ch-5 Tutankhamun Uncovered

The queen was greatly offended by Suppiluliumas’s reaction, but time and circumstances did not permit her the luxury of argument and, assuming all the dignity and reserve that family and position had bequeathed her, she calmly, patiently and thoughtfully settled herself to constructing a more acceptable response…

Great Lord of the North Lands,

For you, for your household, for your wives, for your sons, for your daughters, for your magnates, for your troops, for your chariots, for your horses, and for your country, may all go very well.

You do not believe my request. Your messenger says, “You conspire to kill my son and heir – to cut the bloodline of this great empire.” These are your words. What you say is untrue. You must believe my request. You do not understand my position. You must understand my position. By my first marriage I bore two daughters, both stillborn. I am without issue to continue the royal bloodline. No alternative is imaginable. Should you permit it with your distrust of my true intent, an aged uncle will take the line. But there is only a short time remaining to him. Much worse than this, a menace waits in the wings – Horemheb – the hateful one. You know of him. He who has threatened your lands before. He who has proven himself avaricious, untrustworthy, brutal, unmerciful. He who seeks only that which will secure his personal omnipotence. He who must be stopped.

The union I propose will avoid the unimaginable. The commingling of our two bloods will double our two empires at a single stroke, and peacefully, as within the crucible of our marriage bed.

It is from the very depths of my heart that I ask you to grant this behest. I long to unite our two great empires with this marriage.

But there is very little time. I am to take a husband before the next fullness of the moon. Otherwise the kingdom will be lost to the bloodline of an evil usurper. At the funeral that waits upon the rising of Osiris – the rising that waits upon no king – he who is present to open the mouth of my dear departed Tutankhamun – it will be he who takes the crown of Egypt. Send my husband to me.

This is what I long for, day and night.

Ankhesenamun, Queen of Upper Egyptian Heliopolis

To the Hittites, and no less to Ankhesenamun, there would be great appeal to the elimination of the warmonger, Horemheb. For the gods the royal couple were omnipotent, the incarnations of gods on earth. They could exact retribution on any in the court but the priests, and none would question the reason. There would be peace between their great nations. Better still, to his people Suppiluliumas, through his son, could claim peaceful victory and control over the Egyptians. It was too good a fit, too irresistible.

Nevertheless, another three weeks had passed since the chamberlain of the King of the Hittites had left with her letter. She waited anxiously for what, in the time left to her, would be the final response – her destiny.

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