Not many days had passed since my arrival, when the truth came to Akhetaten, and Pharaoh Akhenaten was compelled to meet the truth on the terrace of the golden house and look at it eye to eye. For from Memphis Horemheb sent a group of Syrian refugees in all their wretchedness to speak with Pharaoh and paid for their passage — and I believe also that he bade them exaggerate their plight so that they presented a hideous spectacle upon their arrival to the City of the Heavens; and the nobles of the court sickened and shut themselves into their houses at the sight of them, while the guards closed the gates of the golden house before them. They cried aloud and pounded the gates with stones and threw stones at the walls until Pharaoh had to hear them out and admitted them to the inner court.
There, they shouted at Pharaoh and said, “Hear from our bruised mouths the cry of the people, for the power of the land of Kem is but a shadow, hovering by the grave — and in Syrian cities beneath the thunder of battering rams and the roar of flames flows the blood of those in vain who trusted you and set their hopes upon you.”
They raised their arm stumps towards Pharaoh’s golden balcony and shouted, saying, “Look at our hands, Pharaoh Akhenaten. Where are our hands?” They pushed forward men whose eyes had been cut out and made their way by groping, and old men whose tongues had been torn out, gaping emptily and making howling sounds. They cried to him, saying, “Do not ask us of our wives and daughters, for their fate is more terrible than death at the hands of Aziru’s men and of the Hittites. They put out our eyes and cut off our hands because we trusted you, Pharaoh Akhenaten.”
But Pharaoh hid his face in his hands and trembled in his weakness and spoke to them of Aten. Then they laughed at him in terrible voice and reviled him and said, “We know that you sent the cross of life to our enemy also. They hung the crosses of life about the necks of their horses, and in Jerusalem they cut off the feet of the priests and bade them leap for joy to the honour of your god.”
Then Pharaoh Akhenaten uttered a dreadful cry, and the holy sickness seized him, and he fell from his seat on the balcony in the grasp of seizures, losing his consciousness. Seeing that, the guards became terrified and attacked the Syrian refugees, but
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they were desperate and resisted, and their blood flowed between the stones of the inner court of the golden house, and their bodies were cast into the river. Nefertiti and Meritaten, the ailing Meketaten and little Ankhesenaten saw it all from the balcony of the golden house and were never to forget it for it was then that they beheld for the first time anguish and death, which are the marks of war.
I had Pharaoh swathed in wet cloths, and when he came to himself, I gave him sedatives and intoxicating drugs, for this attack had been so severe, I feared for his life. I got him to sleep, but when he awoke, he said to me, with his face grey and his eyes red from headache, “Sinuhe, my friend, we must put an end to this. Horemheb has told me that you know this Aziru. Go to him and buy me peace. Buy peace for Egypt even if it costs all the gold I have and even if it makes Egypt a poor country.”
I protested vigorously and said, “Pharaoh Akhenaten, send your gold to Horemheb and he will swiftly buy peace with spears and chariots, and Egypt need suffer no disgrace.”
He clutched his head with his hands and said, “By Aten, Sinuhe, can you not see that hate engenders hate, and vengeance sows vengeance, and blood breeds blood until we drown in blood. How are the victims served if their sufferings be avenged by the infliction of suffering on others, and this talk of disgrace is but prejudice. I command you: Go to Aziru and buy me peace.”
I was terrified by his whim and rejected it and said, “Pharaoh Akhenaten, they will put out my eyes and tear out my tongue before I can approach Aziru to speak with him, and his friendship will avail me nothing for he has certainly forgotten it by now, and I am unaccustomed to the exertions of war, which I greatly fear. My limbs are stiff, and I cannot travel that fast any more, nor can I phrase my sentences as glibly as others who have been trained to lies since childhood and who serve you at the courts of foreign kings. Send another if you would purchase peace, but do not send me.”
He insisted stubbornly, “Go as I command you. Pharaoh has spoken.”
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