The Girl Who Heard Dragons

Zulei, Grace, Nimshi, and the Damnyankees

I remember very clearly the day Zulei and her son, Nimshi, arrived at Majpoor Plantation. Papa had just finished giving me a sidesaddle jumping lesson on Dido when Mr. James, our overseer, arrived with the new slaves. Despite Mama's best efforts, there had been some deaths among the field hands from an outbreak of measles. So, when Papa heard of the auction of prime bucks being sold off in Greensboro, he'd sent the overseer, Mr. James.

"And if you should chance to find a likely lad to exercise the 'chasers…" I'd also heard Papa say, when Mr. James stopped by the office on his way out of the place. Petey, a wizened little black who looked more like the monkey Mrs. LaTouche owned, had been broken up by a bad fall at the Greensboro 'Chase, and no other black boy could measure up to Papa's high standards to ride our 'chasers.

I wasn't supposed to know that, but I did. Being the youngest of six, and the only daughter, I knew a lot more of what went on than Mama would have thought proper for a girl. She had been plain scandalized when I had informed Papa that I was perfectly willing to ride our entry in the next 'Chase. Hadn't he said I had the lightest hands and the best seat on Majpoor? My brothers had howled with laughter and I'm sure that even Papa smiled a bit behind his full beard but Mama had made me leave the table for such pertness.

"I declare Captain Langhorn, I just don't know how I'm going to raise Grace properly if you, and your sons, encourage her improper behavior."

Mama was a Womack of Virginia and had standards of behavior from her strict upbringing that sometimes clashed with Papa's. Most of the time she laid that to his being English and having lived so long in India, fighting for Queen Victoria among pagan heathens. He even treated our slaves as if they had minds of their own and opinions to be heard.

"He never has understood how to treat darkies and I don't think he ever will," she would often complain, usually when someone had made allusions to the comforts and latitude Papa allowed our people.

"Why, lands, Euphemia," Mrs. Fairclough said to Mama once during a visit I'd had to attend, though of course I said nothing at the time (that much I had learned from Mama), "I do declare that her father treats your nigras like they was human."

"Captain Langhorn believes that it's only good husbandry to keep stock in healthy surroundings." Mama had inclined toward Mrs. Fairclough in sweet reproof. I knew she agreed completely with Mrs. Fairclough, but she wouldn't be disloyal to Papa. "I do believe, Samantha, that his methods have genuine results. Majpoor certainly gets more cotton and cane per acre than most anyone else in Orange County."

But that day, as the farm wagon brought the new purchases into the yard, I saw Zulei and Nimshi arrive.

"Ah found ya that rider, Captain," were Mr. James's first words. "Stannup thar, you Nimshi boy."

As Nimshi rose to his feet, he was facing in my direction and caught my astonished look. I knew all about high yallers, quadroons, and those sorts of distinctions among the blacks, but I'd never seen a boy with coloring like Nimshi. His hair was red, curled close to his scalp but not in kinky curls: his eyes were blue and his skin a light coffee color. He was slender, with fine bones and a face that I thought far too beautiful for any boy to have. More than that, he held himself with a casual dignity that no slave should display.

"D'you ride, Nimshi?" Papa asked, looking him straight in the eye and not as if he were a piece of merchandise. (Nimshi told me much later that that was the first reason he had to be grateful to Papa.)

"Yessir."

"Who'd you ride for?"

"Most lately, Mr. Bainbridge of Haw River."

"Why'd he sell you down?"

"He died and Mrs. Bainbridge sold up all the racers."

Nimshi did not speak in the pidgin speech most blacks used. He spoke as well as one of my brothers and much better than most house slaves. I'd heard Papa say once at a race meet that Mr. Bainbridge had some very unorthodox notions, coming as he did from Massachusetts. Mr. Bainbridge also had curly red hair, but I wasn't supposed to notice such things.

"What sort of a character was Nimshi given?" Papa asked Mr. James.

"Good 'un, Captain, or you kin bet yore bottom dollar I wouldn't've bought him. A well-grown fifteen years and not liable to grow too much taller. Not a mark on his back nor a word agin 'im."

Even then I was sensitive to what wasn't said, and so I looked at the others in the wagon, to see which ones did have marks on their backs or words against them. That's when I noticed Zulei. And realized that she had to he Nimshi's mammy for, despite the terrible gauntness of her face, her features were unusually fine, like Nimshi's. Her nose was particularly aquiline, unusually so for a Negress. Her hair was brown and straight, showing a few reddy glints, not blue-black ones; her eyes were gray, and she wore an expression of strange detachment that reminded me of the English porcelain doll Papa had given me for my birthday. She sat, hands limp and palm-up in her lap, unaware of her surroundings. Her wrists were badly bruised and bloody.

I don't remember what Papa and Mr. James discussed but on such occasions it was their habit to learn the names of every new slave and what he or she had done for their previous owner. I kept trying to catch Zulei's gaze and reassure her that she would never wear fetters at Majpoor, for Papa did not believe in such measures.

Then our head man, Big Josie, a gentle man for all he was twice the size of most field hands and very black, gestured for the new slaves to get down out of the wagon. I saw Nimshi go to her assistance, his expression full of concern. Papa saw the deference, too, and saw the telltale marks on her slender wrists.

