competing for work, and their work will be cheaper to me than a slave’s work used to be since they will agree to whatever terms as long as they get bread. Earlier, if a slave stole, it was just considered good custom, and all his lord could do was to beat him, but if an employed man steals, he would be sentenced to pay his theft with work, and formerly his ears and nose could have been cut off. All this makes me greatly praise Pharaoh Akhenaten for the sake of his wisdom, and I think that many others will praise him too once they have patience to think about it and realise their own interest.”
“You spoke of grain, Kaptah,” I said. ”Know that I have promised half our grain to Horemheb that he may wage war against the Hittites, and this you must immediately ship to Tanis. But you shall have the other half milled and the flour baked bread and distributed to the starving people in all the cities and villages where our grain is stored. When your servants dispense this bread, they shall receive no payment but shall say, ‘This is the bread of Aten, take it and eat it in Aten’s name and give praise to Pharaoh Akhenaten and his god.’”
When Kaptah heard this, he tore his clothes — since they were but those of a slave, tearing them brought him no loss. He pulled his hair with his hands so that its dry mud made the air dusty, and he cried out bitterly, saying, “This will make you a poor man, my lord, and where then shall I make my profit. You have caught Pharaoh’s madness and stand on your head and walk backward. Oh, poor me, why ever should I see this day, and I doubt even the scarab can help us, for no one will bless you for distributing bread, and that damned Horemheb sends impudent answers to my collection letters, telling me to come myself and fetch the gold I have lent him in your name. He is worse than any robber, that friend of yours, for a robber takes what he takes, while Horemheb promises interest on what he borrows, thus tormenting his creditors with vain hopes so that in the end they burst their livers in exasperation. But I see from your eyes, my lord, that you are in earnest and that my lamentations are vain, and I must comply with your will although it will make you poor.”
587
We left Kaptah to fawn on the slaves and to haggle over the sacred vessels and other valuables that the porters had stolen from the temples. All respectable people had withdrawn into their houses and barred the doors, and the streets were deserted, and some of the temples in which the priests had taken refuge had been set alight and were still burning. We entered the plundered temples to cut away the names of the gods and there met other adherents of Pharaoh engaged in the same task. We swung our axes and sledges so vigorously that sparks flew. This way, we tried to assure ourselves that ours was an important duty and that our hammers helped the new era to dawn in Egypt, and so we forged until our wrists were stiff and our hands aching. The same we carried on day after day, and I was too eager to rest or eat or sleep for the site of our work was immense, and occasionally pious people, led by priests, came to disturb our work, and they threw stones at us and threatened us with sticks, but we banished them with our hammers, and in his frenzy Thutmose broke the skull of an old priest who wanted to protect his god. Every day our zeal increased, and we laboured in order to avert our eyes from all that went on.
The people suffered from hunger and want, and when the slaves and porters had rejoiced for a time in their freedom, they erected blue and red rods in the harbour and they gathered around them forming their own guards which broke into the houses of the horns and of the eminent to distribute their grain, oil and wealth amongst the people, and Pharaoh’s guards could not stop them. Though Kaptah hired men to grind grain and bake bread, the people wrested the bread from his servants, saying, “This bread has been filched from the poor, and it is but right that it should be shared amongst the poor.” No one praised my name although I beggared myself during a single cycle of the moon.
When forty days and forty nights had passed this way and the turmoil in Thebes grew steadily worse, and men who had once weighed gold stood begging in the streets while their wives sold their jewels to slaves so as to buy bread for their children, then came Kaptah to my house in the darkness of the night and said, “My lord, it is time for you to flee. Aten’s kingdom is soon to fall, and I believe no respectable man will regret it. Law and order will be restored and the old gods will be restored, but before that happens, the crocodiles must be fed and more profusely than ever before, for the priests purpose is to cleanse Egypt from evil blood.”
I asked him, “How do you know all this?”
588
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384