Flowers For the God of Love

by Barbara Cartland

  She had almost reached the spot that Rex had taken her to when she realised that she was not alone and saw the figure of a man sitting under one of the ancient cedars.

  She was not afraid, she was only surprised for she knew that no one was allowed inside the Government House compound.

  Then she saw that it was a Saddhu.

  She had seen a number of them by now so she was able to recognise him immediately.

  The yellow robe thrown carelessly round the body leaving one shoulder bare, the head shaved in the way that Rex had disguised E 17 and a general air of holiness and of being remote from the world.

  Because she was fascinated, she moved towards him, stepping off the path that she had been walking on to move between the trees until she stood in front of him.

  She saw that he was deep in concentration or prayer and his eyes were closed. She waited, feeling somehow instinctively that he was aware of her presence even though he made no sign of it.

  He looked to be a man of fifty. He might indeed have been very much older for Quenella had learnt that meditation and an aesthetic life, especially amongst the snows, kept a man looking very much younger than his years.

  Finally, when she had waited for what seemed a long time, the Saddhu’s eyes opened and he looked at her.

  “Forgive me if I disturb you – Holiness,” Quenella said in Urdu, “but I would like to – speak to you.”

  “Speak,” the Saddhu replied. “Ask the question that is in your heart.”

  “The – question?” Quenella faltered, taken by surprise. “I am seeking to understand and – to know so many things.”

  “You will find what you seek only through love.”

  The words came slowly from him and yet they were a pronouncement and, as Quenella drew in her breath, the Saddhu went on,

  “You are looking up at the heights. That is right, but you must also go down into the plains. The two complement each other. That is the law. That is the way to enlightenment.”

  “I don’t – think I – understand,” Quenella stammered.

  The Saddhu looked at her, his dark eyes seeming, she thought, to look inwards to her innermost soul.

  “You do understand,” he said at length, “and love casts out fear.”

  He closed his eyes and Quenella knew that their conversation was finished.

  For a moment she hesitated. She knew that he had not forgotten her, but he had no more to say and she dared not interrupt him further.

  She thought as she moved away that she would think of a hundred questions she wanted to put to him, but instead they did not formulate in her mind. She only found herself remembering what he had said – ‘love casts out fear’.

  Strangely the fears that had beset her when she had left England were gone. They had completely vanished and she was no longer aware of them.

  She realised that it was now weeks, perhaps longer, since she had last thought of the Prince.

  The hatred and the terror that she had thought would always haunt her had been submerged by all the new experiences that she had enjoyed in India and most of all by – Rex.

  She thought of him not only when he was present but when she went to bed at night and when she awoke in the morning.

  Suddenly she had an urgent desire to be with him to make him aware of her and to hear his voice.

  Because it was an impulse so strong that she could not disobey it, she turned and walked back towards Government House without walking on to the landslide.as she had intended.

  Instead of keeping to the path, she took a direct route through the trees and found before she reached the garden that she had walked into a maze of rhododendrons.

  Combined with the white blossoms of the temple flowers, they presented a picture that at any other time would have held her spellbound.

  Now she wanted only to reach Rex and she realised that for the moment she was lost among the shrubs that surrounded the more formal gardens.

  She thought that she would be wise to go back a little way and find the path with the orchids, but she was impatient and therefore began to push her way through the overgrown shrubs.

  Suddenly she heard voices.

  Instinctively she stopped and she heard a man say in Urdu,

  “Magi will strike anytime now.”

  It was not only the word ‘strike’ that brought Quenella to a standstill, but it was the way the words were spoken, softly, half a whisper, half a hiss with each syllable slipping over the other.

  “How he get in?”

  “Amar waiting for him in cellar.”

  ‘The guards may see him.”

  “No, he help Sadhin with logs, but sentries foolish, not realise two woodmen not one.”

  “That clever!”

  “Those who give order clever!”

  “That clever – very clever.”

  “Way prepared two days ago.”

  “Clever plan – very clever plan.”

  The two men chuckled and suddenly Quenella was aware of the significance of what she had just overheard.

  It was another move in The Great Game and Rex was to be assassinated. But this time the Russians, who else but the Russians, had bribed two men employed at Government House.

  Moving slowly so that her presence would not be revealed, putting each foot down carefully so as not to snap a twig of draw attention to herself, she crept away from the rhododendrons.

