Akhnaton, King of Egypt

by Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky

V

Tutankhaton had spread a rumour that he was the son of King Amenhotep IV, Akhnaton's father. Tuta's mother, Meritra, was one of the king's concubines for a day—he had numbers of such. Gossips said, however, that Tuta's father was not the king, but the king's namesake, Amenhotep, the chief of the Surveying Office. Thanks to his mother, Tuta had obtained, as a child, the rank of the prince's play-fellow, and he rapidly made a career: royal chamberlain, chief fan-bearer on the right hand of the divine and gracious king, treasurer of the king's household, bread-giver of the Two Kingdoms, defender of Aton's faith and, finally, the king's son-in-law, husband of Ankhsenbatona, Akhnaton's twelve-year-old daughter.

No one could look up to heaven as devoutly as he did, whispering in a honeyed voice:

"Oh, how salutary is your teaching, kind Uaenra, the only Son of the Sun!"

Or compose such pious inscriptions for tombs: "Akhnaton, the Son of the Sun, rose early in the morning to lighten me with his light for I was zealous in carrying out his words," said one of those inscriptions. "I have followed thee, O Lord Aton—Akhnaton!" said another.

This identification of the king with God seemed absurd and blasphemous, since everyone knew that Aton was the Father and the king the son. But when it was known that these words expressed the king's secret doctrine about the perfect unity of the Father and the Son, people marvelled at Tuta's cunning.

The courtiers vied with one another in trying to revile the old god Amon. But Tuta surpassed them all: he ordered for himself a pair of plaited sandals made of golden straps, with Amon's face on the soles so as to tread on the unholy one with every step he took. And everyone marvelled again—they understood that he would go far in those sandals.

Tuta had been sent to Thebes with the title of Viceroy to carry out the decrees about taking away burial grounds from the priests and desecrating the god Khonsu, Amon's Son.

When Dio came to the Viceroy's white house the old servant, who knew her, met her with low bows and wanted to tell His Highness at once about her. But hearing that Tuta was having lunch with the chief of the Lybian mercenaries, Menheperra, a man whom she disliked, she said she would wait and going into an inner room, lay down on a low day-couch. Watching the slanting pink oblongs cast by the setting sun on the white ceiling through the long narrow slits of windows high up on the wall she sank into deep thought, as in the antechamber of Gem-Aton's temple: was she to go or not to go?

She grew tired of thinking and dozed. Two big flies were buzzing by her very ear as though disputing "to go or not to go?"

She woke up suddenly and grasped that it was not the buzzing of flies but a whisper, somewhere quite close to her ear. She looked round, but there was no one there. The whisper came from the next room, which was divided off by a latticed partition covered with a carpet; Egyptian rooms were sometimes arranged in this way for the sake of coolness. The speakers were probably sitting on the matting-covered floor just by the side of Dio's couch.

"This heartburn will be the death of me," whispered one of the voices, dignified and elderly.

"It's the goose's liver, father," answered the other voice, high-pitched and respectful. "Would you like some telek? There is nothing like it for indigestion; with lemon and cardamon it is most refreshing."

There was a sound of liquid being poured out

"Have a drink too, Sparrow?"

"Your health, father!"

"Why do you call me 'father'?"

"Out of respect: you're my benefactor and that's as good as a father."

"It is a good thing you respect old people. And why do they call you 'Sparrow'?"

"Because I pick up a grain out of every bit of business like a sparrow out of a manure heap."

"Come now, don't be so modest about it: you must have grabbed 'the man with the pig' from the cemetery thieves the other day...."

Dio remembered that a man holding a pig by the tail was the hieroglyphic of lapis-lazuli, the Egyptian officials' favourite bribe—Hez-Bet: hez—to hold and bet—a pig, and that the tomb of the ancient King Saakerra had been robbed recently.

"And so I was saying, Ahmez, son of Aban, is a foolish man and no good will come of him," the old man's voice went on. "You may pound a foolish man in the mortar, but his foolishness will not leave him, and it is better to meet a savage bear in a field than a foolish man in the house!"

"But in what way is he foolish, father?"

"Why, because he never knows which way the wind is blowing. There is trouble brewing up in the town and the Lybian soldiers are mutinous because they haven't had their pay for the last six months. And he, the fool, is afraid of a rising, so he was delighted when the pay-money was sent the other day from the king's treasury and ordered it to be distributed straight away. But I was too sharp for him—I said nothing to him but kept back the money and at once reported the whole thing to His Highness the Viceroy. And what do you think? He thanked me, said 'well done,' patted me on the cheek and promised to get me a job in his service. What do you think of that now?"

