Light of Aten

[Image by Gilles DETOT from Pixabay.]

~~~~~

"Truly outstanding work, Thutmose."

Pharaoh Akhenaten bent down to inspect the line of his wife's jaw one more time. His pale eyes narrowed into a painful-looking squint and I sighed apologetically, struggling not to choke on the dust spirals kicked up by our feet in our little dance around the sculpture. The light in my workshop was not ideal, and if I could not afford a tiered skylight then a proper housekeeper – or even a slave – was certainly out of the question...

"Absolutely remarkable! It looks just like her."

The breath I'd been holding practically exploded from me. "Th-thank you, Your Majesty!" I bowed as low as I could manage, biting the inside of my cheek when a stabbing pain in my neck brought me up short.

After several months, and many nights, hunched over my workbench, I was ready to take a sabbatical from my sculptor's workshop and indulge in a stay at the mud baths in Memphis. The damned students could teach themselves for a few weeks. It was not as if their parents paid me the full value of their apprenticeships, in any case.

A more respectable master would really have a decently-lit workshop. Open windows, multi-level blinds on the ceiling that would close against the rain, perhaps a chair...

Rubbing my eyes did nothing to soothe the headache building behind them.

The pharaoh himself was in my shop and I didn't have a damned chair.

I was fortunate that Akhenaten didn't have me flogged as the proprietor of a public eyesore, let alone that he had chosen to become my patron... and if I ever forgot that fortune, my wife was often conveniently on hand to remind me. It was further fortune that her mother had chosen this very morning to fall gravely ill, else I might have also had to contend with the censuring stares from my lovely Satsobek during this trial.

I would have to remember to pay tribute at Thoth's shrine on my way home, in gratitude for His very thoughtful gift; a mortal man could only be expected to handle so much at once, after all.

Remorse tugged at me as I pictured my poor wife managing three children, an ailing mother, and her household, while I stood here praising the luck she likely damned at this very moment.

On further thought, perhaps I would take her to the mud baths as well.

Provided I was alive at the end of this meeting.

Akhenaten squinted and frowned, pointing to the dull limestone socket as he stepped closer. "It seems to be incomplete here... Her eye. Where has it gone?"

"Ah, yes..."

What to say to that?

Sorry, but your wife's eye was crushed beneath the heel of a clumsy ox named Meru?

Or perhaps, Apologies, Highness, but we seem to have developed a last-second shortage of quartz...?

"I'm afraid there was a mishap earlier today," I offered, my gaze flicking hesitantly between Akhenaten's own piercing scrutiny and that of the iaret on his crown. The snake's beady stare transfixed me like a mouse, floundering momentarily for words as I also tried to recall the proper way to breathe.

"One of my students asked for further instruction on the proper shaping of an eye, and I am afraid I did not guide him with enough care..."

"Ah! Say no more." The king waved a hand dismissively, the effigy's damaged vision evidently already forgiven. "Without mistakes, how would we learn?" He stepped back, nodding at me as his brow furrowed. "You have the materials you need to construct a replacement, yes?"