  Moving in the direction that she thought would take her round them, she sought the path with the orchids.

  It was only when she felt that it was safe to move quickly that she realised with a sense of panic that she had lost her way.

  Nowhere was there any point she could recognise and nowhere could she see either the path back to Government House or the house itself.

  There were trees but, covered with white clematis, they all seemed alike. There were rhododendrons and there appeared to be miles of them, but there was no way through them.

  Frantically she twisted and turned, pushed her way through the bushes and all the time she knew with an ever-rising sense of panic that it was growing later.

  The men, whoever they were, knew, as she did, that Rex would go to his office soon after three o’clock and not much later.

  If it was later than that the fire would be lit and it would be impossible for Amar to lurk in the great wide fireplace and jump out at him when he was alone.

  She had a feeling, although she had not seen the room, that Rex’s desk would be at the window, which would mean that the fireplace would be either on his right, his left or behind him.

  How easy for a man to stab or shoot him in the back.

  She was certain, however, that because they were in the hill country the assailant would use a knife, the long sharp-pointed knife that had accounted for so many deaths of British soldiers and which they feared as much as bullets.

  “Rex! Rex!”

  She knew that to save him she must reach him before Amar did, but she was lost, lost in what was now a nightmare of flowers, a hell rather than a Heaven of beauty.

  Then suddenly when she felt she must scream for help and hope that somebody would hear her, there was the orchid-edged path and ahead, showing through the trees, the turrets of the house!

  Even as she saw it, Quenella felt that the sun was not so hot, the shadows were growing and now it was only a question of minutes if she was to save Rex.

  Throwing down her sunshade, she picked up the front of her skirt with both hands and started to run.

  She ran faster than she had ever run before, knowing that somehow she must reach the Governor’s office where Rex would be bent over his papers, quite unaware that death lurked beside him.

  There was a long corridor that ran the whole length of the ground floor and Rex’s office was at the far end of the West side.

  Isolated as it was in Lucknow, the drawing room, the dining room and the ballroom were all at the other end of the house.

  Frantically, feeling that there was no t
ime to invoke help and no time to explain to the sentries outside the main door what was occurring, she reached the front door and tore into the hall ignoring the servants who stared at her in astonishment.

  She knew only too well how difficult it would be to explain the need for her haste and she felt too that they would find her Urdu, spoken in a breathless voice hard to understand, and the effort of explaining would slow everything.

  Instead, turning to the right in the hall, she ran down the corridor that led to the Governor’s office.

  She flung open the door, only to find that the room was empty.

  Rex was not there!

  For a moment she felt sick with relief and then some sixth sense made her close the door quickly, leaving herself outside in the corridor.

  If Rex was safe, the man who waited to kill him must be caught and prevented from trying again.

  Desperately, with her heart pounding from the rate that she had run at and her lips dry, she tried to think who the two men in the garden were besides Amar and the man who had helped him reach the cellar.

  Even as she stood there trembling, her breath coming through her parted lips, she heard footsteps and saw Rex walking unconcernedly down the corridor towards her.

  Without thinking and without considering what she should do, only aware that he was safe, alive and that she could warn him, she ran towards him.

  As he looked at her in surprise, she flung herself into his arms and pressed herself close against him, her cheek against his.

  She whispered in a voice that he hardly recognised,

  “They – mean to – kill you! Oh, Rex, there is a – man waiting to – kill – you!”

  Wonderingly Rex’s arms went round her, holding her close, and still she whispered against his ear.

  “He is – hidden in the – fireplace – he has been – waiting until you are alone. He has been paid – ”

  Rex held her close against him and said quietly,

  “It’s all right. Don’t tremble, but just tell me quietly what has happened.”

  Because of the terror she had been through, because his arms were so comforting and because she could not understand the feelings that possessed her, Quenella felt the tears come into her eyes and down her cheeks.

  “Don’t move,” Rex said. “Just tell me slowly and as quietly as you can what you know.”

  “I got myself – lost in the – garden,” she began, “and I heard two men – talking.”

  “In Urdu?”

  “In Urdu – but I could – understand.”

  “Good!”

  “They said someone had paid a man called Amar and he would get into the house with Sadhin when he carried in the logs. He was to – hide in the cellar and climb up into – your office through the – fireplace. A hole was – prepared two days ago.”

  She paused because it was so hard to breathe and Rex said against her ear,

  “Go on. Take your time.”

