Shadow of the Sun (The Shadow Saga) (22 page)

Sit-Amun felt confident I’d keep my mouth shut, but the day after my dwarf wested, Grand Djedti visited the Palace to offer her condolences. I confessed that in the red tent, I saw Sit-Amun invoke the dark magic to try and kill my grandmother. I confessed that Sit-Amun killed Hep-Mut by invoking the crocodile. I fell to my knees, begging forgiveness that I’d not had the courage to come forth sooner.

Yesterday, when Pharaoh discovered Sit-Amun’s Book of Amun and the magic ritual of the death incantation, he ordered Sit-Amun out of the Malkata Palace and banished her to her country demesne. The Royal Consort didn’t leave with grace. We kept a guard watching her at all times. He reported that her evil invocations had caused the sorceress’s fingernails to fall off.

Father said because we served the Aten, we must be compassionate and forgive her. How could I? She stole Hep-Mut from me, by way of a terrible death. Even Sit-Amun’s punishment of losing favor with Pharaoh Amunhotep and Per Aat Ti-Yee couldn’t replace my nursemaid. The only comfort I found was the knowledge that Sit-Amun had lost her ivory horse…perhaps this time forever.

In retribution for Sit-Amun’s disgrace, the Hanuti launched psychic attacks on Father, which kept him bedridden with headaches. He sequestered himself within his darkened chamber, but the pain never dimmed his burning devotion to the Aten. A week had passed since he left his private quarters and he even refused to stroll around the gardens with Pentu. Meti encouraged my father, now in his twentieth year, to walk more. Middle age had set heavy upon his waist.

The kindly physician sat by his bed for days, feeding him herbs mixed with broth and wiping my father’s face because he was too weak. Father would struggle to lift his head and only showed interest when Pentu told him news about his people, the Sesh. In an effort to make him smile, Pentu told him the court news about my accomplishments in astronomy, and my youngest sister’s visit to our zoo and how she begged for a monkey.

My ailing father would nod and smile. Pentu patted the new Co-Ruler on the knee. In these private chambers, they were brothers bound closer than their familial ties. My father allowed it. He needed someone he could trust. Pentu knew my father really desired to hear about his Temple to Aten. So, Pentu explained that ‘this fracture between the Amunites and the Atenists was so wide the Hittite army could march through.’ It was true. Violence has broken out. Shopkeepers refused service to rival worshipers, trading insults instead of merchandise.

I didn’t understand why the Sesh gave daily thanks for peace at our borders while a war brewed within our city. Pentu tried to explain to Father and to me that this was more than a religious war for the Amunites. One they couldn’t afford to lose. To lose would cost them everything: wealth, power, and positions held for generations. As any mason could tell you, a building was only as strong as its foundation. I had heard for years that the Amunites built their religion upon fear, greed, and a ruthless hierarchy. Upon those blocks any structure will eventually fall asunder and crumble.

A bitter taste had formed in my mouth. I told them that we should knock their reign over. Get rid of them. Everywhere we went the Amunites spoke of us with anger and disgust. How could anyone feel peaceful in a time of such ‘peace?’ Why did the Sesh believe they were so powerless? Father believed that anyone would feel powerless if they had been beaten into submission, even worse, their rights surrendered to the domineering Amunites.

Fear. Why build a religion based upon the fear of disobedience? “If you do not pay us, we will not embalm your dead and allow safe passage into the Duat,” I said, imitating the deep voice of an Amun tax collector. My stomach roiled. Their religion and temples had no life. Their solid gold icons were dead. The statues of Amun, Mut, and Khonsu weren’t real. They had no
ka
or spirit. Father was determined that the worship of the Aten would never be a religion.

My father desperately yearned for something new, a new direction. He said that Atenists would quest for truth in the union between man and spirit. So the love of spirit was verily the opposite of religion. Neither Pentu nor I understood. But, as he spoke, my father’s spirits lifted and his face glowed.

“The love of the Aten is free. The only cost is belief and devotion to receiving this eminence. We will teach the Sesh about love.”

Pentu didn’t think it could be done. How could the Sesh possibly understand if we didn’t? Father called it a ‘
spiritualness
.’ Even I knew the Sesh believed that they must suffer to buy their way into the Duat, the lower heavenworld. Why else would they do the offerings to the dead with a thousand ox, a thousand fowl and a thousand jugs of beer? That would cost a lot.

Father committed himself to awakening the Sesh from a long, numbing sleep. It gave him the determination to rise from bed. I think he even believed he could convince the Hanuti. I noticed that Pentu clenched his jaw and scratched his head with fury.

“Apuati, Shining One, these are glorious principles, but again, the Hanuti will brand you a heretic. These ideals are too revolutionary for our time.”

How could any human with a heart, which beats by the hand of the Aten, not want love and peace? If we could only stop the Amunites from spreading their fear, everything would be all right. Our country, my family, and I could live in peace. I smiled. Since that Golden Boy couldn’t help me, this was perhaps a better plan.

