“If you are going to eat that,” Karede said as though there were any question, “you will clean it in the stableyard out of anyone’s sight.” Ajimbura would eat anything except for lizards, which were forbidden to his tribe for some reason he would never make clear.

“But of course, high one,” the man replied with the hunch of his shoulders that passed for a bow among his people. “I know well the ways of the townspeople, and I would not embarrass the high one.” After close to twenty years in Karede’s service, without a reminder he still would have skinned out the rat and roasted it over the flames in the small brick fireplace.

Scraping the carcass off the blade into a small canvas sack, Ajimbura tucked that into a corner for later and carefully wiped his knife clean before sheathing it and settling on his heels to await Karede’s needs. He would wait like that all day, if necessary, as patiently as a da’covale. Karede had never puzzled out exactly why Ajimbura had left his hill fort home to follow one of the Deathwatch Guard. It was a much more circumscribed life than the man had known before, and besides, Karede had nearly killed him three times before he made that choice.