"You, there," Papa said, gruff because he couldn't abide what he called sadistic treatment. He frowned, too, because he couldn't help noticing, as I did, that the bones of her shoulders poked through the flimsy fabric of a dress that seemed too ample for the slight figure it covered. "What's your name?"

"Zuleika," Nimshi replied.

Papa frowned at the boy, for he didn't tolerate impudence even if he was lenient. Then he gave Zulei an intent scrutiny.

"She can speak for herself, can't she? Your name, woman?" Papa spoke gently. Even though Nimshi was tenderly assisting her, she also had to hang on to the wagon side to descend.

"I am called Zulei, Captain Langhorn," she said in a firm, low voice.

"James, she's no field hand," he said to the overseer in a testy voice. He stared long and hard at her, puzzled. Abruptly, but still kindly, he asked, "Zulei, why were you chained? You run away from Mr. Bainbridge?"

She lifted her head, the gesture denying the suspicion. Nimshi said a single phrase to her but it didn't sound like geechee to me, much less English. She gave her head a tiny shake.

"No, Captain Langhorn, I did not run away." Her voice was still low and even, but the way she said "run" struck me as odd, for the r was guttural, the way Mrs. LaTouche said her r's.

Mr. James cleared his throat. "Now, Cap'n, Ah did deal on this female 'cos I figgered you an' Mrs. Langhorn might find a place for her now Miss Grace is growing up, like. She was trained as a lady's maid and she's well spoken, like. Then, too, Cap'n, seeing as how you never like to split up families, she's Nimshi's mammy. I didn't get no character for her, no character at all. Seems like she'd been some troublesome."

"Are you troublesome, Zulei?" Papa looked her squarely in the eye, at his most military. No one lied to my Papa when he gave them that look.

"I have never studied trouble, Captain Langhorn. Sometimes it comes where it's not wanted."

I remember Papa hmmmed deep in his throat as he does when he won't commit himself. I was then much too young to appreciate what sort of trouble might be meant: much too young to realize that Zulei's "trouble" was generated by her appearance.

"We will contrive to see it doesn't come to you here. Now, Josie" - and now Papa beckoned to him - "take Zulei up to the big house. Her injuries are to be treated. She looks half-starved. Ask Dulcie to fix her something nourishing. You are Nimshi's mother?" When she gave a brief nod, he added to Mr. James, "Then see that she is quartered with him in the mews."

The horseboys lived in quarters right in the stableyard to be close to their charges at all times, in case one got cast or became colicky at night.

"You will not regret this, Captain," Zulei said and made the oddest curtsy, clasping her hands palms together, their tips touching her forehead as she bowed her head. Papa gave her the strangest look, but when she dropped her hands she shook her head just once in a curious denial. Papa brought his riding crop down hard on his boot, then used it to point at Nimshi.

"Nimshi, you may take the pony from Miss Grace. Down you get, my dear," Papa said, and turned back to hear the rest of Mr. James report. I didn't wait for Nimshi to come to Dido's head but unhooked my leg from the sidesaddle horn and slipped to the ground, patting Dido's shoulder in appreciation. Nimshi was not much taller than I in those days but what recommended him to me was the way he held out his hand to my pony for her to get the smell of him before he so much as put a hand on her bridle. She was a spirited pony and didn't like unfamiliar hands on her.

Nimshi smiled as she blew into his hand, then, taking the reins from me, he ran the stirrup up the leather and loosened the girth expertly. I smiled in approval for he had done exactly what I was going to tell him to do. Sometimes even Bennie, who was head groom, would forget to loosen the girth of a horse that had been worked hard. Nimshi gave me a look that suggested I should never doubt his competence.

"I hope you'll be happy here at Majpoor, Nimshi. You must ride my Papa's horses to win."

"I always mean to ride winners, Miss Grace." And then he gave me a timid smile.

"That'll suit Papa down to the ground," I said, and then I decided it was time I got back to the house. Mama didn't like me lingering in the stableyard, even if that was the best part of Majpoor in my estimation and especially when new slaves were brought in. She always worried about the diseases they might have on them until they'd all had a lye bath, had their hides scrubbed with good yellow soap, and been flea-powdered.

So I had a very clear recollection of the day Zulei and Nimshi came to Majpoor. Mama wasn't as easily reconciled to Zulei's arrival ("That female's going to cause trouble, Captain, you mark my words" - which Papa did not), but somehow there never was any trouble with Zulei. Nimshi proved to be every bit as good a rider as he'd been touted. He truly loved horses and they responded to him as if they knew they could trust him. My brothers, Kenneth, David, Lachlan, Evelyn, and Robert, might complain that Papa said Nimshi this and Nimshi that, but they didn't object when Nimshi won race after race, and they collected sizable wagers from everyone in the county.

Mama reluctantly admitted that Zulei was more use than trouble, for the quadroon (that's what Mama said she was with her light skin, straight brown hair, and gray eyes) had a knowledge of herbs and remedies that was nothing short of miraculous - Mama's phrase. There were some murmurs about voodoo and obeah and conjure, superstitious twaddle like that which Mama wouldn't abide, not mutters that Zulei was different. My mammy said that Zulei wasn't one of them, not no way no how, but as Zulei was a slave, I didn't know what mammy meant. A slave was a slave. I asked Mama and she thought I was worried about all the superstitious talk. She made it quite clear to me that Zulei's understanding of simple remedies was quite unexceptional, nothing to do with black magic; only common sense.

