A Love That Never Tires (25 page)

“This is a courtyard wall,” he explained to Linley. “We could scale it easier than we could look for a door.”

She shielded her face from the rain and looked up at him. “Scale it?”

“Sure.” He grabbed at a piece of loose vine and gave it a hard tug. The vine did not budge. “If we used this vine as a rope—”

“Not so fast,” Archie said. “There is no ‘we’ about it. Your idea, your job.”

Patrick gave the vine one more yank. “I’ll do it. How hard can it be?” He found a place where the thick, twisted vines still clung securely to the wall, and he put his boot into one of the loops. Using them as a foothold, he started his slow, steady climb.

Patrick did not look down. He kept his eyes forward and his mind focused. How different could climbing a wall be from climbing a tree? Not much, he found, as long as he took his time and thought about where he placed his hands and feet.

He finally reached the top of the wall and used his arms to pull himself up onto the ledge. Patrick looked down into the temple courtyard below. It was covered in leafy ferns and young trees whose roots busted through the stone floor.

“What do you see?” Sir Bedford called up to him.

He could see that the courtyard was vast. What once may have been lily pools were grown over, and the roof of the central building lay in rubble.

“I say!” Linley’s father called again. “What do you see?”

“Not much,” Patrick replied. “The place is in ruins.”

He could hear Archie snort. “Of course it’s in ruins!” he said. “We’d wouldn’t be here if the bloody place was ship-shape!”

Surveying the temple courtyard further, Patrick saw fallen statues twisted with vines. He was about to call for Linley to come up and see for herself, when something out of the corner of his eye stopped him.

Snake
. He could barely see it. He had to look again just to make sure he had, in fact, saw anything at all. But it was there, slick and black among the vines. Patrick inched away from it. He had no idea if it was poisonous or not, and he certainly wasn’t going to take any chances.

“What’s wrong, Patrick?” Linley called up to him.

“Snake.” His voice came out as a strangled whisper. Clearing his throat, he tried again, this time loud and clear. “A snake.”

“Don’t move!” she said.

The snake moved in silence through the leaves and vines that grew over the wall. Easing his foot along the ledge, Patrick inched away. His heart pounded against his chest. His eyes never left the snake. It was a few feet away from him, and he prayed it wouldn’t come any closer.

He kept sliding his feet, slowly putting distance between him and the snake. Linley warned him to keep still, but he could not listen. There was nothing worse than a snake, especially one as big around as his forearm. Patrick went to lift his foot over a thick vine, but the heel of his boot slipped against it, and he fell.

Grabbing blindly at the wall, Patrick came down hard on his side, and then slid off the edge. He clung to the inner ledge of the courtyard wall by the tips of his fingers. The toes of his boots scratched against the weatherworn stones as he tried to pull himself back up.

“Patrick?” Linley called. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine…I think.”

“Where are you?”

He dared not look, so he clenched his eyes shut. “On the other side. But I’m in a bit of a jam,” he told her. “There is a very big snake up here, and I’m afraid he is very, very close to my hand.”

“For God’s sake, don’t move!”

Patrick nodded, his face brushing against the wall. He was in no position to argue.

The snake slipped through the vines, meandering its way along the top of the wall. Clearly, it was master of this temple and had little reason to hurry. Patrick counted the seconds, waiting for the snake’s fangs to sink into the flesh of his fingers. He could feel its tongue darting in and out of its mouth, tasting the air, sensing the heat Patrick no doubt emitted.

He held his breath.

Waiting.

Expecting.

Patrick felt the smooth scales as the snake brushed against his fingertips. It must have been right on top of him.

He went still. As still as a man could be in his position.

The snake moved along his fingers, playing against his knuckles. It slid, as soft as satin, across Patrick’s skin, and, despite his best efforts, he felt his hands trembling. The waiting was agony. He almost wished the snake would get it over with. Bite him. Send him to his death and relieve his misery. Just end the interminable waiting.

But the end never came. The snake, unconcerned with the throbbing fingers and tense, white knuckles beneath him, slithered on. Patrick felt his arms give away. He dropped into the courtyard, the broad, leafy ferns breaking his fall. He lay sprawled on his back, exhausted.

