On a Balcony Read online

  He was very glad that Smenkara had not seen him in the garden. Smenkara would have the crown now, and much good might it do him.

  He took the Queen up again at once. As the one person at court more disfigured than he, she pleased him very much as a public spectacle, where all had to worship her. No ceremony, not the slightest, so long as it was public, should do without her from now on. He was careful, too, always to behave before her with the proper gracious sweetness.

  While he had been bemused, she had taken part of the religion to herself. If she believed in it so truly, why should she not take more? The idea pleased him.

  But really, she must not be allowed to look sideways. She must face the world head on, so that the world could see the good eye of faith and the bad eye of disbelief. This required a small rearrangement of the ritual, but that was soon done.

  And at banquets, on the balcony, and at receptions he put her once more on the other side, not only so that he might see her corruption, but also so that she should not see him smile. He gave her credit. She did not flinch. But surely her smile became a little more fixed?

  In truth she was too busy to smile. If ritual was what she craved, why then, she should have a thousand details to attend to.

  Then there was Meryra to tease. He was a very old man, and rumour had it, that though high priest of the Aton, and thus the truest of all believers, he had images proper to the Amon, Osiris, and Ptah cults in his tomb-house. Rumour was true. He sent workmen and had these post-mortem safeguards either smashed to pieces or hacked out. It was not a matter to which Meryra could very well refer. Pharaoh could. He publicly deplored the vandalism and stated that at his own expense he would restore all those stuccoes, reliefs, and paintings in which Meryra had petitioned Pharaoh for eternal life for ever in the Aton. Meryra need not therefore tremble. His future life was now eternally assured.

  Meryra shook from head to foot. It could, of course, have been paralysis agitans, but Ikhnaton rather thought not.

  Oh, it was very bland. He did it all with a completely straight face. Only he avoided Tutmose’s studio.

  Only alone in the broiling whitewashed sanctuary of that remorseless temple he would stare up at the sun, until his vision turned black, and say, “Oh Thou, why hast Thou played me false?” Outwardly, of course, this merely looked like another contracted spasm of devotion.

  There was also his pride, his joy, his pleasure, the balcony of audience. That also became suddenly once more agreeable. It was truly dizzying, all that fervour, all that loyalty, all that belief, all that self-interest down there, mewling for favour from the street. Favour he gave it gladly.

  All those men he had raised up from nothing should have it first. Hatiay, overseer of the royal building programme, a common contractor and now a noble, whose house they said was richer than Pharaoh’s out of pilferings: if that was what he wanted, why should he not have a golden collar, like the rest of them? Mahu, chief of police, whose men carried about them amulets of Bast and Thoth, and yet who managed to appear fervid in the Aton temple when he appeared among them, why should he not have his collar, too? To Sutau, Overseer of the Treasury, for peculation, five farms; and to May, Prince, Royal Chancellor, Overseer of the Soldiery, and Bearer of the Fan on the King’s right side, who wrote a secret despatch to Thebes every week, a donation of twenty gold bars, to pay his runners.

  And even to Horemheb, who had not one tomb at Aketaten, but another, richer, finer one at Memphis, a gift of furniture from the palace, specifically for his tomb at Memphis. Horemheb clearly did not quite know what to make of that. Let him puzzle it out for himself.

  There were others, too. They should all have their reward. These days he went round the city with new eyes and saw everything. He had given them palaces, very fine palaces, but now small details were clear to him. Wood was the most expensive thing they had. A good solid beam two feet across was worth the price of five or six slaves. The nobles had brought their pillars with them from Thebes, but instead of trimming them to fit the new rooms, had instead raised the roofs. This was because they might have to take the pillars back to Thebes again. And the same was true of doors. They were saving their doors for the empty sockets waiting for them at the old capital.

  He said nothing, but wondered that he had not noticed such things before. He had founded the city for ever and ever, but that had not prevented his court from camping out in it for thirteen years. No doubt, after he had gone, they would pull out the wooden pillars of the balcony of audience, with as little compunction as they removed their own. Which one of them, he thought, would think to do so first? And in the palace, too. There must be hundreds of columns in the palace. He had taken them as a matter of course, and never thought of them as valuable. But of course they were valuable. Who would get those?

