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 minie 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."