Any resistance from the other slaves ended soon after Zulei concocted a potion that cleared up Daisy's rash and a poultice that eased old Remy's arthritis. She had a salve that made burns disappear, even those from splashings of boiling lye soap. She was a dab hand at lying-ins, though I wasn't supposed to know such things. I also heard - from Lachlan - about how Zulei's clever hands had turned the foal inside Joyra, Papa's expensive new thoroughbred mare, when it wasn't lying right to be born. Bennie had given up, but she'd brought the colt live into the world.

Zulei also made creams, which the other county ladies begged of Mama for they reduced freckles like nothing else could. She had all sorts of other female potions that Mama loved to dispense to her friends who didn't have anyone half so clever as Zulei. I do remember that Mrs. Fairclough wondered how Mama could stand to have such a frowsy slave attending her. Even Mama was surprised by that comment. Dulcie's feeding had put weight on Zulei's bones and Mama had given her one or two of her old gowns to wear, so Zulei couldn't be called "frowsy." Mama privately thought that Zulei was a shade too fastidious.

Zulei had a knack of refurbishing Mama's dresses or pinching in a bodice, altering a sleeve so that somehow the gown looked twice as elegant as it had new. She was deft at dressing Mama's lovely blond hair into the most intricate and fetching styles.

And when I was old enough to put my hair up, it was Zulei who curled it so fashionably and flatteringly.

In fact, that was one of the few times she had occasion to dress me for a ball. The year I was sixteen, the Confederacy declared war on the North. All the young men in the county, and some of those old enough to know better - like Papa - decided to teach the damnyankees - a thing or two and rode off to war.

I thought it was all very exciting, with six Langhorn men stomping about in their fine gray-and-gold uniforms: Papa had had so much experience in the British army, even if that had all been in India, that he was immediately made a colonel in the county regiment. Kenneth and David became captains and Lachlan, Evelyn, and Robert were lieutenants. And most of our beautiful horses became war steeds.

Our men rode off, handsome in their broad-brimmed hats, gold sashes around their waists and sabers and pistols on their hips. Everyone was on the front steps to wave them to victory. For it wouldn't take long for Southern gentlemen to teach those damnyankees what for.

Mr. James was left in charge of Majpoor, but no one minded that, for he was a fair man: even Zulei said so. Josie supervised the field hands, and Bennie, with Nimshi as his right hand, took care of Brass Sultan, Majpoor's stallion, and his mares and foals. I had let Lachlan, my favorite brother, have my very own Cotton as his remount so I was reduced to Dido again. That is, until Nimshi had backed a promising three-year-old flea-specked gray that Papa had promised me to replace Cotton.

Mama fretted from the moment she lost sight of Papa and the boys until the day she died of typhus three years later, despite all Zulei tried to do to break the fever. We all knew Mama wanted to die anyway once she heard that Papa had been killed in one of Jeb Stuart's cavalry charges against that damnyankee Mead, so it wasn't Zulei's fault. Though, by then, we all knew why she had had no character from the Bainbridges at Haw River.

"I know my medications, Miss Euphemia," Zulei had told Mama one time in my hearing, "I know how to reduce fevers, set broken bones, and help a woman in labor, but there was nothing I could do with snake venom. When they finally got Mr. Bainbridge home, the poison was all through him. What could I do then?" She had a very elegant way of shrugging her shoulders.

There was another reason why the Bainbridge overseer had chained Zulei up, but Nimshi told me that later, when I was much older and understood such matters better. It had had nothing to do with her nursing skills but a lot to do with why Zulei looked frowsy to some people.

When Zulei had confided in Mama, we all trusted her, having seen the near miracles she could work. But there are no miracles, near or true, to mend a heart broken by the deaths of her husband and three of her sons, and weakened by the privations that the war visited on all southern families. Zulei and I nursed Mama together and made her as comfortable as we could with what limited medicines we could find or Zulei could concoct.

We were luckier than most, I suppose, due to Majpoor's location. We suffered from the lack of supplies and things we had previously taken for granted. While battles raged in Virginia and up and down the coast of both North and South Carolina, we were not in the path of the combat nor near enough to benefit from blockade-run goods. We had trouble enough with deserters or, worse still, the cavalries of both armies that came hunting horses from Majpoor's acres.

It was Nimshi who devised the means to hide what few good horses we had reared, including my flea-specked gray gelding, Jupiter. And especially our precious stallion, Brass Sultan. He was old, twenty-five years now, brought from England by Papa to be Majpoor's foundation stud. He neither looked nor acted his age and, with the Confederacy three years into the war, any horse that could walk and trot went into the cavalry. Loyal though we were to the Confederate cause, Brass Sultan was far too valuable to be wasted as a remount.

Mind you, Sultan, a fine seventeen hands high, was not an easy horse to manage. Nimshi had an understanding with Sultan that was almost magical, and the stallion would follow Nimshi wherever he led. This became tremendously important when we had to hide Sultan.

Mr. James had piccaninnies stationed on every road and track to Majpoor, to watch for "visitors" and warn us, particularly of mounted men. When their whistle alarm was relayed across the fields to the big house, Nimshi would take Sultan and Jupiter down into the now empty wine cellar and swing a door covered by old trunks to cover the entrance.

