The Awakening Aten Read online

  Copyright © 2019 Aidan K. Morrissey

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Matador

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  ISBN 978 1838599 027

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

  For Alison

  My inspiration and life.

  ‘One asked oneself in bewilderment whether the ashes here, seemingly not cold, had truly ceased to glow at a time when Rome and Greece were undreamt of, when Assyria did not exist, and when the Exodus of the Children of Israel was yet unaccomplished.’

  (Arthur Weigall, Egyptian Antiquities Service Inspector (1906) on discovery of a lamp, containing burnt out ashes, in the tomb of Kha and Merit)

  Contents

  LIST OF CHARACTERS AND PLACES

  PART ONE

  PART TWO

  PART THREE

  HISTORICAL NOTES

  LIST OF CHARACTERS AND PLACES

  Being a novel based on real historical characters, there are a large number of people who make up this story. Below is a list of the main characters and I have made a note as to whether these were people who really existed or who have been created in whole [fictional] or in part [composite] by my imagination. In order to maintain historical accuracy, there are several characters with the same name. This tended to be a generational naming and the story will differentiate between those characters and hopefully not cause confusion. With some characters whose background is unknown I have fictionalised their backstory for the sake of the novel. Please see the historical notes at the end of the book.

  The term ‘Pharaoh’ was unknown in ancient Egypt and throughout the novel the rulers are referred to as ‘Kings.’ 3500 years ago as this story unfolds, place names were all totally different. The country was known by the name of ‘Kemet,’ or, ‘The Two Lands.’ I have included below a list of other ancient names used in the novel and their modern day, or more familiar names.

  The Royal Family:

  King Amenhotep II:

  A son of Thutmose III and Merytre-Hatshepsut [Real]

  Queen Merytre-

  Hatshepsut:

  Wife of Thutmose III and mother of Amenhotep II [Real]

  Crown Prince

  Thutmose:

  (Later Thutmose IV): Son of Amenhotep II [Real]

  Mutemwiya

  (Parukhepa):

  Wife of Thutmose IV and Mother of Haqwaset [Real]

  Haqwaset:

  (King Amenhotep III) son of Thutmose IV [Real]

  Queen Tiye:

  Daughter of Yuya; Haqwaset’s ‘Great Royal Wife’ [Real]

  Thutmose:

  Eldest son of Haqwaset and Tiye [Real]

  Amenhotep (Teppy):

  Younger son of Haqwaset and Tiye [Real]

  Kirgipa:

  A lesser wife of Haqwaset [Real]

  Smenkhare:

  Son of Haqwaset and Kirgipa [Fictional/Composite]

  Tamyt:

  Pet cat belonging to Thutmose [Real]

  Merymose’s Family:

  Merymose:

  Half-brother of Haqwaset and Viceroy of Kush [Real]

  Merkare:

  Merymose’s wife [Fictional]

  Aperel:

  Son of Merymose and Merkare [Real]

  Djutmosis:

  Son of Merymose and Merkare [Real]

  Maiherpri:

  Son of Merymose and Merkare [Real]

  Yuya’s Family:

  Yuya (Yusuf):

  Slave, later Overseer of the King’s Granaries [Real]

  Asenath:

  First Wife of Yuya [Composite]

  Tjuya:

  Second Wife of Yuya [Real]

  Tiye:

  Daughter of Yuya and Tjuya (Queen Tiye ‘Great Royal Wife’ of Haqwaset) [Real]

  Ay:

  Son of Yuya and father of Nefertiti [Real]

  Anen:

  Son of Yuya [Real]

  Nefertiti:

  Daughter of Ay [Real]

  Kha’s family:

  Kha:

  Tomb Painter [Real]

  Merit:

  Kha’s wife [Real]

  Djoser:

  Son of Kha and Merit [Fictional]

  Tawy/Tawosret:

  Daughter of Kha and Merit [Composite]

  Merit:

  Daughter of Kha and Merit [Real]

  Perneb’s Family:

  Perneb:

  Thief [Fictional]

  Nofret:

  Perneb’s wife [Fictional]

  Pihuri:

  Son of Perneb and Nofret [Fictional]

  Takhat:

  Pihuri’s wife [Fictional]

  Place names:

  Kemet:

  Egypt

  Waset:

  Thebes/Modern Luxor

  Ineb-Hedj:

  Memphis

  Ipet-Sut:

  Temple of Karnak

  Ipet-Ryst:

  Temple of Luxor

  Iunet:

  Dendera

  Khent-min:

  Akhmin

  Kush:

 
Nubia/Northern Sudan

  Naharina:

  Mittani Kingdom; roughly covering modern day south east Turkey, Syria and northern Iraq.