Father, renewed with the vigor of his divine thoughts, tried to pull himself up. He was eager to write down all his new ideas and reached for his pen and a blank papyrus deeply engrossed. But Pentu did not have the time to help him. He was due at the Heliopolis Temple to uphold his Priest of Ra duties. His shoulders rounded, no doubt feeling the weight of my father’s dreams upon them.

When Pentu mentioned Heliopolis, I asked to go too.

“I would tell you about the magic of the sacred temple of Heliopolis, but it is late.” Pentu chucked me under the chin. His mind drifted off. “Magic? Oh, please tell me about the magic,” I begged. Good magic could bring peace.

Pentu stood and said he had another patient to attend to. He moved toward the door but I hurried to block his way. Was he not a servant of our house? I could simply order him to do my bidding, like my many attendants.

Pentu smiled. He passed his hand in front of my face. A wave of exhaustion cascaded over me. I yawned. For some reason I couldn’t keep my eyes open. I staggered away to my chamber. I would have to ask him about the magic another time.

B
y the next year, within the Malkata Palace, the dissention could now be tasted like bitter medicine, causing Grand Djed Amunhotep even greater pain. Whispers said that his infected broken tooth made him quite mad. On quiet nights like this one, in the comfort of my bed, I heard him moan in pain across the courtyard. Father had better get well soon.

Over six hundred commissioned statues arrived. Palettes of the sitting leonine, the great nurturer Mut, Deity of Motherhood and Sekhmet, and the standing leonine, the great protector of humans, the Eye of the Sun were positioned around Malkata. Everywhere we walked, the golden stone lions with breasts watched us. They looked friendly. I wondered if I could wake them.

Outside the golden gates of the palace, throngs of people kept vigilance. Lamenting their grief, over the Pharaoh’s impending death, they wailed all night disturbing my sleep until I had to throw the pillows over my head. That night, when the moon appeared like a clipped thumbnail in the sky, a messenger arrived.

“The Pharaoh summons us to his High Chambers,” said Father.

On the way over to see Grand Djed, my heart ached. I missed Hep-Mut. I still cried when no one watched, but I forbade anyone to talk about her. Hep-Mut had wested. She lived in the Duat. My mother explained that her
ka
, or spirit, had left her body, as if she moved to a new house. But what if it was lost within the belly of the beast? I could never hate her, and I so regretted saying those awful words to her. And even more for throwing the horse overboard. Because of that act, I’d lost both Hep-Mut and my beloved horse.

Meti, my two sisters, and I now entered the private house of the Pharaoh. An agonizing moan startled us. We held hands. This was my first time in his elegant inner quarters. Grand Djed lay stripped of all dignity upon a high ebony bedstead held aloft by golden lions that roared their silent warnings. Although the Pharaoh was a withered man at fifty, he had far surpassed the average Khemitian lifespan of thirty-five. Yet, his bedchamber walls displayed him as a virile warrior in scenes of hunt and war.

Meti asked the Fanbearer, “Why is Pentu not here to administer to Amunhotep?”

“The Pharaoh sent the doctor to attend to the Viceroy of Kush’s daughter. She needed a skilled physician to remove both her infected eyes.”

Meti sighed. “How do we know the Hanuti did not send this new physician, Sinuhe?”

“Pentu trained Sinuhe in the art of alchemy and herbal remedies. If his tincture brings comfort to my Master, then let the Deities watch over both of them,” the Fanbearer replied.

The lovely sounds of a harp helped soothe Grand Djed. The musician, Kiya, looked familiar. Her eyes never left him. So loyal she was. Large ornate golden circles jangled from her ears with each movement. A boy played a flute, but he hid behind the multitudes of her strings.

The Royal Ornaments lamented in a dark corner. “What will happen to us?”

“Akhenaten declined to accept Pharaoh’s Harem, so I may be sent home,” whispered Seta-pent, an aging woman with sagging breasts. “May my daughter Rennutet take care of me.”

Rennutet was one of my classmates who was kind to me.

A coppery beauty with flowing crow-black hair sniffed. “He granted us freedom. I intend to choose another consort.”

With his long-legged stride, my father arrived at the bed of his earthly father and gave him a gentle embrace. Maybe they could heal their earlier clashes over the Aten. I recalled one night when the two got into a terrible argument. Grand Djed tried to give my father advice after the chariot races.

“I have been in power longer than those before me,” Grand Djed had said. “Let me show you how to enjoy this life by turning a blind eye to the ways of the Hanuti.”

Father shook his head. “My allegiance is to Aten. I cannot serve two Masters.”

Grand Djed had risen from his seat. “Must you be so headstrong and contentious? Slow down. Do not rush in like a mad bull to disrupt our entire society.” Then he softened his delivery. “Both the Aten and Amun could be worshiped together. The Hanuti will agree if they have your vow of loyalty.”

“I refuse to mingle my beliefs in the Aten with those in polarity,” replied Father crossing his arms.

“My son, is it more prudent to stay true to your heart—or wiser to be politically cunning like a jackal, which has kept this family in power?”