V
I am the prisoner and you the gaoler, isn't it so, Ramose?"
"No, sire, it isn't. You are my king and I am your slave.... Why do you laugh?"
"It is no use crying over sour milk, as Ay says. The thing is done, the bird is caught. There are sentries at every door: they bow down to the ground, but they don't let me pass—they cross their spears. And so this means you are my slave?"
"The guards are there to protect you, sire. You know yourself, hired assassins, sent by Tuta, are all over the city. You remember Iserker's knife and Merira's poison? Of course I must protect you! You are laughing again?"
"Forgive me, my friend. You are no good at lies: Ramose lying is like a hippopotamus catching a flea! It isn't from assassins but from myself you are trying to protect me. Be frank, tell me what do you want of me?"
"I have told you many times, Uaenra: you are king—so be a king...."
"I am no longer king: I have resigned the throne."
"A king cannot resign when he has no heir. And Saakera is dead...."
"Yes, my dear brother! Tell me how he died."
"He fell on the battlefield like a hero. He led the army of the god Ra against Tuta's rabble; when our men lost heart he rushed forward and drew them all after him with his battle cry—do you know which? 'Sun's Joy, Uaenra!' He had a spear wound in the stomach and suffered for hours. He had lived without God, but he died a believer. 'There is God, there is,' he kept repeating before his death, and he spoke of you—he was happy to be dying for you...."
"You were wounded in the same battle?"
"It's a mere scratch, not a wound. But many brave men have given their lives for you, sire...."
He paused gloomily.
"And do you know who has Amon's ring with poison, your present to Saakera?" he spoke again, smiling. "Merira. No sooner had Saakera breathed his last than Merira sent envoys to me begging for the ring in exchange for twenty war chariots and ten prisoners."
"Did you give it?"
"No, I refused. But the ring was stolen all the same, by his men, I expect. Let him keep it—poison suits the snake. He had poured out half into your cup but the other is left for himself. Perhaps there will be enough for Tuta as well!"
He went on talking at length about the war and rebellion, imploring the king to show himself to the people, so as to deprive Tuta of his chief weapon—the belief that the king was dead and he, Tuta, was the only legitimate heir to the throne. But the king no longer listened, he paced rapidly up and down the covered passage leading to the river, the very one in which the queen had died a fortnight before.
Ramose was sitting in an armchair; he did not like to sit in the king's presence, but Akhnaton pressed him to do so, knowing that he had difficulty in standing because of the wound in his leg.
Big clouds, white and round, were reflected in the smooth surface of the river that had entered its banks for the winter, and boats, with outspread sails flitted like birds over the clouds. An amber ray of the afternoon sun fell upon an old painting on the inner wall of the passage: a girl of twelve was giving a boy of thirteen a half-open tulip to smell; there was the timid languor of love in their graceful, as it were dancing, movements, and in their childish faces a sadness that was not childish. It was a portrait of the king and queen in their youth.
The king looked with strangely insensible surprise at the little girl, thinking that at that very moment her dead body was twisting and turning, like the burning bark of a tree, in the heavy resinous perfumes of the embalmers. He recalled his own saying that 'a corpse is worse than dung,' and began to tremble with quiet laughter, that ran down his body like shivers or like crackling sparks in a fur that is being smoothed with the palm.
Tired of walking he sat down in an armchair next to a small chess table that stood between him and Ramose. A knife lay on the table. The king took it out of its sheath and looked at the silver pattern on the bronze blade—lions hunting antelopes among the reeds.
"Whose knife is it?" Ramose asked.
"I don't know," the king answered. "See how fine and flexible it is—a Keftian 'willow leaf.' It must be Dio's.... What do you think, my friend, is a knife dangerous in a madman's hands?"
"You keep joking, sire, and I am in no mood for jokes."
"Joking? No, not quite. I sometimes fancy...."
He broke off. Shivers again ran up and down his body like crackling sparks in a fur.
"Well, what are we to do about an heir, Ramose? You say there is not one, and I say there are two: Horemheb and Tuta—choose whichever you like."
"Horemheb will not accept the crown while you live, and Tuta is a thief, a murderer, a low born cur...."
His breath failed him; turning purple and shaking with fury, he brought out:
"Tuta—king of Egypt? No, sire, this shall not be so long as I live."
He got up.
"Are you going?" the king asked, getting up, too.
"I am going; there is nothing more to say."
"Wait. There was something else I wanted.... Yes, I know. Do what you think best, it is all the same to me, choose whom you like, only let me go. I cannot bear it any longer...."
His lips trembled, his face twitched like that of a child ready to burst into tears and, before Ramose had time to think, the king fell on his knees before him.
"Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!" he wept, wringing his hands.
If the earth had given way under his feet or the sky had fallen upon him, Ramose would have been less horror-stricken.
He quickly bent down to the king, lifted him up, put him in a chair and himself fell at his feet:
"My king, my god, Sun's Joy, Sun's only Son, all shall be as you wish!"
But the king was no longer listening; he had turned away and was staring before him with fixed, wide-open eyes.
"What is it, sire?" Ramose said gently touching his hand.
The king started, slowly turned to him and looking straight into his eyes said with a quiet smile:
"Do you know, Ramose, when they were beating me with sticks in the Busiris court it was less shameful than this."
He rose and taking the knife walked towards the door. Ramose rushed after him.
The king turned round and shouted: "Let me go! Let me go!"
Freeing his hand he threatened Ramose with the knife, but at the same moment, with a terrible scream, fell on the floor at his feet, struggling in a fit of epilepsy.
Ramose was a courageous man, and he had seen men in a fit more than once. He knew that in the 'sacred illness' men are possessed by god; but he could never decide whether the king was possessed by god or the devil, and only now as he looked at him he decided it was by the devil.
"Help! Help!" he cried, running away as though driven by an unearthly terror.