‘We will still be blamed!’ Maya shouted.
‘Will we?’ Ay declared. ‘Give a man a good meal, let him drink deep of the wine, and he’ll soon forget his hunger and his thirst.’
‘You have decided on this, haven’t you?’ Meryre shouted. ‘You and your …’ He gestured at me. ‘Your Baboon of the South.’
‘We have discussed this,’ Ay agreed, smiling. ‘We see no other path forward. What do you recommend, my lord? That we all troop down to the Nile and take a barge upriver, back to the City of the Aten?’
‘I object,’ Meryre bellowed.
‘We will compromise,’ Ay declared soothingly. ‘It’s best if Tutankhamun, at least for a while, was moved from Thebes. Let him return to the City of the Aten until,’ he gestured with his fan, ‘Ma’at, truth and harmony are restored. Look, my lords.’ Ay turned in his chair to address Meryre and his coven. ‘The worship of the Aten will not be proscribed; he is just one God amongst many.’ He gestured across the Royal Circle. ‘Our proposal has the support of many. Generals Horemheb and Rameses will bring the other regiments down to Memphis and Thebes; their ranks will be purged, incompetent officers, derelict in their duty, asked to retire.’
‘You mean those owing allegiance to the Aten?’ Meryre asked.
‘No capable officer will be dismissed,’ Horemheb responded.
‘Well, that’s our plan.’ Ay unrolled the scroll. ‘Or at least it was, but I have some news for you which will cast a shadow over all our well-laid schemes.’
‘My lord?’ Huy asked.
‘According to this,’ Ay shook his piece of papyrus, ‘Pharaoh Akenhaten has returned to Egypt.’
neka
(Ancient Egyptian for ‘a serpent fiend’)
Chapter 2
For a while the council chamber echoed with cries and shouts. I could only gape at Ay. Horemheb and Rameses sat shocked. Meryre, however, sprang to his feet, screaming at Ay.
‘Why didn’t you tell us immediately? Why now?’ Even then I thought he was overacting!
Ay’s gaze shifted to me, a faint smile on his lips. The wily mongoose! He’d kept this information back to shock us but only after he had reminded us that in the eyes of many we were reviled as traitors, the cause of Egypt’s downfall, cursed by both factions, those who hated Akenhaten as well as those who supported him. The only reason we hadn’t lost our heads or been hung from the Wall of Death was that we still held power, the reins of the chariots firmly gripped in our hands. Whatever happened, we were damned and damned again. If Akenhaten had returned, he’d show little mercy to those he’d once considered his friends, who had betrayed his Great Vision.
‘But he’s dead! He’s dead!’ Rameses sprang to his feet, his face contorted with fury, his screams drowning out the rest of the cries and shouts. ‘Akenhaten is dead! He has to be dead!’
‘Is he?’ Meryre yelled back. ‘Where’s his corpse? Where?’
The question stilled the clamour. Meryre had raised the spectre of all our nightmares. Ay held up his hand for silence.
‘Let us,’ he announced, ‘tell you what we know. An impostor, yes,’ he continued stilling the clamour, ‘an impostor has emerged out of the deserts of Sinai claiming to be the Pharaoh Akenhaten, proclaiming himself “Beautiful as the Forms of Ra, the Unique One of Ra”. He is accompanied by a woman who claims to be Nefertiti. They hold the Imperial Cartouche and are issuing proclamations under those seals. They fly the standards and pennants of the Aten. They first appeared in the Delta supported by Hittite mercenaries.’
‘Mercenaries?’ Horemheb jibed. ‘You mean troops loaned to them by the Hittite king?’
‘They have taken Avaris in the Delta,’ Ay said baldly.
Now he had our attention. A horrified silence. If this pretender was at Avaris then he could sail down the Nile, his flanks protected by troops, and seize the great cities of Egypt.
‘We have troops there,’ Rameses murmured.
