The slave eyed him, making his own estimations. But not long, for he was in no position to choose.
“As you wish,” he said.
“What is your name?”
The slave opened his mouth, closed it. A bitter little twist came to his lips. “Call me ‘slave,’ ” he said. “The name is good enough.”
Belisarius laughed. “Truly, a proud folk!”
He smiled down at the slave. “I once had a Maratha slave, in a different—long ago. He, too, would not tell me his name, but would only answer to ‘slave.’ ”
The impulse was overwhelming. The special dagger he did not have on him, of course. It was stowed away in his baggage. But Belisarius always carried a dagger on his sword belt. He drew the weapon. It was not as excellent a dagger as the other, but it was still quite finely made.
A quick, practiced flip of the wrist nestled the blade in his palm. He proffered the dagger to the slave, hilt-first.
“Take it,” he commanded.
The slave’s eyes widened.
“Take it,” he repeated. His own lips twisted crookedly.
“Just so,” he murmured, in a voice so low that only the slave could hear, “should men dance in the eyes of God.”
The slave reached out his hand, drew it back. Then spoke, this time in fluent Greek.
“It is illegal for slaves to possess weapons. The penalty is death.”
The cataphracts, hearing the slave’s words, bridled. They thought their general was crazy, of course—handing a dagger to 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 to warfare. Though not a kshatriya, he himself had fought in battles, as a youth. Had been rather an accomplished archer, in fact. So he was not inexperienced in these matters. Within a day, he decided that he had probably never encountered such a lethal crew as the Roman cataphracts and the black soldiers—the sarwen, as they called themselves.
Yet, quite unlike most warriors he had encountered in the past—certainly Malwa warriors—they were strangely free of the casual, unthinking brutality with which most such men conducted themselves toward their inferiors. They were not rude or impolite toward him, even though he was a slave. And it was quite obvious that the women who shared their quarters were neither afraid of them, nor timid in their presence. The soldiers even seemed to enjoy their badinage with the women, and the teasing.