On the twenty-ninth day of the month of Hoyak, December, on the thirteenth anniversary of the foundation of the City of the Sun and the day of Aton's nativity, the king set out on his journey.
Everyone wondered at his breaking his oath not to leave the domain of Aton, but they did not wonder very much; it was the privilege of a king and a god to release himself from his vows, and besides, many had noticed that his fervour for the new faith had begun to cool. The decree prohibiting the worship of the gods had never been declared after all, and the day of departure was fixed on the very day of the great festival, as though on purpose to cancel it.
The king made no secret of his journey: he was going to Memphis to see Horemheb, the Viceroy of the North, to persuade him to take Saakera's place as heir to the throne. Sensible people rejoiced: they did not want Saakera for king; there was nothing to be proud of in being ruled by a king who had his ears boxed by his Ethiopian concubine; Horemheb, the husband of the queen's sister, Nezemmut, a direct descendant of the great king Tutmose the Third, had every right to reign; the gods themselves had commanded him to do so. "The gods rocked thy cradle," as it said in the song of Amon's priests. He was a faithful servant of the king and was not implicated in any court or priestly intrigue; but he had not been false to the faith of his fathers, had not worshipped the new god, and the enemies of Aton hoped he would destroy the work of the apostate king and restore the old gods.
Everyone rejoiced except the queen. The parting from her husband frightened her; she had never been parted from him during the fifteen years of their married life. Did she suspect anything? If she did she showed no sign of it, but submitted without a murmur. She did not ask him to take her with him—she knew he would not; and besides she could not leave Rita, who was ill. And she herself was not well: she had a racking cough, was feverish at night and there was an ominous flush in her cheeks.
The king had not been seen so joyful for years as he was on the day of his departure. Only when he took leave of the queen a shadow passed over his face; but he looked at Dio and was happy again.
The crowd on the quay was joyful, too. When the king's ship set sail, a white falcon, the bird of Horus, circled over it, foretelling a happy journey.
The people stood for some time watching the three ships, magnificently painted and gilded—marvels of gold, purple, and azure, half birds, half flowers—glide along the white water: after the overflow the Nile turns white 'like the milk of Isis.'
Memphis was four hundred aters from the City of the Sun, down the river.
The further the king went the happier he was, as though he had, indeed, escaped from prison. It made him happy that the yellow streak of the dead sands and the black of fertile earth stretched on either side of the river simply, quietly and monotonously: life and death side by side in eternal union, eternal peace; that the slow oxen were drawing deep furrows in rich earth and the bright green crops already showed here and there, and the monotonous singing of the ploughman echoed far in the stillness of the fields.
A deserted temple of the Sun, built a thousand years before Akhnaton, stood at the edge of the desert in the middle of a great pyramid cemetery, within four or five hours' journey from Memphis down the river.