Out of the Black Land - By Kerry Greenwood Page 0,168
trying to spread the knowledge of it to foreign lands. Therefore I have decided. Now that the name of the old god is obliterated from Egypt, now that we are pure, then we must purify the barbarians. We must go forth not as soldiers but as instructors. All of my army will be used to take presents to foreign kings, to foreign places, even as far as the Great Green Sea and the nests of the vile Kush. And the most valuable present they will carry will be knowledge of the Aten!’
I looked at Horemheb. His mouth had fallen open. I struggled to work out the implications of what the King Akhnaten had just ordered. His soldiers were to go forth to foreign kings to preach the cult of the Aten. That did not seem perilous. Someone asked the king a question.
‘What shall we do, child of the Aten before all stand in awe, if these foreigners do not accept the teachings?’
‘Why, kill them,’ said the king calmly. ‘If they will not accept, we must kill them.’
This, on the other hand, made the situation disastrous. Egypt was surrounded by desert nomads who had their own form of monotheism for which they were perfectly willing, even eager, to kill or be killed; and by kingdoms who had their own long-established gods who were just as precious to them as the Aten was to the mad king.
I could not see Babylon surrendering Nun, or Ishtar being abandoned in Assyria. Even if the rulers wished to do so—and an army on the threshold can be very persuasive in religious matters—they would not dare, for their people would rise up and slaughter them.
‘What’s the king doing?’ I whispered to my husband.
‘He’s declaring war on the world,’ said the general.
***
It being Mechir, which in the old days was the month to celebrate the story of Sekmet and the destruction of mankind—averted by the gods pouring her a lake of red beer—the Widow-Queen Tiye decreed a feast.
Sekmet was her goddess, She Who Loves Silence, the lioness in the peak. The Widow-Queen invited the whole royal family; excluding Ankhesenpaaten and Tutankhaten as too young to take part in the special celebration which she had in mind.
She did not invite me—and I was rather hurt—but she summoned me to her rooms as the finishing touches were being made to what looked like a very lavish feast. She saw my slightly downcast face and kissed me.
‘Come and open this door tomorrow morning, daughter Mutnodjme,’ she said gently. Her red hair was concealed under a full court wig, and she was wearing her own weight in gems. She was old. She was, now I calculated, over fifty.
‘Make me a promise, daughter,’ she said, sounding so serious.
I responded instantly, ‘I am your slave, lady.’
‘Help the little royal ones,’ she added, and I swore to do so. Then she put around my neck a very precious necklace, loaded my arm with bracelets and placed a lotus wreath on my head.
‘Remember me,’ she said, and then ushered me out, for her guests were arriving.
I stood by the door in the corridor of gazelles and watched them come in. Pannefer and Huy, greasy with expensive scents. Smenkhare walking in a parody of femaleness, hand on hip. His eyes were glazed. I had been told that he had become habituated to opium in larger and larger quantities, to kill misery and help him to sleep. And of course the king and his guards—he never moved without guards. Akhnaten had not aged well. The body which had been strange was now grotesque. His belly swayed as he walked, his breasts bounced. He did not notice me. The Widow-Queen welcomed them all in and shut the door.
I did not sleep well. I could not explain why I tossed and turned and eventually got up, so as not to wake the general; though nothing short of a battle alarm woke Horemheb. I lit a small lamp and sat down in the empty outer apartment and waited for the sun to rise. In the silence I heard sounds of merrymaking from the right direction, screams of mirth and the smash of dropped pottery.
I walked about. The night was not cold. The painted walls grew too close. I walked out of the general’s rooms and out to the battlements, where I would see the whole City of the Sun laid out beneath me as soon as Khephri pushed the ball of light over the horizon.