the palaces of the nobles all amongst the splendour of flowers and the green of the grass. Then we breathed in deeper, and the oarsmen sank their oars into water with fresh excitement, and Horemheb’s soldiers started shouting and yelling, forgetting the sorrow that Pharaoh’s death had forced upon them.
So I returned to Thebes and resolved never again to leave it, for my eyes had seen enough of man’s evil, and there was nothing new beneath the old sky for my eyes to behold. Therefore I resolved to remain the rest of my days in Thebes and live out my days in poverty in the old copper founder’s house of the poor quarter — for all the wealth I had acquired through my healing skills in Syria during the war I had spent on Aziru’s burial sacrifice, that being wealth I had no desire to keep. In my nostrils, this wealth had the smell of blood, and using it to my betterment would not have brought joy to me. So I donated to Aziru everything I had gathered in his country, and returned to Thebes impoverished.
But not even then had I got my cup full for yet a task was allotted me that I did not desire and that filled me with dread, but I could not evade it, and once more, after only a few days, I departed from Thebes. Ay and Horemheb believed that they had spun their webs with wisdom and carried out their plans and thought the power was in their hands, but the power slipped through their fingers before they knew it, and the destiny of Egypt was to hang on a woman’s whim. So I still need to tell about Queen Nefertiti and princess Beketamun, before I can finish my story and have my peace. But to tell about them I need to start a new book, and may this book be the last I write, and I write it for my own sake to explain why I who was made to cure people became a murderer.
697
Book 15: Horemheb
1
In accordance with the agreement struck with Horemheb, the bearer of the crook Ay was to raise Pharaoh’s crowns to his head when Pharaoh Tutankhamun’s funeral rituals were over. To reach his goal, he hastened Tutankhamun’s embalming and his burial and stopped further quarrying of his tomb and left it small and insignificant in comparison with the tombs of the great Pharaohs and kept by himself most riches which Tutankhamun had planned to take with him to his tomb. But by the same agreement, he was to convince princess Beketamun to marry Horemheb, thus enabling Horemheb to make a lawful claim to the crowns of Egypt once Ay was dead, despite being born with dung between toes. He had arranged this with the priests so that princess Beketamun would appear in Sekhmet’s temple before Horemheb in the guise of Sekhmet and surrender herself to Horemheb when Horemheb celebrated the festival of his victory and the period of mourning was over, so that their union might be blessed by the gods and Horemheb himself would become divine. Such was Ay’s plan with the priests, but princess Beketamun had made her own plan and prepared it with much care, and I know Queen Nefertiti had encouraged her to make this plan, hating Horemheb and calculating she would become the most powerful woman in Egypt next to Beketamun, if the plan was successful.
Their plan was godless and terrifying, and only the guile of an embittered woman could have conceived it; and their plan was so incredible that it came near to succeeding, merely for the sake of being so incredible that no one would have thought of it, and even if someone had thought of it, he would have regarded it as impossible. Only when this scheme became known, could it be understood why the Hittites were so eager to make peace and had yielded Megiddo and the land of Amurru and made concessions in the peace-making. The Hittites are wise men, and they kept in their quivers an arrow which Horemheb and Ay had no idea about — and during the peace process, they believed they had lost nothing when agreeing to concessions. Their readiness
698
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