‘We must wait,’ Maya intervened. ‘The temples and palaces must be restored, the treasuries filled, the allegiance of every regiment guaranteed. Until then our allies in Canaan must look after themselves.’
‘Wait!’ Horemheb shouted. ‘Wait!’ He turned and glared at me. ‘Mahu, you are Chief of Police, and Overseer of the House of Secrets. Internal security is your concern.’
‘Is it now?’
‘You sit there silent,’ Rameses taunted. ‘As if half asleep. Still dreaming about the glory days, Mahu?’
I held Ay’s gaze. I was his ally. He knew that I knew it was not for any liking. We were just men manacled together. We had no choice in the matter. We either stayed together or fell together.
‘Mahu the dreamer,’ Rameses repeated.
‘General Rameses!’ I paused.
‘We wait with bated breath,’ my tormentor murmured.
‘General Rameses, you are a dead man. No, don’t let your hand near that dagger you’ve hidden beneath your robes. Don’t you realise?’ I answered his furious look with my own. ‘Every man in this chamber is a dead man! God’s Father Ay sings the hymn and we know the chorus. Each of us was a friend of Akenhaten, he whom the priests of Amun-Ra and Thebes now call the Great Heretic. We are blamed for what has happened.’ I gestured towards the windows. ‘Ask Sobeck. Wander the streets of Thebes, if you dare. There are men who would pay good gold to see your head, and mine, pickled in a barrel! They would love to either impale us alive or bury us in the hot sands of the Red Lands.’
‘If we had followed the Aten?’ Meryre intervened. ‘If we had kept faithful to our master’s vision?’
‘Shit!’ Rameses shouted. ‘It’s because we followed that vision.’ His voice faltered.
‘That’s right, General Rameses,’ I agreed. ‘Because of that, we are now in crisis. We are so weak, we daren’t even let you out of our sight, not to mention your precious regiments. I have reports of unrest from the Delta to beyond the Third Cataract: conspiracies, covens, disaffected officers, treasonable mayors. Did you know certain powerful ones are seriously considering asking the Mitanni or the Hittites to intervene in Egypt?’
‘Never!’ Maya protested.
‘True,’ I replied. ‘We have no names, yet in every city along the Nile, from the Third Cataract to the Great Green, treason and treachery bubble like water in a pot.’
‘So what do you advise?’ Horemheb asked quietly. ‘That we should be careful?’
I stretched out my arms. ‘On the one hand we have those who hate us because we followed the Great Heresy. And on the other,’ I glared at Meryre, Tutu and others of their coven sitting across the council chamber, ‘there are those who hate us because we deserted the Aten, the Great Heretic’s vision. We have no friends, no allies.’ I gestured at Anen, Ay’s kinsman, who had been installed as High Priest of Amun-Ra in Thebes. ‘He is our high priest, yet he dare not even officiate in his own temple. Have you heard of the Shabtis?’
‘Shabtis?’ Rameses mocked. ‘Statues put in a tomb?’
‘Statues put in a tomb,’ I echoed, ‘to represent the servants who will serve their master when he reaches the Fields of the Blessed beyond the Far Horizon.’
‘Come to the point,’ Horemheb growled.
‘I am Chief of Police, and rightly so. All I know is that there is a group, a secret society who call themselves the Shabtis of Akenhaten. Fanatical followers who believe we deserted their master and so should pay for our treachery with our lives.’
The council chamber fell ominously silent.
‘You haven’t heard of them,’ I continued wearily, ‘because so far their victims have been minor officials.
Priests who served the Aten, scribes educated in its House of Life, merchants and nobles who journeyed to the city of Aten; all are regarded as traitors. At first I noticed no pattern; just another death in Thebes, I thought when I read the reports: a man stabbed here, a boating accident, a fall from a roof, a tainted cup of wine, something in the food which disagreed with them. In the last five months,’ I held up my hand, ‘there have been at least ten such deaths, and the one thing all the victims had in common was that they once served our Pharaoh in the city of Aten before returning to Thebes.’
‘Grudges and grievances,’ Rameses scoffed.
‘Perhaps, perhaps not, General Rameses. But if I were you, I would keep your bodyguard close and your hand not very far from that knife beneath your robes.’
‘So what do you recommend?’ Ay’s words came like a whisper.
‘Swift action, my lord. The Prince Tutankhamun …’ I paused and smiled. ‘See, we’ve even changed his name, and that of his intended wife. No longer are they pleasing to the Aten, but as Tutankhamun and Ankhesenamun their names now bear that of the God of Thebes.’
‘Empty gestures,’ Maya grumbled.
‘Every gesture is important,’ I retorted. ‘We must issue decrees saying that the old ways are to be restored. Such decrees should be posted in every city along the Nile.’
‘And?’ Ay asked.
‘The Kushites should be threatened. The silver and gold tribute must be restored. Merchants must be given every help, the Nile patrolled by marines. Bandits and outlaws are to be summarily executed, their bodies impaled along the river banks as a warning to others. Desert patrols must be increased, marauding Libyans and sand-dwellers taught a brutal lesson: fire and sword, no prisoners taken.’
Horemheb and Rameses were nodding enthusiastically.
‘And here in Thebes?’
I could tell from Ay’s face that he agreed, but he was holding something back. The scroll the messenger had handed to him was still grasped in one hand.
‘Anyone found guilty of treason should face summary execution. Those we can’t trust should be removed from office and dispatched elsewhere. Every one of us here, every official, scribe and officer, must take an oath of allegiance to our new Pharaoh Tutankhamun.’
‘But he is not crowned!’ Huy intervened.
‘He should be, and the sooner the better,’ I retorted, ‘and his marriage to Princess Ankhesenamum proclaimed the length and breadth of the Two Kingdoms.’
‘And Canaan?’ Horemheb asked.
‘Let the pot bubble for a while.’ I wetted my lips. ‘Let us dispatch letters to Aziru proclaiming him to be our friend, our ally. Let us send him as much gold and silver as we can, a token of our great favour.’
‘And?’ Ay asked.
‘Invite him to Egypt and blind him. A warning to all traitors in Canaan.’
Horemheb and Rameses were with me. Maya looked disgruntled as, in his mind’s eye, he measured out all the gold and silver this would cost. Huy remained impassive; Meryre, Tutu and others of the Aten coven looked sullen as ever. One day we would have to deal with them; as Ay had whispered to me, those who were not with us were against us, yet these men still commanded troops and had friends amongst the imperial general staff.
‘Very good, very good,’ Horemheb murmured. ‘But won’t you stir up a hornet’s nest?’ He laughed sharply. ‘Here we are, dyed-in-the-wool Atenists, now demanding the loyalty and allegiance of those who bitterly oppose us, who blame us for Egypt’s present ills.’
‘Forget the past,’ Ay retorted. ‘Let us act as if there was no Akenhaten.’ He ignored the hiss of disapproval from Meryre and Tutu’s hateful glance. ‘Let our young prince be proclaimed as Pharaoh, the legitimate heir and successor of his grandfather, Amenhotep III the Magnificent.’
‘Like that?’ Tutu smacked his hands together. He had risen to a half-crouch. He clapped his hands again. ‘Like that, Mahu?’ he repeated. ‘As if the Great Vision did not exist?’
‘A dream,’ I replied, ‘a nightmare. We were all led astray; now we have returned to the path of truth. We speak with one true voice. We have won the favour of the old gods. Once again Ma’at will rule from the Great Green to beyond the Fourth Cataract.’