On the wall above, two hands emerged from the vines, then two elbows, and finally two slender arms. Linley’s head poked over the ledge, a machete gripped between her teeth. Seeing Patrick spread out on the wet ground, she pulled the knife from her mouth.

“I came to rescue you,” she said, grinning down at him.

Patrick threw up his arms, huffed out a shaky breath, and dropped his head back against the ferns.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

“Golly,” Linley said, surveying the temple courtyard from within. “Just look at this place. What do you think happened to it, Papa? Was it abandoned?” she asked. “Or simply forgotten?”

Sir Bedford bent down to pull the vines of a young strangler fig away from a headless statue. “My guess is whoever originally lived here either fled or were forced out sometime during the thirteen century.”

Across the courtyard, Patrick sat on the crumbling steps of the central structure. While the others were busy exploring the temple and studying the ruins, he needed a few moments to catch his breath. He had experienced quite a scare—and quite a fall. Although he felt certain his body would recover, he wasn’t so sure his pride would. At least not any time soon.

Thankfully, he’d been forgotten as the team rushed about the temple. Even Linley failed to notice that he slunk away from the group.
 

Patrick had to admit that the temple held some strange, calming properties. As if the world beyond the courtyard was a dangerous, hostile place, but within these walls no harm would come to him.

To any of them.

But that wasn’t the case. If what Bedford said was true, even the peaceful Buddhists were not safe.

“Why were they forced from this place?” he asked.

Sir Bedford turned to him. “Persecution. Illness. Who knows?”

“Who would persecute Buddhists? Don’t they stand for peace and enlightenment?”

The old man walked slowly across the courtyard, making little notes in his notebook as he passed by something of interest, stooping here and there to quickly sketch what he saw. “Think of all the peoples of this earth who do not stand for peace—Christians, Muslims, the Mongols. It would not be hard for them to conquer where they faced little resistance.”

“If the Buddhists were driven from this place,” Reginald called from within a partially collapsed collonade that ran along a distant wall, “where did they go?”

“Some went along the Silk road,” Sir Bedford said. “Others fled to the north.”

“It’s safe to say your scrolls aren’t here,” Reginald said. “Do you think they took them Northward when they left?”

“That is my sincere hope.”

It seemed to Patrick they were on a hopeless quest. Thousand-year-old scrolls could not have survived this long whether they were housed in the jungle or the mountains. They rarely even survived in a library, where they were handled with the utmost care.

“They could have been lost,” Patrick argued. “Or they could have been destroyed.”

Sir Bedford shook his head. “You must have faith, Lord Kyre.”

“Yes, but we also must think rationally.” He rose to his feet to face the team. “You said yourself that these Buddhists were persecuted and probably attacked. Couldn’t the invaders have burned everything? And if not, couldn’t the scrolls have been damaged while the Buddhists fled along some mountain pass? The journey certainly must have been dangerous, even by today’s standards.”

“Therein lies the beauty of my profession,” Bedford explained. “What you deem impossible, men like Reginald, and Archie, and myself prove to be true. We do it time and time again. In fact, the more you say something cannot be done, the more we delight in doing it.”

“Bedford!” Archie called out from somewhere deep within the central structure of the temple complex. Unlike the others, he dared to brave the collapsed building and explore further into the ruins. “Bedford, you must come and see this.”

The team ran over to what was left of the doorway. Archie reached his arm from beyond the rubble, helping Sir Bedford pick through the fallen stones of the lintel and jambs. The others followed, soon finding themselves in a dark, dripping chamber.

“This must be the innermost temple,” Bedford said, studying it.

Patrick had to stop to let his eyes adjust. The only source of light came from a large crack in the roof, which allowed only one shard of illumination in at a time. On a sunny day, the room would have been dim. On a dreary, rainy day like this, it was nearly pitch-black.

Archie pointed to a set of steps cut into the floor at the center of the room. “There’s a passageway,” he said. “I nearly fell into it before I noticed it.”

