Aanen
My sister asked me—nay, commanded, in her imperious way which becomes more overbearing as Pharaoh becomes less interested in the necessities of governing and permits more and more power to slip into her willing hands—that I make the ceremonies this day “absolute perfection.”
Other than this, she gave me no instructions. I concluded that it was simply another challenge, another testing. For me, “absolute perfection” means the highest reflection of the power and grandeur of Amon. For her, I know it means the less to do with Amon the better. She was simply giving me another of those endless challenges they always fling at me from the Palace, to see whether I would dare glorify Amon, whom I know they fear and despise. She obviously thought I would be afraid to do so, and so would devise some empty show of pomp and frivolity in which Amon would be forced to take a secondary place to meaningless spectacle. Once again she underestimated me, as they all have all through these years when the Palace has been unrelenting in its indirect but incessant pressures against the god I serve.
I have ordered “absolute perfection,” and it is a perfection that will cry “AMON!” and “POWER!” in tones so loud that even the Great Wife, my ailing brother-in-law and all their sycophants of a sickly Court will bow down in awe before the great god’s majesty.
One thing they obviously thought would be a handicap for me. Pharaoh roused from his slothful lethargy (brought on by all these years of dissipation, luxury and self-indulgence) to add his own command: the ceremonies of co-regency and marriage for their monstrous boy should not be held in the ancient holy of holies at Karnak where Ra first stood upon the hill and created life by spilling his own seed when the great waters receded. They should be held in the new half-finished temple Pharaoh is building for Amon at Luxor.
“Building for Amon.”
Busily he runs about, adding a hypostyle column at Karnak, it is true, but spending far more to add endless bits and pieces to the complex at Medinet Habu, which now includes not only Malkata but a vast mortuary temple to himself, to be guarded by two vast colossi of himself, and which he has now formally named—Amon, note this!—“The House of Neb-Ma’at-Ra Shines Like Aten.”
And Amon is supposed to believe he worships Amon!
“Building for Amon,” indeed!
A bitter jest, in my estimation, employing thousands who should be devoted exclusively to glorifying the only true temple, at Karnak; costing millions that should be going directly into Amon’s coffers, if tribute is what he wishes to pay—which of course he does not, as we all know in the Family, however much the show may persuade the people of Kemet. The people of Kemet by and large are ignorant fools, fit only to till the soil and cultivate the annual bounty of the Nile. But they have one great quality which the House of Thebes will not destroy in them, does not dare destroy in them, could not destroy in them, no matter what. They worship—they venerate—they love—they fear—the god Amon. And nothing from the Palace can change that fact, or will ever change it. Amon, raised to his pinnacle by the House of Thebes, at once their creation and their creator, has been supreme too long. His power, his temples, his lands, his gold, his cattle, his priests, his spies are everywhere.
It will take more than my disloyal family, more than their weirdling son, to change that fact
So I have accepted the Great Wife’s challenge. I have devised the ceremony this day to reflect what Amon truly is, the extent of his influence, the magnitude of his power. Not forty, as is customary, but three hundred white-robed priests will greet the Family when they land at Luxor—and not just priests from Amon, either. I have enlisted friends from Ptah, from Sebek and Buto and Ra-Herakhty and Isis and Osiris and the rest. We are all threatened: we must all stand together. Not ten or twenty trumpets, gongs and cymbals will herald their coming, but two hundred. Not ten or fifty flags will fly from the half-completed pylon preplanning Amon, but a thousand from every pillar, every cornice, every stage in the progress from landing to inner temple, proclaiming Amon and all the gods. And after they land, before the ceremony can begin, we will delay them and hold them up and make them wait, while still more hundreds of priests of all persuasions, to the blare of still more trumpets, gongs and cymbals, bear the sacred barque with the golden statue of the god down the sacred mile-long avenue from Karnak to Luxor.
Only then, when everyone has been suitably impressed with Amon and his fellow gods, only then, when they have had to wait—and wait—and wait, shivering beneath the chill winter skies which today look down upon the sacred precincts, threatening rain—and may Amon deliver even that upon them!—only then will they be allowed to proceed within and hold their ceremony.
Only then will my misshapen nephew become Co-Regent, Pharaoh and God; only then will my luckless beautiful niece take to her side for life her deformed, her ludicrous love. Only then will they be able to imagine, poor fools, that they can finally do to Amon what they have secretly dreamed of doing all these years.
And only then will Amon have proved once again that the dream is hopeless and that only he, borne high on the people’s love, and aided by his fellow gods, is really supreme in the land of Kemet.
I stand here in Luxor in the uncompleted hypostyle hall, beneath the dark and lowering sky. My high priest’s leopard skin flaps against my shivering thighs in the sharpening breeze. About me hundreds of priests of all persuasions bustle as we prepare for their coming. And I say to Amon: Kemet will never desert you! And I say to my traitorous family: Return to Amon, before it is too late! He will still forgive you: but not for long.
The wind is rising, the palms are beginning to bend, and whip along the waterfront, the surface of the swiftly flowing Nile grows grayer, more sullen, more roiling, under the scudding clouds. It is a cold and hostile day. And who has made it so? Not I, not Amon. Let those who have look to the consequences before they are destroyed by their folly.
Amon’s justice may take time: but it is very sure.
Pharaohs come and Pharaohs go, boasting (none more than my arrogant brother-in-law) that they will live forever.
But only Amon lives forever.
***