Free Soldier of Sidon by Gene Wolfe Page A

Myt-ser'eu?"
    If she had been frightened, and I think she had been frightened badly, she had recovered. "They are grasping,too, Sahuset. Grasping and devious. You forgot to mention that."
    "So I did, but only because it did not seem to apply. I was a priest myself for some years, and thus I am in a position to know."
    "Have they cast you out?" Myt-ser'eu's hand tightened on mine.
    "I cast myself out. I wanted knowledge. They wanted gold, as you say, and power. More land. More and more land. Yet I still have friends among the priests at my old temple. Do you believe that, Latro?"
    "Certainly," I said, "it seems very probable. I feel that I have friends far away too, and though I do not remember them, I would like to find them."
    "I may be able to help with it. I mean to take you to my old temple when we reach it and prove the truth of my assertion. Meanwhile, I wanted to warn you, as I have, and remind you I'm a friend--hers as well as yours."
    We thanked him.
    "Qanju did not know the meaning of Myt-ser'eu's name until his scribe traced it on the deck for him at our meeting. So it seemed, at least. He does now, and we may be sure he will tell the priests here that a woman of that name is on board."
    "You called yourself an outcast," I said, "though you say the priests at your temple did not cast you out."
    "So I am. I am of Kemet, but a southerner. I was born--it doesn't matter. Here in the north, my own people consider me foreign. We of Kemet have little tolerance for foreigners, the Nine Bows who have brought us only war and rapine, century after century."
    I said that I would try to bring none.
    "Oh, particular individuals can be well-intentioned, and even useful. But as a class ..." Sahuset raised his shoulders and let them fall. "Now we are occupied by aforeign power. The satrap governs us mercifully and with justice--governs us better than most of our own pharaohs did, in my judgment, but he is resented just the same, and his countrymen are resented still more."
    "And I with them. That's what you're saying."
    "Among other things, yes. As for me, the satrap finds me useful, and rewards me for my services. I am a wise man of Kemet." Sahuset laughed again. "We're not the only ones who find foreigners useful at times, you see. As for me, I take his gold. I'm hated for that by men who would grovel for it, were it offered to them."
    Myt-ser'eu surprised me then by saying, "I'm as much an outcast as you are. No, as much as you and Latro together."
    "'Marry a maid from your own village.'" Sahuset smiled. "Isn't that how the poem goes? 'Have nothing to do with the strange woman.' That's in it someplace too."
    "I'm sure it is." Myt-ser'eu turned to me. "I might as well tell you--I don't think I ever have. Once a woman leaves her neighborhood in Sais, she is marked. It doesn't matter if she comes back later and lives there again. She's still marked. I was driven out." Her eyes filled with tears. "By my mother, my sister, and my brothers. That doesn't matter either. I'm still marked. There are men who'll marry a strange woman, but not many."
    I hugged her, and Sahuset refilled her cup.
    "What she says is true of villages and every city in this land," he told me. "What I've said is true as well. On our ship I'm the greater outcast. Surely you've seen that."
    I said, "I noticed that you never spoke during the meeting. The rest of us did, and even Azibaal talked a lot. But you did not."
    "Correct. I would have told them the truth if they had asked for it. Yet I knew how the truth would be received, and thought it better not to voice it unless I was asked to."
    "Then speak this truth to me," I said, "I ask for it now."
    "Very well. But first--our ship is in my country, but neither its captain nor its crew are of my country. It is commanded by a Man of Parsa. A good man, and a wise one by his lights, but a foreigner. The only countryman of mine who has any authority at all has sided with the People from Parsa much more firmly than I have.