As the war continued, Mr. James enlarged the hidey-hole to include whatever young stock we had and any barren mares. With Nimshi there to calm them, they stayed as quiet as mice no matter how fractious they'd be at other times.

That ruse worked very well for us until that morning when, with no warning at all, Yankee raiders came out of the woods from the mountains behind us. Sultan was actually covering a mare at the time. Six good strong two-year-olds were grazing in the front field, where they could be rounded up easily. The pregnant mares and those with foals at foot in the far paddocks were not vulnerable - yet - at least not to the Confederacy. You'd never know what damnyankees would do and our mares were proud, strong ones, with plenty of bone and spirit. Damnyankees might shoot the foals and take the mares although Mr. James didn't think that likely.

But this morning, we had no chance to hide Brass Sultan, or Jupiter or the two-year-olds. We could only watch in horror as the troops trotted up from the back fields, their uniforms so dusty that at first we thought they were our soldiers.

"Morning, ma'am," the captain said, saluting me as I stood on the veranda, terrified by his arrival. Zulei was at my side, for we'd just come up from the smokehouse, turning the few hams we had from this year's slaughtering. "Sorry to trouble you," he added, which was as untrue as anything any Yankee ever said. His eyes lingered briefly on Zulei, behind me, before they ranged down to the paddock and the young horses.

To my horror, Sultan bugled his success, an unmistakable sound so that, even before he swung off his tired horse, the captain signed several troopers to go investigate.

I prayed for Mr. James to come to my assistance. I felt so vulnerable with just Zulei beside me to confront such unwelcome visitors. I remembered how Mama had acted when she faced down damnyankees and I tried to emulate her calm disdain. But my knees were shaking and I felt sorely inadequate at that moment.

As the captain trudged up the veranda steps, Zulei flashed me one of her piercing looks. Usually I knew what Zulei meant but this time I couldn't interpret it. So I just stared through the captain, wondering how in God's name we were going to save my precious Jupiter and the young stock this time. "We're looking for remounts, miss. We need 'em badly," the captain said, slapping the dust from his dark blue trousers with worn leather gauntlets.

"You Yankees have been here before," I said as inhospitably as I could.

He turned his head, squinting at the youngsters in the field. Jupiter was lying down in the shadows of the live oak. Maybe he wasn't visible. There was a queer look on the captain's face as he turned back to me.

"I'll just take a gander at those in the paddock, ma'am," he said, blinking suddenly at me as if I had changed shape. "We might find something we can exchange for our lame ones."

"They're only…" Zulei pinched my arm sharply and I faltered. "… the only ones we have left," I finished lamely when he shot me another odd glance.

Zulei gave me a shove, so we followed him down to the paddock, a corporal and a private falling in behind us. My heart squeezed with fear. Surely they'd see that these horses were too young to be backed. Usually the young stock would come charging up to me, hopeful of some tidbit from my pocket, but today they stayed where they were, picking at the grass or standing hipshot and half-asleep. Jupiter hadn't moved from his shady spot.

Halfway across the field to the nearest two-year-old, a fine bay by Sultan out of one of the best 'chaser mares remaining to us, the captain stopped, pushing his hat back off his brow. He turned to his corporal, shaking his head.

"Those all you got, ma'am?"

"That's all we have left," I said, trying not to hope that they were going to leave us the two-year-olds: that for once a Yankee would leave empty-handed. Surely any horseman worth his salt could see that these youngsters hadn't grown into themselves, hindquarters higher than their withers, knees still open. "Cap'n, what we got's better'n those crowbaits," the corporal said, giving me a sympathetic glance.

I blinked, astonished, for there was no way you could call the two-year-olds "crowbait." Out of pride, I started to protest when again Zulei nipped the soft part of my arm.

"They're what the last troop left behind for us," Zulei said with bitter dignity, and I contained my surprise. "Took all the chickens and the last cow." Somehow she sounded exactly like Mama just then…

"Sorry, ma'am," the captain said and, gesturing to his men, started back to where the rest of his small troop were watering their horses in the fishpond.

The two troopers who had been sent to the stableyard had returned, shaking their heads, grinning slightly.

"Nothin' there, sir," the sergeant said, "but a rack of bones with big ideas."

While I was relieved beyond measure, for Sultan's loss would have meant disaster for Majpoor, I was surprised. No one could call Sultan a rack of bones! He might be a bit stiff but his coat gleamed and he held condition.

Another pair of troopers swung into the yard, their tired mounts at a shambling trot.

"Just mares and foals. Captain, and none of the mares worth bothering about" was their report.

I didn't protest, quite willing for their opinion to stand, though none of those mares were poor, either. One shouldn't question minor miracles. Majpoor might not have much grain to give its horses, but the grass was lush even with only manure to fertilize it in the spring and every animal we owned had a fine glossy coat and good condition on it.

"Captain." A grizzled sergeant came around the comer, our hams looped over his neck and draped down his pommel. He was grinning, all white teeth in a dirty face. "Got us some prime eating for tonight."

"Captain, those are our last hams!" I cried in considerable anguish. The pigs had not been as fat as in previous years, but they would add substance to hominy and beans and give the field hands some strength.

"Sorry, ma'am. My men haven't had a decent meal in weeks. Horsemeat's not so bad if you're real hungry. I know," he said grimly, and then waved a gloved hand at the paddock. "Not that there's much meat on that lot, but it's all they'd be good for now anyhow. My compliments."

