great difficulty, in four.
Tiye is a very healthy woman, and a very determined one; and also we have both prayed long and faithfully for this new son—prayed, ironically, to Amon, who does not know that in this birth he faces yet another challenge to add to those I have already given him.
For this reason I worry, of course: Amon does not take kindly to challenges, and those that are given him must be given with subtlety and with skill. I think the challenge of Tuthmose has been so given. I am hopeful I may in time give the challenge of this new son in the same fashion.
These thoughts were mine as I entered the bedroom where my love lay, and saw the pert little face that conceals such a loving heart and such a fiercely protective and determined will. She stared at me with great dark eyes; a welcoming smile, sweet, patient, indomitable, touched her lips. “It is beginning,” she said. “May Amon give us a strong and healthy son,” I said. For a second a gleam of amusement that was for me alone flashed into her eyes. She beckoned me close and I leaned down. “He would not if he knew,” she whispered; and I, who know, unlike my people, that Amon does not know all things—only those that his priests overhear for him—whispered back, “He will not until it is too late.” A sudden fear came into her eyes, shielded by my body from the doctors, nurses, and priests standing respectfully silent against the wall at my back. “Is Tuthmose…?” she whispered. “Tuthmose is well and on his way. He should be here in the third quarter of morning.” “He is all right?” “He is all right,” I said firmly. “He is escorted from Memphis by Amon,” she said. “But for every priest of Amon there are two of Ptah,” I said. Her eyes stared into mine for a long moment. “I will feel better when I know he is safely here.” “Do you think I will not?” I demanded with a sudden naked honesty. She started to say something, then was cut off by pain. After it passed she managed a smile and gripped my hand tightly for a second. “We must not be afraid,” she said. “We are not,” I whispered fiercely. “We are not.”
I leaned down and we kissed as desperately as though we were youthful lovers again, attempting to reassure one another that the world is not full of shadows threatening happiness. She grimaced once more and turned her face so I would not see. I stepped back. Doctors, priests, nurses hurried forward, hissing like geese who would impress me with their diligence. I uttered a silent prayer to Bes and Hathor, that they might be kind to my wife, to me and to our son; and withdrew to walk alone through the painted mud corridors of Malkata to the robing room where I was to consult, as I do every morning, the Vizier Ramose, and then be made ready for my departure, shortly before noon, to Karnak.
Thus the conflict intruded, even there—there, perhaps, more than anywhere, for it is through my sons that it will be expressed hereafter.
You may ask why it must be so: why does not Pharaoh, the all-powerful, the omnipotent, the owner of all things and all men in the land of Kemet, put down the overweening priests of Amon, reduce their power to manageable proportions, break up their holdings of land, cattle, granaries, gold, jewels, swollen beyond conscience—say the magic word, and return them overnight to the influential but reasonable status they held up to the time of my great-grandfather, the brilliant Tuthmose III (life, health, prosperity!)?
I will tell you why: Because, starting with my great-grandfather, Amon-Ra has become so inextricably entwined with the fortunes of my family, with its foreign conquests, its empire-building and its steady accretion of wealth and power, that it is now impossible to remove the growth on the House of Thebes by some simple, ruthless surgery. It must be done, if done at all, by the most delicate and skillful of excisions. It is to this that I have increasingly devoted my thoughts
Tiye is a very healthy woman, and a very determined one; and also we have both prayed long and faithfully for this new son—prayed, ironically, to Amon, who does not know that in this birth he faces yet another challenge to add to those I have already given him.
For this reason I worry, of course: Amon does not take kindly to challenges, and those that are given him must be given with subtlety and with skill. I think the challenge of Tuthmose has been so given. I am hopeful I may in time give the challenge of this new son in the same fashion.
These thoughts were mine as I entered the bedroom where my love lay, and saw the pert little face that conceals such a loving heart and such a fiercely protective and determined will. She stared at me with great dark eyes; a welcoming smile, sweet, patient, indomitable, touched her lips. “It is beginning,” she said. “May Amon give us a strong and healthy son,” I said. For a second a gleam of amusement that was for me alone flashed into her eyes. She beckoned me close and I leaned down. “He would not if he knew,” she whispered; and I, who know, unlike my people, that Amon does not know all things—only those that his priests overhear for him—whispered back, “He will not until it is too late.” A sudden fear came into her eyes, shielded by my body from the doctors, nurses, and priests standing respectfully silent against the wall at my back. “Is Tuthmose…?” she whispered. “Tuthmose is well and on his way. He should be here in the third quarter of morning.” “He is all right?” “He is all right,” I said firmly. “He is escorted from Memphis by Amon,” she said. “But for every priest of Amon there are two of Ptah,” I said. Her eyes stared into mine for a long moment. “I will feel better when I know he is safely here.” “Do you think I will not?” I demanded with a sudden naked honesty. She started to say something, then was cut off by pain. After it passed she managed a smile and gripped my hand tightly for a second. “We must not be afraid,” she said. “We are not,” I whispered fiercely. “We are not.”
I leaned down and we kissed as desperately as though we were youthful lovers again, attempting to reassure one another that the world is not full of shadows threatening happiness. She grimaced once more and turned her face so I would not see. I stepped back. Doctors, priests, nurses hurried forward, hissing like geese who would impress me with their diligence. I uttered a silent prayer to Bes and Hathor, that they might be kind to my wife, to me and to our son; and withdrew to walk alone through the painted mud corridors of Malkata to the robing room where I was to consult, as I do every morning, the Vizier Ramose, and then be made ready for my departure, shortly before noon, to Karnak.
Thus the conflict intruded, even there—there, perhaps, more than anywhere, for it is through my sons that it will be expressed hereafter.
You may ask why it must be so: why does not Pharaoh, the all-powerful, the omnipotent, the owner of all things and all men in the land of Kemet, put down the overweening priests of Amon, reduce their power to manageable proportions, break up their holdings of land, cattle, granaries, gold, jewels, swollen beyond conscience—say the magic word, and return them overnight to the influential but reasonable status they held up to the time of my great-grandfather, the brilliant Tuthmose III (life, health, prosperity!)?
I will tell you why: Because, starting with my great-grandfather, Amon-Ra has become so inextricably entwined with the fortunes of my family, with its foreign conquests, its empire-building and its steady accretion of wealth and power, that it is now impossible to remove the growth on the House of Thebes by some simple, ruthless surgery. It must be done, if done at all, by the most delicate and skillful of excisions. It is to this that I have increasingly devoted my thoughts
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