  Hor-em-Akhet:

  Great Sphinx at Giza

  Per-Bast:

  Bubastis

  PART ONE

  PERNEB’S DREAM

  “If a man sees himself in a dream…”

  Opening line of Egyptian Hieratic Papyri,

  Dream Interpretation Scroll,

  c. 1400BCE – British Museum.

  Wind and waves pummelled my body. Hands and feet blistered and raw, eyes stinging, lips cracked and split, throat burning. All of this as nothing compared to the excruciating pain caused by the captain’s incessant whipping. Each flogging creating fresh welts across my back. Crimson rivulets trickled down, mixing with crystalizing salt. Open wounds crying out in agony, for mercy, for release. The favoured instrument of punishment, for this sadistic seaman, was no ordinary whip, but the supple branches of a willow tree. Pliable, strong, taken in bud, certain to inflict multiple overlapping lesions, guaranteed to draw blood.

  Khonsu, the moon god, had deserted us. Neither he nor the star gods showed themselves. A deep, torchless-tomb blackness surrounded us.

  ‘Get the sail down,’ yelled the captain to anyone who could hear him.

  ‘Too late,’ shouted the imey-hat, his second in command. ‘You’ve killed us with this foolhardy venture. Taking a river trading boat out onto the open sea is beyond stupidity.’

  I watched as shadows moved in front of me. My hands and arms locked rigidly around the helm, muscle and sinew straining, weakened by the pounding sea, the lashing wind and scourging whip. The boat rolled violently.

  Looking once more in my direction, his whip struck again. ‘Perneb, you imbecile, hold the course. I bought you for your youth and strength. I wasted my gold. You’re nothing more than a milksop, with the muscles of an un-weaned runt. Keep us straight.’

  His attention turned once more to the imey-hat. ‘It’s my craft. I decide what to do, where to go.’

  ‘Do you also decide on the life and death of your men? For that’s what you’ve done.’

  ‘I’ve told you, get the sail down and hold her steady,’ replied the captain.

  ‘How many more men are you going to kill with this idiocy? This boat isn’t carrying enough ballast to survive in these seas. I warned you, she’s a trading vessel. Her keel’s too shallow, her bottom too flat. We’re too light to cut through the waves.’

  ‘We have to save her. This is my livelihood.’

  ‘And our lives, you spawn of Set.’

  All my efforts to keep the boat on course were in vain. The wind had risen without warning, taking us by surprise. Waves the height of pyramids swamped us. The angered primal waters spewed over the prow, filling the boat, threatening capsize. Another plaintive call came from in front of me; one more sailor lost over the side. Hatred, for the man who had brought us to this, welled up inside me.

  He continued venting his rage on me with his whip.

  ‘This is all your fault. If you’d done as I ordered and held the boat straight, heading directly into the storm, we could have ridden this out.’

  He lashed me again. New wounds opened on my back. New stripes for the salt water to attack. New sites of suffering. His arm arced backwards, ready to strike another blow. Before he could complete the swing there was a crashing sound. The boat rose at an impossible angle. Splintering wood attacked my face, arms and chest.

  ‘We’ve struck a rock,’ I cried, as I plummeted into the blackness.

  *

  I awoke, face embedded in a sandy beach. I raised my head and spat out the golden grit which coated my tongue and gums. The captain was lying a short distance from me, his grotesquely misshapen leg contorted under him. In his hand he still had a firm grip on his willow branch whip. His glare enough to send some men to the afterlife.

  ‘This is your doing. I‘ve lost everything. My crew are all dead – if I could reach you I’d beat the life from your body.’

  ‘May The Devourer eat your heart,’ I said. ‘I didn’t ask to be your slave; I didn’t ask to be whipped. Let the gods decide a fate for you, one which befits your life.’

  I rose. Scanning the horizon, the endless sea took up most of my view.

  ‘There are no rocks. Where’s the boat?’ I asked myself, confused.