  He looked round at the wine-flushed faces of the court, at night, when they were drunk, and could almost believe that he knew. Certainly Smenkara would not stop them.

  Oh yes, there was great amusement to be derived from that sort of thing. All the same, sometimes, before dawn, he would whirl out into the desert, alone, in a chariot, climb one of the high altars that stood there, between the city and the cliffs, and face the oncoming sun, while the wind whipped around him.

  “Are you truly not there?” he would say.

  And sometimes, on some mornings, when the first rays of dawn struck him, he was reassured that yes, no matter what anyone thought, that glorious power of the sun was still there. It still had the power to warm his hand. It was only the cold and the wind and the sharp sudden crystal chirp of a bird that made the tears stream down his face.

  So he fooled all of them, but Nefertiti. She had grown thoughtful and perhaps devout, and so she could sense his interior change.

  Sometimes now he shook. He was growing feeble. Someday he would die, whether he admitted it or not. Someone would have to take over, once that event occurred. She laid her plans accordingly, and sent for Meryra. She knew she must defend herself, and she expected him to help, for as the official high priest of the heresy, he could not look forward to much should that heresy collapse with Pharaoh, and she put no faith in Smenkara. Together they planned what they would do when once Pharaoh was dead. They had Pa-wah in attendance on them, but saw no harm in that. Not only was Pa-wah second in command, but he was actually a fanatic believer. They knew they could trust him.

  He was a fanatic believer, but for that very reason he coveted Meryra’s place. This interview gave him the weapon he needed, but it took him a while to decide how to use it. Pharaoh would not grant him an audience, and besides, Meryra would be there to speak before him, even if he did.

  In his own way Pa-wah was canny. There was one person Pharaoh would believe, precisely because she would use this supposed plot as an argument against the whole cult. He sent off a messenger to Tiiy.

  He had not understood what he had overheard. They had talked so elliptically that he had thought not that Pharaoh was dying, but that they were planning to kill Pharaoh. So he expected a long possession of power in Meryra’s stead, and he would indeed make the religion glorious.

  He was an utterly wretched creature.

  Sixteen

  Tiiy, when she received the messenger, of course knew better, but saw no point in saying so. She now had to her hand the exact instrument she needed, and not a moment too soon.

  For there had been political developments. Everyone of us must put by some altruistic vanity, against the day when we might otherwise be tempted to accuse ourselves of unjustified self-interest. Hers was, as it had always been, that she, and she alone, guarded the country over an empty throne. People have invented worse, and at least she was quite sincere. As for Pa-wah, she dismissed him from her mind. He was unimportant, though his evidence was useful. First she summoned the Amon priests to a conference. Then, without sending any courier ahead of her, she set sail for Aketaten.

  She arrived, as she had wished, unannounced. Only Pa-wah expected her, and him she swept as
ide. She was transfigured. This time she meant to have her way.

  Ikhnaton was making a tour of the glass factories with Smenkara, Meritaten, and the three smallest daughters. Now that he saw less of Nefertiti, of Meritaten he saw more. It was pleasant to be able to give the children these little bright beads to play with. They had reached the age, except for the youngest one, when they had begun to develop a touching young vanity for such things.

  On the whole it was one of his better days. He felt almost healthy, and the sun, thank God, had slowed down his brain to a pace at which it was almost comfortable to think. Smenkara and Meritaten were oddly alike, and she was a dumpling version of the Queen, amiable, and yet harmless. The smell of the works, with its smouldering chemical fires, was far from displeasing and just acrid enough to keep him awake.

  They were watching a craftsman make a sort of milleflori vase by putting different coloured strands of hot glass on a core and then rolling the result around on a sanded table, when the messenger arrived.

  His first reaction was panic, and his second anger. There had been much unrest recently, even at Aketaten. This unrehearsed commotion in the streets, with a hasty impromptu guard, would do nothing to make things any quieter, and there were already rumours enough. She could at least have had the decency to come in a closed litter, as a middle-aged woman should, instead of rattling by for everyone to gape at.