‘The pretenders have been accepted by General Ipumer and the Ptah regiment,’ Ay countered. ‘The troops were easily suborned by gifts of gold. Elements of the Hekhet and Basta regiments have also gone over to them. According to reports they have reached the Red Mountains.’
‘Why didn’t we know before?’ Huy demanded.
‘They moved quickly,’ Ay explained. ‘They freed the slaves at the Roiau quarry and impaled the royal overseer there; his son escaped to Memphis, that’s how we know.’
I gazed across at a wall painting depicting Tuthmosis IV in battle against vile Asiatics; Pharaoh, triumphant, driving his blue and gold chariot pulled by dark, blood-red horses over the bodies of the slain against a glorious background of ivory yellow. At the bottom of the picture the artist had depicted one of the enemy caught in a thicket. The man’s eyes seemed to stare at me, that horrified surprise of a human being trapped by death. We were caught in a thicket, I reflected. Was this how it would end?
‘We must treat with them.’ The grizzled General Rahmose, shaking with fever, raised his hand, the first time that afternoon he’d demanded to speak. He sat with Tutu and Meryre and the rest of the Atenists. I wondered idly if they had anything to do with this present mischief; just something about the way they sat …
‘Treat with them!’ Horemheb shouted. ‘And what do we offer them? The Kingdom of Lower Egypt? Tribute? Why,’ he continued, ‘has this usurper been accepted so quickly? Akenhaten’s name is reviled.’
‘Not in every city,’ Rahmose retorted. ‘You call him an impostor, a usurper, but what if he is the rightful Pharaoh, the true son of Amenhotep III?’ Rahmose let his words hang in the air. He was right. Despised or not, Akenhaten had been rightfully blessed with the double crown of Egypt.
‘Mahu.’ Ay turned to me.
‘General Rahmose speaks the truth.’ I chose my words carefully. ‘Egypt is now dividing, splitting into factions. Some support the Aten, others Amun-Ra, whilst there are cities and provinces only too eager to shake off the suzerainty of both. What is this usurper offering?’
‘He has threatened vengeance against Thebes.’ Ay unrolled the piece of papyrus. ‘This is an extract from his proclamation: “Woe to the bloody city of Thebes, it is full of lies and idolatry. Soon it will be filled with the clamour of battle: the noise of the whip, of the rattling wheel and prancing horse, of the charging chariot, the flashing sword and glittering spear … a great heap of carcasses shall stink under the sun.”’ He let the papyrus proclamation fall to the floor. ‘And so on and so on.’
‘I should be sent north,’ Horemheb offered. ‘Myself and General Rameses. We will gather the Horus and Isis regiments.’
‘And if you lose?’ Ay declared. ‘If your troops mutiny? We are back to what we talked about before. We’d be stripped of both our shield and our sword.’
‘Mahu.’ Ay pointed at me. ‘I ask for your opinion.’
‘The Isis and Horus,’ I declared, ‘should be pulled back to Thebes to defend it as well as to protect us against any uprising. We must play for time, find out who this usurper is and what he intends.’
‘And what do you think?’ Rameses demanded.
‘He is a usurper,’ I replied more boldly than I felt. ‘We all know,’ I gazed around, ‘how Akenhaten’s Queen, Nefertiti, fell sick and died.’
‘Poisoned!’ Tutu spoke up. ‘Nefertiti took poison.’
‘Of her own choice,’ I lied.
Tutu smiled to himself and glanced away.
‘But Akenhaten is different.’ Meryre spoke up. ‘I asked a question. Where is his corpse?’
‘How soon will this news be over Thebes?’ I demanded, ignoring the High Priest.
‘Within a week,’ Ay replied.
‘Then we must issue proclamations,’ I declared, ‘depicting this Akenhaten as a usurper, a pretender financed and supported by foreign troops.’
‘But he carries seals,’ Meryre retorted. ‘He flies the standard of the Aten. What if, Mahu, the woman is an impostor but Akenhaten has truly returned?’