The Horns Of Hathor

By Richard Quarry

Pharaoh Akhenaten has just decreed that in place of Isis, Hathor, Thoth, and all the other traditional gods of Egypt, only one true divinity shall now exist — himself. And so he directs Chenzira the Scribe to Thebes, the capital of the priesthood, to cancel the largest religious celebration of the year, one which attracts hundreds of thousands of worshippers, all believing that next year's harvest and their own survival depends on it. Hardly an enviable task. Especially after word comes that the Pharaoh's first representative has been murdered in the Temple of Karnak. And the killer? None other than the goddess Hathor herself. Can Chenzira and his faithful baboon Mouse survive vengeful priests, a mob howling for their blood, and of course the wrath of Hathor?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Quarry
• Release date: Apr 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201220648

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The Horns Of Hathor

Richard Quarry

Copyright © 2022 by Richard Quarry

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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Contents

The Horns of Hathor

About the Author

Man of Many Turnings

The Horns of Hathor

In the fifth year of the reign of Amenhotep IV, when the Pharaoh declared himself the son of the newly created solar deity Aten, changed his name to Akhenaten, and decreed that henceforth no other gods but he and his father the sun would be worshipped throughout Egypt, Chenzira the Scribe was dispatched to the Temple of Karnak to stop the Festival of Opet.

Held in the second month of the Nile flood, when the silt-laden waters reached their height, the Festival brought tens of thousands — many tens of thousands — to Thebes to beseech the god Amun Re for a bountiful harvest, that they might not starve to death in the coming year.

For this reason, Grand Vizier Ramose urged the Pharaoh not to drive Amun Re and his priests from Karnak until the Festival had been completed and the hordes had returned to their villages. Otherwise, he intimated, some catastrophe ranging from bloody chaos to open and stubborn revolt would surely ensue.

Nefertiti, however, the unsurpassingly beautiful and equally unsurpassingly willful queen, demanded that the Festival be cancelled at once, and the priests forced to worship the new god. At the point of a sword, if necessary. As it surely would be.

And so it was decreed.

Before leaving for Thebes, Chenzira, whose name meant Born On A Journey, was transformed by royal decree into Second Prophet of the Temple of Karnak, the traditional title for the priest who carried on the actual administration of temple affairs, the High Priest attending to religious observances. The appointment was a great, indeed an unprecedented honor for one of common birth.

Nevertheless, Chenzira failed to rejoice. For he was in fact the second man named to the post of Second Prophet. And the first, sent to cancel the Festival before him, had suffered a grisly death.

Messengers from Thebes reported that the killer was none other than the goddess Hathor herself.

The crowds poured out to surround the column before they arrived in sight of Thebes.

First came clouds of dust roiling above the desert, which General Nazim announced signaled the approach of thousands. He called for the soldiers marching along the road to spread out in defensive formation.

Chenzira countermanded the order. Take the statues from the carts, he directed instead.

General Nizam looked at him dubiously. The Second Prophet squatted and with a snicking sound called his leashed baboon Panya, who clambered up into his arms and bared her formidable teeth. Responding to the invitation, Chenzira stroked her gums.

The statues, he repeated.

General Nizam gave the order.

They’d debated this in camp the night before. Or not debated, exactly. Instead General Nizam and his officers had pointed out that as pious followers of the god Aten for all several months of the new divinity’s existence, they would hardly be fulfilling the spirit of the Pharaoh’s directive if they marched into Thebes displaying statues of Amun Re, not to mention his wife Mut and son Khonsu, along with Isis, Hathor, Osiris, Horus, and even the dwarf god Bes, cat goddess Bastet, and pregnant hippopotamus goddess Taweret, all looted from smaller temples passed along the way.

If you prefer, Chenzira replied, we can approach the city behind the Dazzling Sun Disc of Aten, that the divine Pharaoh in all his bounty has given us to install in the Temple of Karnak.

The choice is yours, Second Prophet, General Nizam said quickly, his senior officers nodding solemnly while a scribe noted the transaction on his wax writing tablet. We merely wish to point out our great love for Aten.

Very commendable. But we march behind Amun Re.

Chenzira had previously sent messengers ahead to inform the priests at the Temple of Karnak that despite all ill founded rumors, the Festival of Opet would not be cancelled. At which General Nizam, in one of his rare outbreaks of sincerity, intimated that Chenzira the Scribe would die with Nefertiti’s voice ringing in his ears.

Do you remember Inherka, who so displeased the queen when she found a spider in the reed mat he brought her? the General had said.

I have been trying not to, replied Chenzira.

How many days did that go on? And every single one of them Nefertiti came and—

Enough, General.

And it was but a small spider, utterly harmless.

I said enough.

Sensing her master’s unease, Panya, whose name means Mouse, flashed her eyes at General Nizam in a way that