"Did you see him? The Great God Shiva. He came tonight. And danced beside me. Did you see his beauty?" She paused to breathe, then her voice rose again, full and warm. "He was as I knew he would be. Beautiful beyond telling. He danced in a ring of fire, with his hair streaming out in burning strands. He came as Shiva the Destroyer. But his dance was so beautiful. So very, very beautiful."
[CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE]
From the Tuzuk-i-Arangbari, the court chronicles of His Imperial Majesty:
“On the day of Mubarak-shamba, the twenty-eighth of the month of Dai, there came first reports of the pestilence in the city of Agra. On this day over five hundred people were stricken.
The first signs are headache and fever and much bleeding at the nose. After this the dana of the plague, buboes, form under the armpits, or in the groin, or below the throat. The infected ones turn in color from yellow inclining to black. They vomit and endure much high fever and pain. And then they die.
If one in a household contracts the pestilence and dies, others in the same house inevitably follow after, traveling the same road of annihilation. Those in whom the buboes appeared, if they call another person for water to drink or wash, will also infect the latter with the sirayat, the infection. It has come to pass that, through excessive apprehension, none will minister unto those infected.
It has become known from men of great age and from old histories that this disease has never before shown itself in this land of Hindustan. Many physicians and learned men have been questioned as to its cause. Some say it has come because there has been drought for two years in succession; others say it is owing to the corruption of the air. Some attribute it to other causes.
The infection is now spreading to all towns and villages in the region of Agra save one, the noble city of the Great Akman, Fatehpur.
Wisdom is of Allah, and all men must submit.
Written this last day of the Muharram in the Hijri year after the Prophet of 1028 A.H., by Mu'tamad Khan, Second Wazir to His Imperial Majesty, Arangbar.”