  My gaze moved inland, beyond the strand a row of trees greeted my eyes. An ostrich turned and peered at me in that disdainful, haughty manner only ostriches have mastered. Deciding I was of no interest, it paced away along the tree line. The sun burned my back. The open lesions had disappeared. More confusion.

  I walked towards the trees, for shade, perhaps a stream of fresh water. My throat was dry, begging for a drink.

  On reaching the woods, trees of all descriptions hemmed me in, acacia, ash, willow, sycomore, maple, countless others. The noise and cries of injured birds created a cacophonous wall of sound. No avian arias to soothe my mind, only the screeching terror of heart-wrenching intensity. Confusion was turning to fear.

  There were snares everywhere. Birds, trapped by their legs, calling out in distress. Their companions blasting out shrill warning cries from high above. Beside me a bustard thrashed around wildly. I looked at the trap which had caught it. It was familiar, a slender perch balanced with a rock, food placed invitingly. The unsuspecting prey, enticed to the right position, its weight on the stick enough to release the stone counterweight and pull the noose tight around its legs. I had set these kinds of traps myself many times. Despite the bird’s valiant efforts to fight me, I took hold of its head and body. My right hand stretched and twisted its neck; when resistance ceased I let the flaccid form drop. A quick and, I hoped, painless death.

  Beside the dead bird, on the bough of a tree, lay a sycomore leaf, a fig tantalisingly resting on it. I sat on a tree branch and devoured the succulent delicacy. Sweet and nourishing, it seemed to calm me. Feeling more relaxed, I examined the noose around the freshly executed bird’s legs. It had a knot I knew only too well, with three wraps around the bight instead of two. This was my knot. Invented so I could recognise my snares.

  This cannot be right. These cannot be mine. It’s impossible.

  Fear and panic pervaded my very being.

  I screamed.

  chapter one

  The boat, captain, trees and birds were a dream, but the scream was real. Real, and loud enough to wake everyone in the cell. Perneb sat up, shivering, sweating, hands resting on his knees, rocking gently backwards and forwards. Enveloped by fear, his adrenaline filled heart, beating hard and fast.

  Kha was closest. The piercing cry penetrated his sleep and woke him with a start. He sighed, resenting being roused, but said nothing.

  Through slits high on the walls, the newly risen sun’s rays brought warm air and light to the rancid room. Fresh air was a gift, diminishing the putrid stench of ten men sharing this confined space.

  No other prisoner spoke, although they too, had been roughly woken. Perneb wasn’t the first of them to call out in his sleep.

  Kha felt the touch of a hand on his shoulder and, as he half turned, he saw Yusuf approaching the distressed captive.

  ‘Who else would it be? Who else would know what to say to the frightened man?’ he thought.

  Yusuf walked the few steps beyond Kha, his stance upright, his footsteps measured, his demeanour calm. Incarcerated for three years, Yusuf was too tall to be a Kemetian, his nose too angular, his speech heavily accented. Younger than the others, a subliminal aura of authority surrounded him. He was revered by all in the cell; even the guards appeared to recognise that he was special, treating him with uncommon respect.

  Yusuf knelt down beside the
shaking man.

  As Yusuf stretched out his arms to take Perneb’s hands in his, Kha looked, for the uncountable time, at the ugly welts on the foreigner’s wrists. He knew Yusuf had made a slave’s journey to Kemet, tethered with strong leather straps. The tight bindings, cutting deep into his flesh, meant he would bear these scars for the rest of his life.

  ‘A reminder of where I came from, and maybe of where I will return to one day,’ Yusuf had said, when Kha once remarked on the long healed wounds.

  ‘What is it?’ Yusuf asked Perneb.

  ‘A nightmare,’ he said, his eyes focusing somewhere in the distance.

  ‘Tell me, perhaps I can help. Can you remember it?’

  ‘Even the smallest detail – it still seems so real.’

  ‘Then let me hear it.’

  As he spoke, Perneb’s eyes never moved from a spot on the wall, somewhere above Yusuf’s head.

  Kha kept his attention on the conversation unfolding beside him. The skill of interpreting dreams was a gift, granted by the gods to only a few. Yusuf didn’t look directly at Perneb, but knelt with head bowed and eyes closed, all the time keeping the man’s hands in his own. The concentration on his face brought lines across his brow.