"Splendid, father! There is no one like you for giving one a hint! ... But if there really is a rising, it will be bad, won't it?"

"Bad for some and good for others. A fool burns in the fire and a clever man warms his hands at it...."

The whisper became so low that Dio could not hear. Then it grew louder again:

"Impossible, impossible, father! Who could presume to do such a thing?"

"Do you know Issachar, son of Hamuel?"

"But he is a coward, it isn't for a dirty Jew like him to do it!"

"He is a coward, but he can work himself up to a frenzy. They are all like that, the Jews: they are cowards, but if it is anything to do with their God they are frantic. And it is not only he—he is merely the knife, and the hand that holds the knife is strong. Soon there will be things happening to make one dizzy, my lad."

"It is dreadful to think of, father."

"Don't be uneasy, Sparrow—you may be a falcon yet."

Dio listened with her heart beating so violently that she was afraid they would hear it behind the partition. She understood that a vile and evil plot was being hatched against the king—and she seemed to have a share in it; perhaps that was why she suffered so, unable to decide whether to go or to stay.

Suddenly there was a sound of footsteps in the next room—not in the one where they were whispering. Both halves of the door were flung open and a huge hunting-cat, half panther, glided in noiselessly like a shadow; behind it, as its guard of honour, came the runners, the fan bearers, the bodyguards, and, last of all, walking barefoot as noiselessly as the cat—shoes were taken off indoors—a slender and graceful young man of medium height, with an ordinary pleasant face. He was wearing a plain white robe, a smooth black wig, a broad necklace that came half way down to his waist, and he held in his hand a long gilded wooden staff adorned with a golden figure of the goddess Maat—Truth. This was the King's son-in-law, the Viceroy of Thebes, the real or supposed son of King Amenhotep—Tutankhaton.

He walked up to a carved ivory and ebony chair that stood on a platform in between four pillars in the middle of the room, and sat down. Approaching him Dio knelt before him. He kissed her on the forehead and said:

"Rejoice, my daughter! The grace of the god Aton be with you! Leave us," he added, addressing his suite.

When all had gone out of the room he moved to the day couch and, half reclining on it, motioned to Dio to sit down beside him; but he did it unobtrusively so that there was no need for her to notice the gesture unless she chose to do so. She did not notice it and sat down opposite him on a folding chair with a seat of plaited leather straps.

The cat walked up to her and rubbed itself against her legs, thrusting its head between her knees and mewing loudly, unlike a cat. Dio disliked cats and especially this one: she fancied it was a huge, black, slimy reptile. The cat never left Tuta's side and followed him about like a shadow.

"Why are you sitting here alone? Why didn't you send in your name?" he asked in a low caressing voice that sounded like a cat purring.

"You had a visitor."

"It was only your admirer Menheperra. Was that why you did not come in?"

"Yes, it was."

"Ah, you wild creature! ... Come here, Ruru," he called to the cat, "You have had enough of it?" he asked Dio.

"No, I don't mind," Dio said politely, but she would gladly have thrust the clinging creature away.

"It is marvellous," he said, smiling and looking at her in the peculiar masculine way she hated: 'just like spiders crawling about one's naked body,' she used to say about these looks. "One cannot get used to you, Dio! Each time I see you I cannot help marvelling at your beauty.... There, forgive me, I know you don't like it!"

The cat lifted its face and looked straight into Dio's eyes with its fiery pupils. She pushed it slightly away with her foot, afraid that the cat might jump on to her lap.

"Come now, you are being a nuisance!" Tuta laughed, seized the cat by its collar and, dragging it on to the couch, made it lie down, spanked it and said "Sleep!"

"Well, how do matters stand? Are you coming?" he began in a different and business-like voice. "Stop, wait, don't answer at once. I am not hurrying you, but just think: what are you doing here, what are you waiting for? Learning our dances? What for? Dance in your own way—they will like it all the better. Foreign things are more fashionable with us nowadays than our own...."

"I have decided..."

"Wait a minute, let me finish. I shall go away and you will remain alone here and in these times you don't know from day to day what might happen...."

"But I am coming!"

"Are you? Really? You won't play me false again?"

"No, now I want to go as soon as possible."

"Why so suddenly?"

She made no answer and asked:

"Are you going to-morrow for certain?"

"Yes. Why?"

"They say there may be trouble in the city."

"Oh, it's nothing. All will be over to-morrow. Of course it is a big town and there are many fools about; they may want to die for their puppet and then there is bound to be bloodshed, there is nothing for it...."

Dio understood that puppet meant the image of the god Khonsu.

"And does the king know it?" she asked.

"Know what?"

"That there may be bloodshed."