And, while I stood there with my mouth hanging open, he gestured for his troop to move out, down the wide avenue to the main road.

Although the two-year-olds were forever racing up and down their paddock, especially if any horses were on the avenue, they stood where they were, like statues.

"Yankees! It's like them to suggest that we eat our horses," I muttered in outrage when they were far enough away. "Mind you, I regret those hams like the dickens, Zulei. I'm so tired of rabbit and pigeon I could scream. That captain can't know much about horses, nor those troopers of his. Strange, though, that the two-year-olds didn't run about like they…" I broke off for, as I swung around to Zulei, I saw how pale she had become. Her eyes went back in her head and she sort of folded up. I just caught her in my arms before she fell to the veranda floor. "Zulei? Zulei?"

I still carried a vinaigrette in my pocket, despite the fact that Mama was no longer alive to need it. So I held it to Zulei's nose. Feebly she batted it away but didn't open her eyes.

"I'll be all right. Miss Grace. It takes so much strength."

I stared down at her for a long moment, trying to absorb the significance of her words. Then Nimshi came racing around the corner of the house and up the steps, dropping to his knees at his mother's side.

"Mother?" He looked at me in alarm.

Her eyelids fluttered but she managed to lift one hand to his arm, reassuring him. I was anxiously feeling her pulse and her forehead, fearful that she had been stricken down with some fever.

"It's not a fever. Miss Grace. Mother must have done the biggest working ever to save the horses from the Yankees." Nimshi grinned proudly at me. "She's just weak. I'll just put her to bed. She'll be right as rain in the morning."

I stumbled to my feet as he picked up his mother's slender body, all limp in his arms, her lashes long against her cheeks.

"A big working? What do you mean, Nimshi?" I was frightened again. I remembered then the murmur of "voodoo, obeah, conjure" that had flickered through the slave quarter when she and Nimshi first arrived. "What happened in the stableyard? They didn't take a single horse. Said they weren't worth taking."

Nimshi smiled at me. "What they saw sure wasn't. Mother made sure of that, Miss Grace. Now, if you'll excuse me…" He carried her off the veranda, leaving me staring after him, trying to make sense of his words.

Just then Mr. James came running around the side of the house, breathless and perspiring. He'd been in the top field, and that was a long way for an old man like him to run. The expression on his face told me that he had feared the worst. Now he stared in astonishment at the foals cavorting about in the paddock, Jupiter leading the pack in their racing, and at the Yankee dust cloud barely visible down the Greensboro road. I decided then and there not to tell him what had happened. I didn't quite understand it but I thought I did. But this could not be classed as silly voodoo or obeah or conjure, which always dealt with black magic and death and evil things. What Zulei had done was good. Just as her salves and potions and poultices had been good, helping people. She had just helped us save the only valuable items left to Majpoor, our horses. I wasn't about to question this major miracle.

Considering that the Yankees found Sultan too poor to steal from us, it was gratifying when the colt foal that service produced was one of the best ever born at Majpoor. He was his sire's spit and image, a deep liver chestnut that was very like the dull brass of Sultan's hide, with three white socks, a well-placed white blaze on his forehead, and superb conformation. He was up and nursing his dam fifteen minutes after his birth, strong and energetic enough to kick anyone trying to come near and dry off his fuzzy foal coat.

Nimshi called him Wazir and the name was so appropriate that it stuck. It was a splendid homecoming surprise for Lachlan, though he had a sad surprise for us: he lacked half an arm and was deeply embittered by all he had seen of North Carolina as he made his way home. Amazingly enough, Lachlan still had my own dear Cotton, who was very much indeed a rack of bones, walking short from a saber slice on his left rear, with hooves split from lack of care and a hole on his once full neck where a Yankee miniй ball had plowed through it. Lachlan had only a blanket for a saddle but their return was a minor miracle for me.

I saved my tears until my exhausted brother had been fed and tucked in his bed. Then I cried my heart out in the stable, while Zulei comforted me and Nimshi hand-fed old Cotton.

"You've been brave so long, Miss Grace," Zulei said, stroking my hair. "Major Lachlan needs only rest here at Majpoor."

"He needs good nourishing food, beef broth, meat, butter, cream, and we haven't so much as a chicken or an egg for him." I wept afresh at my inability to care for my dearest and only brother now that he had finally come home. "Rabbit's good eating," Nimshi said, "and there're deer in the woods if you know where to look. Don't you worry."

I saw the look that passed between mother and son, but they often exchanged speaking glances and I was too woebegone to pay much heed.

The next day I rode Dido while Lachlan took my Jupiter about the place. He was amazed that we had saved anything, much less the bales of cotton we had hidden in the woods.

"That was Zulei's idea. We couldn't sell it, she said, but we could save it. Wars don't last forever and the English would buy Majpoor cotton."

Lachlan regarded me as if I'd turned green. "Zulei's idea? How could Mr. James allow a slave to…"

"Mr. James can't keep two thoughts together in his head, Lachie," I said, for I'd've thought my brother would have seen how vague the old overseer was. "Nimshi figured out where to hide Sultan and the others, and he and Big Josie see to what planting we've done. Majpoor would be a ruin if it hadn't been for Zulei and Nimshi."

