Shadow of the Moon by M. M. Kaye

lit stairways, Juanita’s room seemed to blaze with light and it was full of people. Aziza Begum was there with two of her daughters and several serving-women. Juanita herself was holding a letter in her hand, and her face was white and frightened.
    Sabrina stopped on the threshold and stood quite still. Her mouth was still curved with laughter and for a moment it stayed that way, as if Juanita’sface had been Medusa’s head and had turned her to stone. Then her lips closed stiffly and she said: ‘Marcos—?’
    Juanita ran to her, putting her arms about her and holding her close.
    â€˜Do not look like that,
querida
. He will not die. Many recover. Do not look so!’
    Sabrina put her aside, pulling herself free of the clinging arms, and spoke across the small, hot, crowded room to Aziza Begum:
    â€˜What is it? Tell me.’
    â€˜It is the cholera, my daughter. One of thy husband’s servants brought a letter from my son. He thought it best that we should know, so that—’ The Begum checked herself and then said: ‘But thy husband is a young man and strong. He will recover, never fear. There is no need for thee to be over-anxious, little heart. In a few days he will be well again. Many recover from the cholera who are not as young and as strong as he.’
    But Sabrina did not hear her. She had heard only the one word - cholera! The swift, dreaded plague of the East. Marcos had cholera. Even now he might be dying - dead. She must go to him. She must go at once …
    The heat of the small room pressed upon her with an almost tangible weight, but it seemed to her that her brain was suddenly very clear and cold. The only clear thing in this queer hot room full of oddly hazy faces and bright spinning colours. The only cold thing in this furnace-like city. She looked at the faces around her, trying to focus them. Dark anxious faces. Dark anxious eyes. Juanita’s blanched cheeks. They were kind. She knew that. But they would try and stop her. They would prevent her going to Marcos. But Suliman was tethered by the gate. If she could only reach him she could ride away to Marcos and they could not catch her.
    She backed away from them very slowly. Juanita took a swift step towards her, her hand outstretched, and the roomful of faces seemed to surge up and forwards. Sabrina whirled round and ran towards the stairs. The steep dark stairway yawned below her feet and she heard footsteps running behind her and glanced over her shoulder. And then she was falling, falling - falling into a hot spinning darkness that reached up and engulfed her.
    Sabrina’s daughter was born as the sun rose, after a night of agonizing labour, and Juanita, watching the white lips move, bent close to catch the whispered words:
    â€˜Don’t… let… it… touch—’
    â€˜No, no,’ comforted Juanita, not knowing of what she spoke.
    â€˜The shadow—’ persisted Sabrina. She was too exhausted to turn her head, but her eyes turned, and Juanita following their gaze saw them rest on the curious curved shadow of the crescent moon that the early morning sun threw across the wall, and she rose quickly and drew close the heavy wooden shutters that should have been closed an hour earlier to conserve what little coolness the night had brought into the room.
    Sabrina closed her eyes and lapsed into a coma, and Zobeida crouched beside her fanning her tirelessly all the long hot day. Late in the afternoon she moved her head and said one word: ‘Water.’ She drank thirstily but with difficulty. Aziza Begum brought her a tiny, swaddled bundle and laid it beside her, but Sabrina’s eyes were closed and she paid no heed.
    She lay motionless on the low Indian bedstead and her mind wandered back to Ware in winter-time; to keen biting winds and a white expanse of snow against which the yew trees and the leafless woods cut sharp black silhouettes; to icicles fringing the leaden