: What will this day mean for the House of Thebes? What does it portend for Kemet? What will the gods weave for us all as this day’s ripples extend and spread outward in their slow, inexorable development down the years?
Eh, well. I do not know. I know only that the Vizier must continue his work, whatever. So I take my writing brush and my roll of papyrus, and on it I inscribe:
That on this day, on his way from Memphis to Thebes, there died:
Tuthmose V, Crown Prince, High Priest of Ptah.
And there was born, in the Palace of Malkata, to the Great Wife Tiye:
Amonhotep IV, the new Crown Prince.
And also in Malkata, to Hebmet, wife of Aye, a daughter, named by her mother, just before she gave up her life for the child:
Nefer-ti-ti.
Which means: A Beautiful Woman Has Come.
***