Lachlan didn't reply to my heated defense but I knew it gave him much to think about, and I lost no opportunity to point out other ruses, contrived by either Zulei or Nimshi - like the kitchen garden hidden behind used banks of old manure on one side and thorn thickets on the other. Zulei's idea. I've often thought that the sight of the three-year-olds in the paddock were all that saved his sanity. By the time we walked back into the stableyard, Nimshi had finished gutting a fine stag.

That night, Lachlan made a fine meal of the venison, washing it down with moonshine, procured by Big Josie from who knew where. After that, Lachlan seemed to drink rather more than I thought a gentleman should. Every morning Zulei had to force one of her remedies down his throat.

"He feels the phantom pain," Zulei told me, "of the hand they amputated. That happens."

"Can't you make it go away, Zulei?" It was wrong of me, I know, to wish for another miracle from her, but how could I have known then just how much these years had cost her in strength; how often she had clouded the avenue so that deserters didn't find their way to our house or cavalry see the true form of Majpoor's horses, or even see me young, innocent, and vulnerable.

As I clutched at her arm, Zulei gave me a long piercing look; the expression in her eyes going from anguish, to deep sorrow, to such resolution that I was ashamed of my momentary weakness.

"I'm sorry, Zulei," I said. "How could you have a salve to heal a hand that's not there. And I know we've no laudanum left so that corn liquor will have to do to cut the pain." We used the last of Mama's supply when one of the field hands had nearly severed the calf of his leg with a cane knife.

Lachlan tried, though, with white lips and pain-racked eyes, to take up plantation duties. He told me how brave and resourceful I had been to keep everything going as well as I had. I repeated that I'd had help from Zulei and Nimshi and he gave me an odd look. But it was so good to have my brother back that I scarcely noticed anything other than my joy at having one Langhorn spared by the terrible conflict. As a mark of that joy, I willingly gave him Jupiter to ride - until Cotton was restored, I told him with a laugh, though we both knew Cotton's working days were over. But having a fine horse between his legs did Lachlan the world of good. Until darkness fell and he had to wrestle with the phantom pain again.

Often I would see Nimshi supporting my brother up the stairs to his room in the small hours of the night. I would see Zulei ascending them in the morning with the tisane to cure his hangover. She looked as worn as Lachlan.

Then those occasions dwindled and, at my tentative inquiry, Lachlan muttered something about an itch being an improvement over an ache. He began to take a real hold of the management, consulting with Nimshi and Big Josie. Mr. James was relegated to sitting on his porch and swinging, seeming not to notice the passing hours. I assigned one of our older women to tend to his needs and see he ate.

Many of our people had drifted off once conditions at Majpoor deteriorated, but, some months, we could barely feed those who remained. Lachlan organized the loyal ones who had stayed with us, and planted what seed we had. He and Nimshi took two geldings in to Greensboro to sell, and although there were few people able to buy anything, he did get some gold, though most of the sale price was our Confederate legal tender, which few of the Greensboro merchants would accept. The gold bought flour, mealy though it was, and machine oil and other things we could not make ourselves.

The next week we found Sultan dead in his box. Three days later the news of Robert's death reached us. The following week we learned of Appomattox. Lachlan sat in Papa's study and drank himself stupid.

He apologized to me the next day - once Zulei had got one of her remedies down his throat. He looked awful, even worse than the day he'd come home. "I understand, dear Lachlan, really I do," I said, and inadvertently glanced down at his arm.

"No, it's not my arm that made me want to get drunk, Grace, and it's not losing the war. It's what will happen now that the North has won."

"What more could those damnyankees do to us?"

Lachlan eyed me pityingly. "We're the losers. Papa used to fret a lot about what would happen after the war. Spoils are always divided after a war. And taxes raised to pay for it."

"How could we possibly pay taxes, Lachlan?" I cried, fear rising in my throat. I thought of the wads of now worthless Confederacy notes that we had so loyally accepted.

"Thanks to Nimshi, Majpoor's horses will provide us gold…" Lachlan said, and then grimaced, "if we can find buyers with any."

Buyers appeared, if not the sort we cared to sell our Majpoor horses to: dreadful encroaching people with smug smiles and loud voices and no manners whatever; carpetbaggers, scalawags, poor white trash pouring down from the North to pick what flesh remained on the defeated Confederate bones. At that we were once again luckier than many of our neighbors. For when horrific taxes were levied on the struggling impoverished South, many of the county families were reduced to penury, having to sell their family homes for a pittance. Majpoor's horses, so cherished during the war years, paid the crippling ones we were charged.

I know it grieved Lachlan to see them led away, tied to Yankee carriages or ridden by sniggering Yankee grooms, but it saved us Majpoor's acres, and put chickens in the yard, two cows in the barn, pigs in the pen, and new clothes on our backs.

It was then that I realized that Zulei was nearly as thin as she'd been the day she arrived at Majpoor. I picked her out a gown myself, even before I bought material for my own, but when I made her unwrap the tattered shawl from her shoulders, I saw how the war years had eaten into the very fiber of the woman. And when I pinned up the sleeve of Lachlan's new coat, I could have sworn that I'd mistaken how much of his arm had been amputated. No, not arm, for he had forearm to the wrist.

He looked at it, too, surprise on his face. He'd long since got over people staring at his injury but that didn't mean he, or I, looked at it often. "Does it still itch?" I asked him, not thinking of anything but surprise at my faulty recollection.