“Probably leads to a meditation room,” Sir Bedford said. “Buddhists believe in the importance of fasting and self-reflection. The Buddha himself sat in meditation for forty-nine days without food or water. Instead of death, he found enlightenment.”

Patrick snorted. “Impossible.”

“You are so quick to dismiss their beliefs,” Bedford said. “But did not Christ survive forty days in the wilderness? Do you also scoff and claim that to be impossible?” When Patrick said nothing, Linley’s father continued, “Buddha’s followers hope that, through their own deprivation, they too will find nirvana. Although, it is a well-known fact that persons suffering from starvation and dehydration—and even seclusion for long periods of time—will begin to suffer hallucinations. Organs will fail. The body will shut down. Some argue that these hallucinations are often mistaken for visions. And that the inner peace which the person experiences is actually the onset of death itself.”

“Which do you believe, Papa?” Linley asked.

“I believe whatever was once down there has long since been removed,” he said with a sigh. “It makes more sense to assume the scrolls are being housed in a monastery high in the Himalayas. They would be much, much safer there.”

“Safer from what?” Patrick asked.

“The elements.” Sir Bedford leveled his eyes on Patrick from across the fire. “And from those who may not have the ancient texts’ best interests at heart.”

Patrick snorted. “Of course.”

Linley’s father turned his gaze to the rest of his team. “That is why we will continue onward into the north.”

“You’re proposing we go on to the Himalayas?” Reginald asked.

“Why not?” Sir Bedford asked. “We are more than halfway there already.”

Linley shook her head. “I thought we were going home if we did not find the scrolls. You said absolutely nothing about monasteries or mountains.”

Schoville had to agree. “Bedford, we’re not prepared to go to the Himalayas.”

“It is not the Himalayas as you think of them,” Linley’s father explained. “It is really more of the foothills of the Himalayas. No snow, no mountaineering, no caving. Just a few more days of traveling.”

Linley looked from Schoville to Archie, to Reginald, and finally to her father. “Do we have enough provisions?”

“More than enough for the trip there,” Schoville said. “But the return…”

“We can get food from the monks,” Sir Bedford told them.

Patrick cleared his throat, drawing attention his way. “Even after you’ve taken their sacred religious texts? I find that very hard to believe.”

Archie barely resisted the urge to strike the man. “You do not get an opinion. You may have pushed your way into this expedition, but you are not part of the team.”

“Archie…” Linley said, trying to stop an argument before one began.

“Be quiet, Linley. Someone needs to say this, and I guess I’m the one who will have to do it.” He pointed at Patrick. “You may be used to getting your way in London, but just because you have a title doesn’t mean you have a say with us.”

“Papa, tell him to be quiet!” Linley cried. “He is being very unfair to Patrick.”

“No,” Sir Bedford said, shaking his head. “I’m afraid Archie is right. Lord Kyre is not part of this team and, therefore, does not get a vote. Now, all in favor of continuing on, raise their hands.” Archie, Reginald, and Linley’s father put their hands up. “All in favor of returning home…” Linley and Schoville raised theirs, knowing they’d been outnumbered from the start. “Then it is settled. Tomorrow we head for the Himalayas.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Patrick beat the tall grass with a large bamboo stick. For the first time in days, the rain eased up, making their walk through the tiger-infested forests a little more pleasant. The elephants and their masters had long since returned to Guahati, leaving the Talbot-Martin team to continue on foot.

In the distance, pale green mountains blurred the sky, pointing them in the direction of the Himalayas that lay beyond. Every day, Patrick kept his focus on the horizon, ignoring the blisters on his feet, and delighting in each moment he spent at Linley’s side.

“Haven’t seen a tiger today,” he said to her. “Have you?”

“No, not today,” she said, walking beside him.

“I wonder where they all are?”

“Probably sleeping off this heat. We’re the only ones foolish enough to be tramping through the grass at this time of day.”

Behind them, her father and the rest of their team hacked and sliced at the grass. Linley and Patrick were younger—although Patrick only beat Reginald by a few years—and they moved faster than the others.

Patrick used his free hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. “Perhaps when we get to the edge of these grasslands we could ask your father for a break. I’m sure he could use a few minutes rest.”