On and on he went. This was the only reference Akhenaten made to the conspiracy and treason he’d confronted.
‘However, on this day, Akhenaten,’ Ay proclaimed, ‘His Majesty obvious in a great chariot of electrum, appeared in glory just like Aten does when he rises in the horizon and fills the land with love and pleasantness. He set off on a good road towards the place of the Aten. He found himself a great monument there. He has ridden a circuit and the land will rejoice and all hearts will exult. He will make an estate of the Aten for his Father, erect a memorial to his name and to the great Royal Wife Nefernefruaten — Nefertiti. It will belong to Aten’s name for ever and ever. Now it is the Aten who has advised him concerning this. No official ever advised him. Nor did any person in this land. It was the Aten his Father who advised him so it could be built here. So, in the place of the Aten, he shall make a house to the Aten his Father. He shall also make a sun shade for the great Royal Wife. He shall make himself a residence. There shall be made a tomb for him in the Eastern Mountains. Let his burial be after the millions of jubilees which Aten his Father has bequeathed to him. He shall never leave that place. He shall not go to the North or the South, the East or the West, but in that place he shall make something beautiful for the Aten his Father. Something beautiful in the North, something beautiful in the South …’
By now the Royal Circle was alert but very silent, listening intently to this proclamation. Beneath the courtly courtesies, the pious exclamations, the tributes to the Aten, the reality emerged. Akhenaten was to shake the dust of Thebes from his feet. He would desert the gods of Egypt and build a new city, a great shrine for the Aten.
I closed my eyes and thought of that sandy cove stretching to the mountains. Akhenaten was determined on this. During Ay’s declamation, he sat, a faint smile on his face, dressed in a kilt of gold silver cloth and a shirt of the same materiaclass="underline" a brilliantly coloured sash with gorgeous tabs circled his waist, over his shoulders lay a jewel-encrusted cape. Diamonds gleamed in his earlobes and on his fingers, legs and ankles. A pectoral displaying a golden Sun Disc surrounded by precious stones lay flat on his chest. A feathered crown on his head made him look taller. He cradled in his lap a jewel-encrusted ankh along with the gold-filigreed flail and rod. Akhenaten’s face was subtly painted, lips red with carmine, eyelids dusted a light green. Dark kohl rings circled the eyes. He looked majestic, the fine jewels transforming his misshapen body and ugly face into a vision of power and glory. Beside him sat Nefertiti, her red hair tumbling down, a plumed crown on her head, her face exquisitely painted. She was clothed in robes of gold and silver, shimmering with jewels, yet the beauty of her face and the brilliance of her blue eyes cut through all this and made my heart ache. These were not the cruel mockers who had attended Shishnak’s trial. They had transformed themselves into immortal beings surrounded by light. Even the air around them was heavy with perfumed glory. I became lost in a reverie as Akhenaten’s proclamation offered a new beginning. Our enemies were no more. No hand would be raised against us, no pit dug to trap us. No crook across our path to bring us down.
After his hymn to the Aten, Ay turned to more practical details, listing the treasure of the Temple of Amun which would be used to finance Akhenaten’s vision. I half-listened, staring at Nefertiti. I realised that, whatever she did, whatever she said, she was my vision, my Aten. She looked so exquisitely beautiful, those crystal blue eyes staring at me, savouring a quiet joke as if we were both fellow conspirators. Beside her Tiye, dressed in jewel-encrusted silver, enjoyed this moment of triumph. The rest were drunk not only on wine but on visions of further power and glory as they gathered on the threshold of a new era. As for me, Mahu the Baboon of the South? I would have given it all up to be lying in an orchard, Nefertiti beside me serving wine. A sharp dig in my ribs shattered my dream. Horemheb was glaring at me.
‘For what we were,’ he whispered beneath the discussion going on around us, ‘for what we are now. Mahu, listen to me. He’s mad! He’s insane!’
The comment was so sharp, such a contrast, that I burst out laughing. Ay stared across. Akhenaten’s smile faded whilst Nefertiti frowned.
‘I am sorry,’ I apologised, ‘but listing the treasures of Karnak I thought of Shishnak in his wig.’
A murmur of laughter greeted my words. I got to my feet.
‘Your Majesty, I must withdraw.’
I left the brilliantly painted Chamber of the Glorious Falcon and almost ran down the corridor, tiled in cobalt-blue, its walls painted a golden yellow with blood-red diamonds at top and bottom. I hastened past guards and servants and out into the moon-bathed courtyard. There I went over to the fountain and sat on its edge and let the laughter come. The more I tried to stop, the worse it became. Horemheb and Rameses followed. They, too, had excused themselves. I watched the water spilling out of the eagle’s mouth, making the lotus blossom rise and sink. I tried to compose myself but still I laughed. Horemheb and Rameses tried to speak. They stood, dressed in polished leather kilts, necks and chests adorned with golden necklaces and silver beads, staffs of office in their hands. The very sight of them sent me into further peals of laughter whilst they stood and glowered as if I was some impertinent recruit. The more they did so, the worse it became. Tears coursed down my cheeks, my sides ached, but I could not stop.
‘What is so funny?’ Rameses demanded.
The laughter bubbled up again. I could not speak. Behind Horemheb and Rameses a shadow moved in the colonnades. Djarka was there, his bow already strung. I raised my hand and shook my head. He retreated deeper into the darkness as Horemheb and Rameses turned.
‘Mahu!’ Horemheb grasped me by the very front of my robe and pulled me towards him. ‘Mahu!’
‘I am sorry.’ I wiped the tears on the back of my hand. ‘I was just sitting there lost in the dreams of glory, listening to the revelations of a god. And what do you say, Horemheb?’ I hissed. ‘He’s mad! He’s insane!’ I pushed him away. ‘You could lose your head for such a remark.’
Horemheb stepped back.
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ I whispered. ‘I have never laughed so much for such a long time. It was such a contrast, so comical.’
Rameses measured his steps as he walked towards me and stopped, his face only a few inches from mine.
‘We know it is, Mahu. It’s madness, sitting there, eating cabbage and onions, chewing soft meat and gulping sweet wines whilst listening to the ranting and ravings of a god-obsessed fanatic.’
‘You could both lose your heads,’ I replied.
‘We are only telling the truth,’ Horemheb protested. He gestured back towards the palace. ‘People suspect but they don’t really know. Can you imagine, Mahu, what is going to happen when this is proclaimed beyond the Third Cataract or across Sinai? The Pharaoh of Egypt is about to break from the past, lost in a dream of building a new city, a new capital. Are the old gods to be destroyed, the temples closed? Will the Necropolis truly become the City of the Dead? Don’t you realise, Mahu, Akhenaten intends to begin again. Can you imagine the cost of it all? If our treasure is diverted to building cities out in the desert, if our energies are devoted to the worship of the one god, who will pay for the troops? The chariots? The horses? Who will send gold, silver and precious stones to our allies?’
‘You are beginning to sound like God’s Father Hotep.’
‘No, we are just talking sense!’ Rameses protested, but fear glowed in his eyes. Pride warmed my heart. Rameses the snake, for the first time ever, was fearful. Both of them were here to ask for my help, my advice.
‘Well,’ Horemheb poked me in the chest. ‘Do you believe all this, Mahu? Playing at being priests and temple worshippers is all very well, but what about in a year’s time, ten years’ time?’