was panelled with wood, and it burned like dry reeds on the shore. Then I remembered everything and tried to stand up, but my strength failed me. Since I was unable to stand, I tried crawling on hands and knees toward the burning door and into the fire to reach Merit and Thoth. I crawled into the fire, so that my remaining hair was singed off, and my clothes caught fire, and I burned my hands and knees, but Kaptah hastened to me, crying out and lamenting, and dragged me from the flames and rolled me in the dust until the fire in my clothes was put out. At this spectacle, the soldiers laughed aloud and smote their knees, and Kaptah said to them:
“Truly he is a little mad, for the priest hit him on the head with his horn and will no doubt receive punishment in due course. He is a royal physician, you see, and it is not well for anyone to raise a hand against him, and he is also a priest of the first order although he has been compelled to don shabby clothes and hide the symbols of his rank so as to escape the fury of the people.”
But I sat in the dust of the street, holding my head in my burned hands. The tears poured from my scorched eyes, and I cried and moaned, “Merit, Merit, my Merit!” But Kaptah nudged me wrathfully and whispered to me, “Silence, you fool. Have you not brought enough misfortune on us by your madness?” When I did not become quiet, he brought his face close to mine and whispered to me bitterly, “May this bring you to your senses, my lord, for now indeed you have had your cup full and fuller than you know. Therefore I tell you, though it is too late now, that Thoth was your son, born to life from your seed when first you lay with Merit and slept next to her. I tell you this that you may come to your senses for she would not tell you because she was proud and lonely — and because you abandoned her for the sake of Akhetaten and Pharaoh. He was of your blood, that little Thoth, and had you not been raving mad, you must have seen your eyes in his eyes and your mouth in the shape of his mouth. I would have given my life to save him, but I could not save him because of your madness, and Merit would not leave you. They both died because of your madness, and therefore I hope that you will now come to your senses, my lord.”
His words silenced me, and I stared at him and asked, “Is this thing true?” But thinking about it all, I needed no reply to know it was true.
597
So I sat on in the dust of the street without crying any more or feeling my pain, but all within me froze and closed up — and also my heart closed up so that I was indifferent to all that happened to me.
The Crocodile’s Tail stood in flames in front of me, spewing smoke and ashes on me, and with it burned Thoth’s little body and the fair body of Merit. Their bodies burned amongst those of butchered slaves and porters so that I could not even preserve them to eternal life. Thoth was my son, and if what I believed was true, the holy blood of Pharaohs had run in his veins as it ran in mine. If I had known this, everything might have been different, since a man may do for his son what he would not do for his own sake alone. But now everything was too late, and his sacred blood burned together with the slaves’ and the porters’ blood, and he was no more — and I knew that Merit probably had kept him secret from me, because of my own terrible secret and not just because of her own pride and loneliness. Therefore I sat in the dust of the street amidst the smoke and flying sparks, and the flames from their bodies scorched my face.
The events that followed are blurry to me, and I let Kaptah walk me to where he wanted, and I followed him without resistance. He took me to Ay and Pepitamun, for the fighting was over, and while the poor quarter was still in flames, they sat in judgment on golden thrones in the stone quay while soldiers and horns led forward prisoners before them. Everyone caught with a weapon in his hand was hung head downward on the wall, and everyone caught with stolen goods on him was cast into the river to feed the crocodiles, and everyone found wearing the cross of Aten about his neck or on his clothes was flogged and sent to forced labour; and the women were handed over to the soldiers and black men, so that they could rejoice with them; and the children were given to Amun to be brought up in the temples. So death raged by the waterside in Thebes, with Ay showing no mercy, for he desired to win the favour of the priests, and he said, “I cleanse the evil blood from the land of Egypt.”
Also Pepitamun was exceedingly wroth because slaves had plundered his house, opening the doors of the cats’ cages and eating the cats’ food and taking the cats’ milk and cream home to their children, so that all the cats had starved and gone wild. So also he was merciless, and within two days all the walls of the city were crammed with the bodies of men hung head downward.
598
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