The Egyptian

4

Thus my friend Aziru perished without seeking to bribe death, and Horemheb made peace with the Hittites. He knew as well as they that this peace was but an armistice since Sidon, Smyrna, Byblos, and Kadesh were still under their sway. The Hittites had made a strongly fortified base of Kadesh for the control of northern Syria. But now both the Hittites and Horemheb were weary of war, and Horemheb was glad to make peace, for he had interests in Thebes that required his supervision. He needed also to restore order in the land of Kush and among the Nubians, who in their freedom had run wild and refused to pay tribute to Egypt.

Tutankhamon reigned in Egypt during these years, though he was but a stripling and took interest in nothing but the building of his own tomb. The people blamed him for all the loss and misery resulting from the war. Their hatred for him was bitter, and they said, “What can we expect of a Pharaoh whose consort is of the blood of the false Pharaoh?”

Eie did not quell such talk but rather spread new stories among the people, of Tutankhamon’s thoughtlessness and greed, and of his attempts to gather all the treasures of Egypt into his tomb.

Throughout this time I was never once in Thebes but traveled everywhere with the army, which required my skill, and I shared its hardships and privations. Yet from the men of Thebes I learned that Pharaoh Tutankhamon was frail and sickly and that some secret illness consumed his body. It seemed that the war in Syria had used up his strength. Whenever news come of a victory for Horemheb, Pharaoh fell sick. After a defeat he recovered and rose from his bed. This, they said, had every appearance of sorcery, and anyone who kept his eyes open could see that Pharaoh’s health was bound up with the Syrian war.

As time went on, Eie grew ever more impatient, and time after time he sent this message to Horemheb:

“Can you not cease this warfare and give peace to Egypt? I am already an old man and weary of waiting. Conquer, Horemheb, and bring us peace that I may have my agreed reward. I will see to it that you too have yours.”

For this reason I was not at all surprised when, after the war was over and we were sailing up the river in warships decked with banners, we were met by the news that Pharaoh Tutankhamon had stepped into the golden boat of his father Ammon to sail to the Western Land. It was said that Tutankhamon had had a severe attack on the day that tidings reached Thebes of the fall of Megiddo and the conclusion of peace. The nature of the fatal disorder was the subject of dispute among the physicians of the House of Life. It was said that his stomach was blackened with poison, but no one had certain knowledge of the cause. The people would have it that he died of an access of his own malignance when the war ended, because his greatest delight had been to see Egypt suffer.

I know that in pressing his seal into the clay at the foot of the peace treaty, Horemheb killed Pharaoh as surely as if he had thrust a knife into his heart. Peace was all that Eie had been waiting for before sweeping Tutankhamon from his path and ascending the throne as the “Peace King.”

We were compelled to soil our faces and to haul down the bright pennants of the ships, and Horemheb, in bitter resentment, loosed and threw into the river the bodies of Syrian and Hittite commanders, which, in the manner of the great Pharaohs, he had hung head downward from the bows of his ship. He had left his marsh rats in Syria to bring peace to the country and to stuff themselves on the fat of the land after all the hardships and tribulations of the war. His ruffians-his scum-he brought home with him, to celebrate the peace in

Thebes. These also were bitter and cursed Tutankhamon, who even in death destroyed their pleasure.

So I returned to Thebes and resolved never again to leave it. My eyes had seen enough of man’s evil ways, and there was nothing new beneath the ancient sun. I resolved to remain and live out my days in poverty in the copperfounder’s house. All the wealth I had acquired in Syria had been spent on sacrifices for Aziru, being riches I had no desire to keep. To me they smelled of blood, and I should have had no joy of them.

Even yet my measure was not full. A task was now allotted me that I did not desire and that filled me with dread. I could not evade it, and once more, after only a few days, I departed from Thebes. Eie and Horemheb believed that they had spun their webs and carried out their plans with great sagacity, so as to bring power fully into their hands. But this power slipped through their fingers before they knew it, and the destiny of Egypt hung on a woman’s whim.