"No, it doesn't itch," he said in such a short tone that I regretted my question and stood back to admire my fine-looking brother. He had lost the haunting in his eyes and filled out much of the flesh the war had burned from him. His hair was glossy and his skin tanned right to the place where his hat covered his brow. "At least we won't disgrace the crowd at the 'Chase tomorrow."

For Wazir was old enough to race and the event had been scheduled by Yankees, to please all the Yankees who had bought plantations and now lived in our area, though of course they weren't received at Majpoor.

Then Nimshi, slimly splendid in silks Zulei and I had sewn him, rode Wazir to win, against Yankee horses, which made their owners mad. And some offered Lachlan paltry sums for the stallion, thinking we were poor enough to take what gold was offered and be grateful.

I was just coming to see if Nimshi had Wazir ready for the trip home when I heard one man offering Nimshi a job, telling him how much better off he'd be in a grand big Northern stable with many fine horses to ride, and proper quarters and money in his pocket. I admit I wanted to hear what Nimshi would say to such an offer. Loyal though Nimshi was to Majpoor, every man has his price, or so Lachlan said. We certainly hadn't been able to put much money in Nimshi's hand, even if he was emancipated.

"I ride for Major Langhorn," I heard Nimshi say with quiet pride.

"You can go where you want to now, boy," the Yankee said, his face flushed at the refusal. He clapped Nimshi on the arm, unaware of how Nimshi moved away from such familiarity. "You're not a slave anymore. You don't have to take orders from Southerners anymore."

"I have no wish to leave my employment with Major Langhorn," Nimshi replied.

"If you will excuse us," I said, sweeping in from the aisle between the stables, brimming with pride and relief over Nimshi's reply. "Lachlan's waiting for us, Nimshi," I said, and, making a great show of not letting my skirts touch the damnyankee, I put a hand on Wazir's halter and together we led our winner away.

"Well, I'll be damned! Did you see that? And she looked like a real Southern belle, too. One of them high yallers, I 'spect."

"See how she looked at him? I heard some of them Southern ladies got mighty fed up with all their menfolk away in the war."

I nearly choked at such insult and Nimshi began to trot Wazir firmly away.

"Don't you take offense. Miss Grace," he said, but there was something so fierce in his tone and his expression that I feared what he might do. And I was far more worried about that than any loose-mouthed talk from an ill-bred damnyankee.

" 'I have no wish to leave my employment with Major Langhorn,' " I said, mimicking him. "Nimshi, that was priceless. Wait till I tell Lachlan how you answered that damnyankee." Than I stopped, appalled at my selfishness. "Oh, Nimshi, maybe you should take that offer. We certainly can't pay you what you're really worth…"

Nimshi hauled Wazir to a stop and glared at me. "You will say nothing about that incident to the Major. He has enough to worry about."

"But, Nimshi…"

He fixed me with the sort of haughty stare that Zulei used effectively, his eyes glittering dangerously. "My mother and I owe you more than any Yankee could pay us."

"We barely pay you at all," I began, painfully aware of that.

"You paid us in a coin few people in our position ever receive, Miss Grace, respect and appreciation." I had never heard such fervor in Nimshi's voice before. "Your papa and your brothers left my mother alone. Your papa let me ride his best horses. Your mama never belittled us in front of her friends and you gave us back our pride. And we've been free from the moment Colonel Langhorn went to war. Mr. James gave Mother the papers."

I hadn't known that, and I had to run to catch up to Nimshi as he rushed Wazir onward.

"We've always been proud to work at Majpoor, Miss Grace, and do what we can to repay your parents for all their consideration."

"Oh, Nimshi!"

"Just for the record" - and Nimshi smiled around Wazir's head at me - "I'm not high yaller, though I am half-white. The other half of me and all of my mother is Arabian. But Mother was sold into slavery. In spite of that, I'm the grand-son of an emir, so you can't be insulted for being in my company. I'm better born than any of that Yankee white trash."

By then we had reached the wagon that Lachlan used to transport Wazir to the 'Chase. Once the tired stallion was loaded up, we all climbed to the high seat for the long trip back to Majpoor.

Our affairs began to improve with Wazir's win, for it was not only the purse but also the publicity about his speed and scope that helped us. Mares arrived for him to cover. Southern as well as Northern. Stud fees brought us money to restore the big house and the stables, to repair the quarters for those blacks who still lived on Majpoor, and to pay them a wage, and those we needed to hire to get the repair work done. So I was surprised when Lachlan began to drink again - brandy this time - and suffered his hangovers without benefit of Zulei's tisanes. At first I thought that Lachlan was being considerate because she seemed to be wasting away. I had her moved to the room next to me, for she often had bad dreams at night and needed to be roused to sanity. But when I took pity on him and made a potion, he wouldn't take anything Zulei had concocted, despite the fact that they had always done him good. Then he began to avoid Nimshi instead of spending every minute of the day working side by side with him in Majpoor's management and the breeding operation. I thought at first it was because Lachlan was handicapped in helping Nimshi break and school the youngsters. That it was painful for him to watch someone else do what he had been so good at before the war. When I did notice the estrangement, and the hurt it caused Nimshi, I confronted Lachlan.

"I don't know why you're angry with Nimshi, Lachlan, after all he's done for us…"

"It's not the all, Grace, but the how," was Lachlan's cryptic response. We were having diner and Lachlan was drinking brandy with the meal.