  It ruined his whole day and brought back his heartburn. Nothing like this had ever happened before. It shook him out of his mock comedy. He sent at once for Nefertiti, instinctively, and then returned to the palace as publicly and as leisurely as possible, in order to reestablish public confidence.

  But, though he smiled and patted the children, and even turned twice, very deliberately, to wave at Smenkara and Meritaten in the two chariots behind, he could scarcely hope to restore what wasn’t there, and the effort proved too much for his strength. When he dismounted in the palace yard he was trembling. It took two attendants to hold him up.

  He tried to tell himself it was only with rage. That was what he told everybody else. But he knew it wasn’t. However, in a few moments his circulation returned to normal and he was able to walk. He found Tiiy in the state hall.

  He felt so ill himself that he was not prepared to find that in the past two years she also had aged rapidly. Her paralysis agitans was quite real, and in a woman so small and tight-skinned, even at fifty-eight, the effect was horrible. Amenophis had had it too. He wondered if he would be next. Perhaps that tremor in his hand was the first warning. Had he not diseases enough already? He could not possibly control them all. He felt a muscle twitch in his cheek. Whatever had happened to the morning? Why only an hour ago he had been in the best of health.

  She looked beyond him, at Smenkara, Meritaten, and the oddly silent children. “Get them out,” she said.

  He did not bother to argue. She was still a considerable actress. One look at the expression on her face convinced him. He got them out.

  “Who is this person Pa-wah?” she demanded.

  He blinked. It took him a moment to remember. “Assistant to Meryra.”

  “But not, it appears, fortunately for you, in everything,” she snapped. Then she unloaded her bile.

  She had added an embellishment here and there, and almost believed the story herself, she had made it so credible, but really, she could see, he was no longer worth killing. He would not last long. All the more reason, then, to force him to act.

  He believed her. She could see that. It wouldn’t have mattered what she said. Secretly he must have been expecting something like this for years. Besides, he could not have many illusions left, and at least this was a new one. It relieved boredom. In a way it must be some outlet for the frustrations of several years. It even seemed to bring something erect into that slumped, proud and yet defeated posture.

  It was not the best of moments for Nefertiti to arrive, but then nobody had bothered to tell her Tiiy was there. She swept into the room blandly, with Tutankaten and the third daughter, Ankesenpa’aten, whom these days she took everywhere with her, as someone secretly timid, though outwardly firm, would walk two dogs.

  When she saw Tiiy her eyes widened with astonishment, but she said nothing. She only held the children by the backs of their dresses and stared.

  He accused her, in a monotone, repeating Tiiy almost word for word.

  “It is not true,” she said quietly, but she was breathing fast. “It is only that when you die, someone must carry on. The man Pa-wah is spiteful, and a little deaf. Perhaps he did not understand.”

  “I am never going to die,” he shouted. It was the first time he had shouted in his life. He repeated it, this time quietly and thoughtfully. It was then Tiiy made the mistake of calmly smiling at her daughter.

  That was too much. Inside Nefertiti something snapped. She turned on Ikhnaton the whole deadly insight of that one blind eye.

  “Not die?” she said. “You stink of corruption. You died a year ago, in that pavilion, when you lay there for fourteen days. Do you think I was not there to watch? Do you think I did not smell it? Have you never seen yourself? Do you dare to scorn me, for this, when you are like that? Your eyes are sallow. Your jaw trembles. Your belly is distended, and you can scarcely walk. Your skin sweats and your touch is revolting. You are four-fifths water, or the sun would shrivel you up. And what else do you think you ever were?”

  She stopped. She knew it was something she would never be forgiven for saying, that Tiiy had goaded her into saying. She looked pitiably at them both. It was only anger, pent up too long. But she could read in his eyes that what people say in anger is always the truth. It is only when they are trying to make themselves agreeable that they sometimes have the skill to be able to lie. For the most part of human virtue is based upon an ineptitude for vice. The clever alone are honest, for only they know how to conceal the truth. And yet it does not make them kind.

