"No, sire, I will not go away from you. As the Lord lives and as my soul lives, whither my king goes, to shame or to honour, there will his servant go also."
"You have seen me put to shame once, now you will see it again. Let us go," the king said, getting up.
They entered the Beggars Court.
Three times in the year—when the Nile overflowed, at seed time, and at harvest—the palace gates were opened to all; every beggar could go in freely, merely giving his name to Mahu, the chief of the guards. Tables with bread, meat and beer were placed in the courtyard: everyone could eat and drink his fill. It was there that the king received petitions and heard complaints.
During the first years of Akhnaton's reign these feasts were more frequent. "Let every ninth day of the month be a day for beggars," it said in the king's decree. Governors of provinces were on that day to distribute to the hungry corn from the king's granaries "for the cry of the needy has come up unto heaven and our heart is sore." "Amon is the god of the rich and Aton the god of the poor," the king preached. "Woe unto you, you sleek and rich who acquire house after house and field after field, so that there is no room on the earth left for others! Your hands are full of blood. Wash, cleanse yourselves, learn to do good. Save the oppressed, defend the orphan, protect the widow. Provide bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty, clothes for the naked, shelter for the homeless, smiles for the weeping. Undo the bondsmen's yoke and set the slaves free: then shall your light shine in darkness and your night shall be as midday!"
"Ankh-em-maat, You-Who-live-in-Truth," the king's disciples said to him, "you will make the poor equal with the rich, will efface the boundaries between fields as the river flood effaces them. You are a multitude of Niles, flooding the earth with the waters of inexhaustible love!"
The king had invented a dangerous game of throwing gold to the beggars like fire into straw. For many years Mahu, the chief of the guards, had saved the situation: collecting trustworthy people from among the palace servants he dressed them up as beggars and promised the well-behaved a fair share of the spoils and the unruly—the lash; and all had gone well. The king was short-sighted; from the High Place where he sat while throwing the gold money rings into the crowd, he could not recognize the faces below.
But someone informed against Mahu. The king was very angry and nearly dismissed him from his post; and next time Mahu had to admit real, not dressed up beggars. Then there was trouble: no sooner did the rain of gold begin to fall than people grew savage, a free fight began and a whole detachment of armed soldiers had difficulty in quieting the crowd. There were three killed and many wounded. The king fell ill with grief, gold rained no more, but food was still given away and petitions received.
The Beggars Court was a large quadrangle paved with slabs of alabaster and surrounded by two storeys of pillared arcades. At one end of it was the High Place—the king's tabernacle. A wide, gradually ascending staircase of alabaster led to it. The goddess, Nekhbet, the Falcon Sun-mother, with a white head and a red, scaly body, was soaring above the tabernacle holding a golden ring—the royal globe, in its claws. "As the mother comforts her children so will I comfort you," the king, son of the Sun, said to the sorrowful children of the earth.
"Down! down! down! the king comes! The god comes!" the runners cried and the whole crowd in the court prostrated themselves, crying out: