quick

Then spoke,

a slave!—but, still, he was the general.
"And just which sorry lot of Indian soldiers do you think is going to make the arrest?" demanded Valentinian. Anastasius glared about the teeming street. Fortunately, there were no Malwa soldiery within sight.
The slave stared at the two cataphracts. Then, suddenly, he laughed.
"Truly, you Romans are mad!" His face broke into a smile. He looked at Belisarius, and shook his head.
"Keep the dagger, master. There is no need for this gesture."
A quick, approving glance at the cataphracts. "And, while I have no doubt your men would cheerfully hack down a squad of Malwa dogs, I do not think you need the awkwardness of the situation. If they saw me carrying the dagger, they would try to arrest me. The Malwa are very strict on this matter, especially with Maratha slaves."
Belisarius scratched his chin. "You have a point," he admitted. He slid the dagger back into the sheath.
"Walk with me, if you would," he said to the slave. "If you will not tell me your name, you must at least tell me of your life."

By the end of that day, the slave was comfortably ensconced in the room which Belisarius shared with Garmat. The room was small, true, and he occupied only a pallet in a corner. But the linens were clean—as was the slave himself. He had enjoyed his first real bath since his enslavement. Belisarius had insisted, overriding the scandalized protest of the hostel owner.
That night, the slave began his duties, instructing the general in the written form of Marathi. As Belisarius had predicted, the slave was amazed at how rapidly his new master learned his lessons.
But that was not the only astonishing thing, to the slave, about his new master and his companions. Three other things puzzled him as well.
First, the soldiers.
Like most Maratha men, the slave was no stranger o