  What she had said was true. He would never forgive her. Again Tiiy smiled. And yet Tiiy was not deliberately cruel. It was just that, in her opinion, for the good of the kingdom, one of them had to go. She did not even want revenge.

  Ikhnaton did.

  He could not strip her of all position. Public peace would not withstand that. But he could banish her for ever from his sight, to that north palace at the end of the city, from which she was forbidden to emerge, except to worship. And he could strip her of her throne name, then and there. As co-regent with himself, she had been called Nefer-neferu-Aton. He would reduce her to the rank of no more than a discarded minor priestess. The name he would give to the most despised person who came to hand, who in this case turned out to be Smenkara. Smenkara was always at hand when there was something to be given away. Let him receive this highest honour then, as a sign of the contempt in which Ikhnaton held it.

  Nefertiti understood his reasoning all too well. She retired as she was ordered, to the northern palace. But at the same time she was careful to take Tutankaten and Ankesenpa’aten with her. She said this was to protect Tutankaten. Actually it was to protect herself. Smenkara was frail and shallow, and with the second heir under her domination, she did not think she would have much to fear. His adherents would have too much to gain by protecting her. For herself she had no love for Tutankaten. However, she was always careful not to show this.

  Unfortunately children see more than they are shown, and very little of what they are. Tutankaten at nine was an opportunist. If he consented to go with her, it was only because he was afraid of Smenkara and had to seek shelter somewhere.

  Tiiy had had her way in one thing. Now, it appeared, she would have it in another, too.

  Ikhnaton made her wait. He brushed her aside, summoned the court, and stripped Meryra of everything. He revealed the whole plot. And since he had to edit Nefertiti out of it, therefore he made Meryra sound the worse. There was some satisfaction in that. The courtiers managed to look both horrified and loyal. He then raised Pa-wah in Meryra’s stead. The courtiers
managed to applaud virtue and to bow low to this, their new Eminence. Well, that was only to be expected. The chameleon imitates the colour, not the plant.

  Pa-wah would have spoken. He sent him away. The man was a fool. Tiiy would have spoken. Her he could not send away, but he could go away himself. He retreated to his own rooms, posted a double guard to prevent her entering, and went to bed.

  Tiiy did not try to enter. For the time being she had gained what she wanted. No doubt he was tired. For now he deserved his sulks, and while he sulked, she had much to do. She must consult with Ay and Horemheb.

  He was not, however, sulking. Even the bitterest of men must search the bottom of an empty well, for some last scum of water to refresh him. And since he is bitter, then only bitterness can refresh him. For now there was no one left to him. He had fallen into a trap. He should never have sent Meryra and Nefertiti away, even if what Tiiy said was true, for he knew he had not the strength to oppose her alone.

  He must find someone.

  “To whom can I speak today? I am laden with wretchedness for lack of an intimate friend. To whom can I speak today? The sin which treads the earth, it has no end,” said the prophet Nefer-rohu when the Old Kingdom fell, eight hundred years ago. Of course that could be dismissed as pessimism. After all, Egypt was still there. On the other hand, Nefer-rohu wasn’t. “Every mouth is full of love for me, and everything good has disappeared,” he had said further. And that alas was not pessimism. That was merely the truth speaking, as usual, out of turn, not too early, as some might like to think, but on the contrary, and also as usual, too late.

  But perhaps not utterly too late. If one cannot have anything else, then one must face up to the matter, and have what one can. In the morning he sent for Smenkara.

  Alas, Smenkara at twenty-four, Nefer-Neferu-Aton or not, had no resemblance to Nefertiti at fifteen, nor was the year fifteen years ago.

  Smenkara, anxious to please, succeeded only in being faintly unpleasant And yet the boy meant well. The boy meant very well. But the ease with which he said what he meant sounded very like the most affable of lies. Smenkara believed in everything. He had no ability to ease the turmoils of a reluctant doubter, for he had never doubted anything since, at the age of five, he had told his first spontaneous lie. Truth, like everything else to him, was merely ornamental.