"Whatever do you mean?"

Lachlan gave me a blank stare. "I wish they'd both go!" he blurted out, giving me a look that made me shudder.

"Both? Zulei…" My protest was simultaneous to his denial.

"No, no, I don't really mean that. Grace. I just… don't know… I'm afraid. Grace. I don't understand what's been happening. Or how!"

I hadn't really noticed until then that he had been keeping his stump in his coat pocket. Now he brought it out and laid back the cuff.

I gaped at what I saw - a tiny hand, growing out of the renewed wrist. The regenerated portion of his arm was healthy firm flesh and the little hand complete despite it being miniature.

"It's growing, too. Noticeably," Lachlan said, frowning at the grotesquerie. "I spotted the fingers coming out of the wrist before the 'Chase. I didn't think about it then because I didn't believe my eyes. I… don't know whether I want it or not."

"Not want your hand back? But you could ride and write your name instead of that scribble, and dance," I heard myself say, for I wanted nothing now so much as my favorite brother a whole man.

Lachlan stared at me and made an odd strangled sound. "You amaze me. Grace. You really do," he said, and looked down at his budding hand. Carefully he pulled down the cuff and shoved his arm back into the pocket.

"Does it hurt?"

"No, and it doesn't itch," he replied; then he went on in a different tone, pouring more brandy into his glass. "Tell me what else happened at Majpoor during the way. Grace. Tell me what else Zulei did with her black magic."

I shook my head. "She doesn't use black magic, Lachlan."

"Then what the hell is that?" he demanded roughly, jerking his chin at his pocketed limb.

"I don't know what art she uses but I do know that black magic is evil. Zulei isn't evil. Whatever…" I remembered the word Nimshi had used the day Zulei fooled the Yankees. "… working she does is not evil, for with it she protected me, and Majpoor. Restoring what you lost is not evil either. And she's not a Negro, so it's not conjure or voodoo or obeah that she's using."

"Not a nigra?" That surprised Lachlan so completely that I grinned at the effect.

"She's an emir's daughter and was sold into slavery," I said, willing to startle him into belief of Zulei's goodness. "Nimshi wouldn't explain why."

Lachlan gave a snort of disbelief. "And don't try to tell me Nimshi's not get of old man Bainbridge with that hair and those eyes."

"We're not discussing Nimshi's parentage," I said as primly as I could, recalling that Mama would have been scandalized to hear my brother mention such a topic in my presence, "which shouldn't matter a hill of beans when we owe everything we have at Majpoor to Zulei's help during the war."

"Exactly what form did this help actually take. Grace?"

I'd never heard my brother use quite that sort of tone before and, because I remembered the incident with that Yankee captain and Sultan, I related that and what Nimshi had said - that his mother had made the horses look different. And me.

"When they left, Zulei fainted…" I broke off because at that moment I realized why Zulei was so ill. I stared at Lachlan, at his pocketed arm, and nearly fainted myself. "Oh, no…" The chair toppled, I sprang from it so abruptly. I picked up my skirts and ran up the stairs, Lachlan calling for me to stop, to explain. "She's working herself to death for you!"

I burst into the room, not surprised to find Nimshi there; he often sat with his mother in the evenings. I fell on my knees at her bedside, staring down at her face, all bones and nearly skull-like in a deterioration that was rapidly seeping her life away.

"Oh, Zulei, you must leave off the working… you must! You and Nimshi have done enough!"

A wan smile curved on her lips, and I remembered how lovely she had been in the days before the war, and wept to see her so wasted now, as wasted as the South was. "Nimshi, how could you let your mother…" I cried, turning on him in my anger.

He shook his head and then I felt Zulei's fingers on my arm.

"It is not this working. Miss Grace, but the other which has drained me, as evil will."

"What other? You're not evil."

"The man who sold me into slavery," she said, and her eyes glittered feverishly, "has taken a long time to die. He could never get far enough away to shake the Curse I put on him, though it has taken my lifetime to do it. And my life. Evil takes its toll and the good I have done has not been enough to balance the vengeance exacted, rightful though it is. War is not the only way to waste the breath of life. Major Langhorn." She looked beyond me to Lachlan standing in the doorway. "For the kindness of your father and your mother, I used the Great Arts I was taught to heal the sick and injured, and to veil Majpoor's wealth and goodness from its enemies, hoping that that would expiate the other harm I did. Inshallah! May God now have mercy on me!"

Her breath fluttered and ceased. We were all so stunned by her death that we stared at her, incredulous, for many long moments. Then I closed her eyes and, marveling at the look of peace on her ravaged face, slowly covered it.

We buried Zuleika bint Nasrullah in the family cemetery with her real name on the headstone. You can see it there if your heart is pure enough to find Majpoor, for even now, Lachlan says that some folk still can't find the avenue, though it is plainly marked.

His hand grew, although it was never quite the same size as his left one. But he could now break and train the horses we bred. I was bridesmaid at his wedding to the daughter of a Northern lawyer who'd been sent south to see about claims of misappropriation of funds and carpetbagger chicanery.

Nimshi did go north, but for himself, with a son of Wazir and enough mares to found his own stable. And I, I went north, too. Where I could marry a red-haired emir's grand-son who bred horses that always won their races.