Padway rescues the recently deposed Thiudahad and becomes his quaestor. He uses the king's support to gather forces to defeat the formidable Imperial general Belisarius. Padway manages to surprise Belisarius with tactics never used in the ancient world. Then, deceiving the Dalmatian army, Padway reinstates the senile Thiudahad and imprisons King Wittigis as a hostage. In 537, when Wittigis is killed and Thiudahad descends into madness, Padway has a protégé of his, Urias, married off to Mathaswentha, then crowned king of the Ostrogoths. He also tricks Justinian I into releasing Belisarius from his oath of allegiance and quickly enlists the military genius to command an army against the Franks.