Amonhotep III
(life, health, prosperity!)
I fail. I do not know what it is. Sometimes I think Amon is indeed taking vengeance upon me; yet what have I done to Amon that can possibly match what he has done to me? But I fail: there is no mistaking it. Each day I hope for permanent improvement, each day, tongue in cheek, my brother-in-law and his anthill of priests pray to their god that I grow better. Each day, tongue in cheek, Amon gives them the only answer they dare to have him give and Aanen relates it to me: I will get better.
It is a game we play. But wearisome—wearisome. At least to me. I am sure Aanen and his white-robed hordes enjoy it, as they watch me die.
For dying I may be, I sometimes think. Other times I am not so sure. Quite often I think I may have many years ahead of me. Then come days when my teeth pain, when my body, which has lost its trimness, groans, when arthritis blows into my bones with the wind off the Nile. Some days I can hardly walk, hardly talk. Then comes an easing, a resurgence, a restrengthening. It, too, may last for days, weeks, even months. Then the malaise creeps back. I hobble in misery and think I may die.
I too pray then, though it has been years, now, since I prayed to Amon when I really pray. I pray to Amon in his temples, which are growing bigger and better every day as many thousands of workmen labor under the command of my namesake, Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, to add new hypostyle columns, new statues and the new third pylon at Karnak, additional buildings at Medinet Habu, and, at Luxor, the entire new temple which I have dedicated to the god and to his wife Mut and his son Khons. In private I pray to other gods, principally to the Aten. The Aten understands and, in his beneficence, is kind. Sometimes I pray to him in public, too, and here and there along the Nile and throughout the Empire I have built new temples to him, as well. They are not as magnificent as Amon’s but they are pleasant, light, and airy things. They give me pleasure when I worship in them, and they infuriate Aanen and his fellows. This, too, I think, improves my health: or at any rate, my good nature.
The Aten’s temples are not yet, however, popular with the people. I have conceived of the Aten as, among other things, a symbol of universal unity, drawing all the diverse peoples of the Empire together. But even there Amon still holds the upper hand, for he does not see the need of another to assist him. There is little I can do about it short of an open confrontation, and this I am not well enough to do. Nor am I, indeed, in any position. I have supped too long at Amon’s table, and he at mine, for me to challenge him openly. And I, in any event, am already too old.
Fifteen years ago, when Amon killed my son Tuthmose, the Great Wife and I swore that we would, in time, have vengeance. Now and then in the years immediately following we thought we saw the chance. But each time caution prevailed: sometimes through the intervention of Aye the ever patient, sometimes through my mother, sometimes through Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, and, more lately, through the diplomatically offered but calmly assured and self-respecting opinions of young Kaires, rising fast in my service. And there have been occasions even these did not know about, when Tiye and I might have struck out with fearful force at Amon but were restrained by our own common sense, which also exists.
The moment has never seemed quite right, the opportunity never quite ideal. So we have compromised with stick and carrot, expending vast sums for Amon on the one hand, favoring the Aten, and becoming increasingly formal and remote with Amon on the other; hoping meanwhile that sufficient of the populace would begin to follow our lead so that the small priesthood of the Aten we have established might grow in size and influence to a point sufficient to balance Amon. So far it has not happened. Amon is too ingrained in Kemet, too intertwined with our House, too much a habit, too loved—and too feared. Loved and feared among the superstitious, I am unhappily forced to acknowledge, perhaps even more than I.
While Kemet has a ruling overlay of the educated, the mature, and the sophisticated, I am afraid the ignorant and superstitious still form the great bulk of our population. The older I grow the more I realize that our royalty rests, our ruling classes rest, on the foundation of the great mass of the illiterate, there below. The aristocracy governs Kemet, but the peasant mass in its mud-brick villages is Kemet. And thus, to them, with all their superstition, ignorance, and habit, the battle with Amon appears no real battle at all, because it is inconceivable to them that Amon could ever be shaken. Amon, and the fellow gods whose priests he has been able to purchase, subvert or enlist, is a part of the universe as immutable as I am. How can my people possibly conceive of a break between us, when I am not strong enough, and did not realize at an age young enough, that break there might ultimately have to be?
This, of course, was because I did not really realize, though instinct and concern for my authority made me restive, how determined Amon was to rule both king and kingdom. I wanted only to restore the balance, I did not want all-out war. When I made Tuthmose—that sweet, innocent little boy!—High Priest of Ptah, it was only to seek a balance. Amon chose to regard it as a declaration of war, and so Tuthmose died, the war’s first but most sensational casualty. Too late then the Great Wife and I realized what we confronted. And, as I say, it has never come right to gain revenge.
Until, perhaps, today.
