Mayspeak was a branded thief, caught and convicted of gem thieving thanks to the loose tongue of his fence. The marred skin on his right wrist was half healed, still brightly pink and throbbing dull pain that turned sharp at any touch and around his throat was a talisman to keep him from trying to run away. He was lucky not to be sent to the mines or the fields to break his back in hard labour in a near hopeless bid to buy back his freedom, but had been sold as an indentured servant to a caravan master -<em>this</em>caravan’s master - to do the lesser tasks and help with any task that sprang to mind.<br/><br/>The task he was at now was to toil along towards the rear of the caravan itself, chasing the slow moving heard of loam ox the caravan master had bought cheaply. Their bodies were smaller than their north-bred cousins, though still stood a good head height above Mayspeak. They were slow and lazy, needing to be constantly harried along to keep up with the pace of the caravan. For the task, Mayspeak had been given a staff with two dozen bells on its end - the noise of it meant to spook the beasts into quicker step, though this group didn’t seem afraid of it at all.