into them, so that they raised a shout of fervour and said to one another, “Such a thing has never happened before, yet truly his god speaks through him and we must obey him.” This way, the people dispersed in a ferment and argued amongst themselves, and some came to blows with fists in the streets, and Pharaoh’s faithful slew to death old men who spoke against him on street corners.
But when the people had dispersed, priest Ay said to Pharaoh, “Akhenaten, throw away your crown and break the crook in your hand, for the words you have spoken have already overturned your throne.”
Pharaoh Akhenaten said to him, “My words that I have spoken have brought immortality to my name from eternity to eternity, and I shall hold sway in the hearts of men from everlasting to everlasting.”
Then Ay rubbed his hands together and spat on the ground before Pharaoh and rubbed the spittle into the dust with his foot as he said, “If this is to be the way of it, I wash my hands and act as I think best for I no longer regard myself to be answerable to a madman for my actions.”
He would have gone, but Horemheb seized him by the arm and neck and held him easily although Ay was a big, strong man. Horemheb said, “He is your Pharaoh and you shall do his bidding, Ay, and not betray him, for if you betray him, I will come and put a knife through your belly even if I had to gather the troops at my own expense to get it done. This I tell you, and I usually don’t lie. Though his madness is great, and I don’t believe this madness brings anything good, but even in his madness, I love him and will stand fast at his side because I have sworn him my oath and once covered his weakness with my shoulder cloth. There is a spark of reason in his raving for if he had done no more than overthrow the old gods, civil war would have followed, but in freeing the slaves from mill and field, he spoils the priests’ concoction and gains the people to his side, though the result will be greater chaos than before. It is however all one to me, but what shall we do with the Hittites, Pharaoh Akhenaten?”
Pharaoh Akhenaten sat with his hands limp upon his knees and replied nothing to him. Horemheb said, “Give me gold and grain, arms and chariots, horses and authority to hire soldiers and authority to summon the guards from all cities to the Lower Land, and I think I can withstand the onslaught of the Hittites.”
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Then Pharaoh raised his bloodshot eyes to him, and the ecstasy had faded from his face as he said quietly, “I forbid you to declare war, Horemheb. But if the people desire to defend the Black Land, I cannot prevent it. Grain and gold — to say nothing of arms — I have none to give you, and even if I had, you should not have it, for I will not meet evil with evil. Otherwise you may make your dispositions for the defence of Tanis, but shed no blood and defend yourself only if attacked.”
“Be it as you say,” said Horemheb. “It is all the same dung. I will die in Tanis at your command, for without grain and gold even the most valiant and skilled army cannot defend for long. But I will throw my water on the first sign of any hesitation, Pharaoh Akhenaten, and I will defend myself according to my own good sense. Stay healthy!”
He went, and Ay also took his leave of Pharaoh, and I remained with him alone. He looked at me with eyes filled with an unspeakable weariness and said, “Since I spoke, the power has left me, Sinuhe, yet even in my weakness I am happy. What do you mean to do, Sinuhe?”
His words surprised me so that I looked at him in bewilderment. He smiled tiredly and asked, “Do you love me, Sinuhe?” When I confessed that I loved him, his madness notwithstanding, he said, “If you love me, you know what you have to do, Sinuhe.”
My mind rose up against his will, although in my heart I well knew what he required me to do. At length, I said in irritation, “I fancied you had need of me as a physician, but if you don’t need, then I will go. It is true I shall make but a poor hand at overturning the images of gods, and my arms are weak for wielding a sledgehammer, but may your will be carried out. The people may flay me alive and crush my head with stones and hang my body head downward from the walls, but that should not concern you. I will go then to Thebes, since there are many temples, and the people know me there.”
He made no answer to me, and I left him in wrath because all this was total madness in my opinion. He remained sitting on the throne entirely alone, but I went to my friend Thutmose because I needed to release some steam in the company of a friend. Horemheb sat in Thutmose’ workshop, and having joined them to drink wine, was an old, drunkard artist whose name was Bek, and Thutmose’s servants were wrapping the scrolls to prepare him for a journey.
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