Today, using the excuse of my health and the desire that he become fully educated in the methods of government should the Aten decide suddenly to call me to the Valley of the Kings, I am making the Crown Prince Amonhotep IV my Co-Regent and am simultaneously marrying him, as I was married myself, into the sturdy house of Yuya and Tuya which has already given Kemet two strong queens in Mutemwiya and Tiye, and great public servants such as Aye. This is good, strong blood, which has been of great benefit to the House of Thebes. It will continue to be so, through Nefertiti. And in due course other purposes will be achieved.
It is quite true that the growing uncertainties of my health make it vital that I have someone young and vigorous—or if not “vigorous” in the usual sense, at least determined—beside me. I find ceremony increasingly burdensome, increasingly hard: yet there are times, ordained on the calendar from the Beginning, when I must participate, no matter how I feel. It is true that three years ago I delayed by one day the start of the Festival of Opet—which I myself established—that ceremony in which Amon in his sacred barque is carried up the river from his temple at Karnak to visit his new temple at Luxor which I am building for him, there to remain for two weeks while all of Thebes gives itself up to carnival, and then be returned with similar pomp to his ancient resting place. But only once have I been so ill. All other times, even when I have had to be carried in a litter, I have attended the various ceremonies required of me. But particularly in these recent years it has been a major ordeal. I shall be glad to let the new Pharaoh share the burden.
I shall also be glad to encourage him in what I believe will be his determined attempts to bring Amon back within reasonable bounds.
For he is very determined, my second son; and the determination, if anything, has become even more deep-seated and adamant as his mysterious and tragic ailment has bent and twisted him out of the shape of ordinary men.
Sometimes I almost fear for him, in fact, so headstrong does he seem. His mother discounts this, serene in the certainty that we have educated him in statecraft and guile beyond all danger of misjudgment. Yet sometimes I am not so sure. Those bland, intelligent, self-protective eyes stare at me without expression, the huge flabby lips draw up in a slight and enigmatic smile.
“Do not worry, Father,” he says calmly. “I shall know what to do.”
But will he?
Tiye is convinced of it, but Tiye always is convinced that she can foresee all things, bend anything to her will, conquer everything even when events prove her wrong—and that anyone trained by her can only acquire the skill of governance she has herself. Yet it need not be necessarily so. And therefore I wonder.…
We have trained them both, of course, with equal care, knowing from almost the day of birth that we would marry them to one another someday should they survive. Aided by Aye and Tey and Amonhotep, Son of Hapu, and also, in his casual yet careful way, by young Kaires, we have explained to them patiently the situation with regard to Amon, our hopes for the Aten, our desire that they might succeed in redressing the balance we have failed to achieve. It has been our impression that the lessons have gone home, though both are extremely closemouthed and skilled at keeping their own counsel. Kaires has told us that they talk to him vaguely of “strengthening Amon by strengthening the other gods,” which we all interpret to mean basically the Aten. Yet they do not say so specifically, and they do not tell us how they plan to go about it. It is imperative that Pharaoh keep his counsel except with those he absolutely trusts: yet not to absolutely trust his own parents!—It has hurt us deeply, but we have learned not to pry, for we know it will avail us nothing.
Only once since his ailment changed him from the direct, outward-going, happy lad he was into the brooding, withdrawn, almost unknowable figure he has become has the Crown Prince shown open emotion and that was two weeks ago when his mother and I finally revealed the fate of his older brother.
At first he looked absolutely horrified. Then he dropped his ungainly head into those long-fingered, bony hands and began to weep as deeply and bitterly as though his brother had been his dearest friend, not an almost mythical figure who died on the day he was born. Instinctively both Tiye and Nefertiti went to him and offered comfort with gentle hands on the narrow, shaking shoulders, the bald, elongated skull.
Finally he grasped their hands in his and looked up at me with a haunted look.
“He will pay,” he said, as determinedly as I once did myself. “Amon will pay.”
Then the storm seemed to pass, he relinquished their hands, wiped his eyes on a corner of his kilt, subsided into the empty, brooding look he often has. Only an occasional, gradually diminishing sob broke the silence. Presently he stood up, shrugged off our still-murmured sympathy. The bland veil dropped again over the eyes that so often look hurt inside when you catch him in unguarded moments.
“Thank you for telling me,” he said gravely. “It is well that I should know everything.”
And everything he now knows, so we shall see how he proceeds as Co-Regent. He is trained, knowledgeable, educated, equipped—greatly intelligent, shrewdly perceptive, at once moody, introspective, decisive—and determined.
Determined.
May it be to Amon’s humbling, the good of our House and Kemet’s good that I elevate him to my side this day and give him wife as determined as he. I should like to continue ruling alone, but I have lost the vigor of my ba and ka, the very soul and essence of my being, and by myself can do no more.
***