"No, he does not know. Why should he know? That he might revoke the decree? If he revoked this one, others would still be in force. And what is one to do? There is no teaching the fools without bloodshed!"

He sat up suddenly, put his feet on the floor, moved up to her, took her by the hand and smiled in the ambiguous way, with a sort of wink, which, again, there was no need for her to notice unless she chose to.

"You know, Dio, I have long wanted to ask you, why do you dislike me? I have always been a friend to you. Tammuzadad saved you, but I, too, have done something..."

Dio started and drew her hand away. Tuta pretended not to notice it and continued to smile.

"Why do you think?...." she began, and broke off, blushing and looking down. As always when she was alone with him she felt stiff, awkward—as though she had done some wrong and been caught unawares.

"What do you want me for?" she asked suddenly, almost rudely.

"There, you treat me as you do Ruru: I am being nice to you and you push me away," he laughed good-humouredly. "What do I want you for? Feminine charm is a great power..."

"You want to get power through me?"

"Not through you, but with you!" he said quietly with deep emotion, looking straight into her eyes.

"And I want you because of him," he went on, after a pause. "He is very difficult to get on with; you will help me: you love him and so do I—we shall love him together...."

She understood that he was speaking of King Akhnaton and her heart began to beat as violently as when she was listening to the whisper behind the partition. She felt that she ought to say something, but she was spell-bound as in a nightmare: she wanted to push away the clinging reptile and could not.

"You haven't been to see Ptamose yet, have you?" he asked suddenly, as though they had often spoken about it, while, as a matter of fact, they had never exchanged a word on the subject. Once more he caught her unawares like a naughty little girl.

"What Ptamose?" she pretended not to understand, but did it so badly that she was ashamed of herself.

"Come, come!" he said, with the same winking smile. "I won't betray you, no one shall know of it. And even if they did know, what of it? I would send you to him myself. He is a wise old man, a sage. He will tell you everything; you will know what the war is about. Only babblers and court flatterers imagine that we have won already. No, it is not so easy to conquer the old faith. Our forefathers were not any stupider than we are. Amon—Aton: is the dispute about a letter only? No, about the spirit. And indeed Amon is the Great Spirit!"

When he had moved from the armchair to the couch he had taken with him the staff with the gold sandals strapped to it. All of a sudden Dio bent down, took up one of them, turned it sole upwards and pointed with her finger to the image of Amon.

"And what have you here, prince? 'Amon the Great Spirit'?" she asked, smiling with almost undisguised contempt, as though she were really talking to a 'reptile.'

"There, you have caught me!" he laughed, good-naturedly, again. "Ah, Dio, priestess of the Great Mother, you are still living on your Mountain and refuse to come down to the earth to us poor men. And yet one day you will come down, will get your feet muddy and bruise them against the stones and be glad even of such sandals as these. One must have mercy, my friend. Be sober and fast by yourself, but eat with the glutton and drink with the drunkard. And as for the Great Spirit, I hope he will forgive me: my sandals won't hurt him!"

He went on speaking at great length of the secret wisdom of the chosen and the folly of the mob, of the greatness of King Akhnaton and of his loneliness—"he, too, does not come down to earth from the Mountain"—of their future triple alliance and of how he, Tuta, will help them both "to come down."

Dio listened and the same spell came over her—she could not awake or cry out.

"No, he is not stupid," she thought. "Or he is both stupid and clever, crude and subtle. Very strong—not he, though, but the one who is behind him. 'He is only a knife in the hand and the hand is strong.' He talks to me as to a child, and I expect he talks to the king in the same way; and perhaps he is right: we are children and he is grown up; we are 'not quite human' and he—quite. He is all for the world and all the world is for him. A man like that is certain to reign. You will be king over the mice, you cat! Akhnaton will disappear, Tutankhaton will remain. He will go through the ages in his Amon's sandals, trampling on the Great Spirit. And the kingdom of this world will be Tuta's kingdom!"

There was a knock at the door.

"Come in," Tuta said.

The centurion of the palace guards came in and, kneeling down, handed Tuta a letter. He opened it and, after reading it, said:

"A chariot!"

When the centurion went out, he got up, walked across the room in silence, then sat down in his chair, and resting his head on his hand, heaved a deep sigh.

"Ah, the fools, the fools! I knew there was bound to be bloodshed...."

"Rebellion?" Dio asked.

"Yes, there's a rising on the other side of the river. It seems the Lybian mercenaries have joined the rebels." His face was sad, but joy was shining through the sadness.

Dio understood: the rising was the beginning and the end was the throne.

He got up and turning to the couch took up his staff, untied the sandals from it, put them on and said:

"Well, there is nothing for it, let us go and put down the rising!"