  “He will – kill you – I think with a knife – while you are at your desk and – I was terrified I would be – too late!”

  “But you are not,” he said quietly. “Now listen, go to the aides-de-camp’s room and tell whoever is there to send two soldiers immediately to guard the door into the cellar.”

  He stopped speaking and Quenella moved her head to look at him.

  “And send other – soldiers here?”

  “Later,” Rex agreed, “when I ask for them.”

  Her eyes widened and she cried,

  “You are not – going in there – alone?”

  “I shall be all right.”

  “No! No!”

  Her arms tightened round his neck.

  “I cannot – bear it – he will kill you – please, Rex, let the soldiers go – not you!”

  “I shall be more effective than the soldiers.”

  “I may – be wrong – he might have – a revolver.”

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “You are – walking into danger. They want to – kill you and if they do – I could not – bear it.”

  She felt his arms tighten round her as she spoke.

  Then he said,

  “Trust me.”

  “Please – please be more – careful.”

  “I will be because you ask me,” he answered.

  Then, as she stared up at him, her eyes filled with tears, pleading with him not only with words but with every nerve in her body, he looked down at her.

  Then, as if he could not help himself, his lips touched hers.

  It was only for a second.

  Then she was free and, as he released her, he said in a very different tone,

  “Go to the aides-de-camp’s room as I told you.”

  It was an order and he was moving away.

  She wanted to cling onto him and beg him even on her knees not to do anything so foolish or so dangerous as to go into his office alone.

  But she knew that he would not listen and she turned away despairingly to carry out his orders, knowing that she loved him and if she lost him now, everything that mattered would have gone out of her life.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As he left Quenella, Rex walked slowly and unhurriedly towards his office.

  He opened the door, stepped inside the room and stood still for a moment.

  Then he swore aloud in an irritated tone,

  “Damn!”

  He walked to the door and slammed it, but he remained inside the room.

  For a moment he was very still, taking his bearings.

  Quenella had been right in thinking that his desk was in front of the window and the fireplace was to his left.

  He anticipated that whoever was waiting for him would be in the left-hand corner, as from there it was possible to see him at the desk.

  The room was quite a large one and after a moment’s silence he began to walk noiselessly along the wall, which it was impossible to see from that corner of the fireplace.

  One of the first things those in The Great Game were taught was to move without being heard.

  This, of course, was particularly easy for Indians who went bare-footed, but far more difficult for Englishmen, who wore shoes or boots.

  Fortunately Rex had mastered the art of moving without making a sound in whatever he wore and after a few seconds he reached the side of the protruding marble chimneypiece.

  He drew from his pocket slowly and without haste a small coin and sent it spinning to the far corner of the room.

  It was an old trick, but it worked.

  The man waiting in the shadows of the fireplace stretched out his neck to see what the noise could be and the next moment a pincer-like hand gripped him agonisingly by the neck while an excruciating pain in his right wrist caused him to drop the sharp-pointed knife he held.

  *

  Quenella reached the aides-de-camp’s room and burst in to find that its only occupant was Captain Anderson, who was in the same Regiment as Rex.

  He was reading and, if she had not been so agitated, Quenella would have been interested to notice that it was a book on Tibet.

  As she stood in the doorway with her breath coming quickly and the tears still on her cheeks, Captain Anderson after one startled glance rose to his feet.

  “Your Excellency – !” he began.

  “You are to send – two soldiers to the door of the – cellar and let – no one escape,” Quenella interrupted him. “Hurry! Hurry! There is no – time to lose!”

  Captain Anderson did not ask questions, he merely obeyed the order, which he knew had come from the Governor.

  Rex had chosen his aides-de-camp well.

  Captain Anderson passed Quenella quickly and she leant against the lintel of the door, feeling curiously weak and yet at the same time every nerve in her body was tense because Rex was in danger.

  How could she know and how could she ever have guessed, that love would make her feel an agony of fear that was quite different from anything she had ever felt about hersel
f?

  Because she was so apprehensive, she wanted to fetch the sentries from the front door and scream for the assistance of the servants.

  But she knew, like Captain Anderson, that she had her orders and the one thing she must not do was disobey them.

  Slowly, with feet that felt as though they could hardly carry her, she walked back down the long corridor the way she had come.

  She approached Rex’s office, listening and feeling as if every other sound in the house was constituting a barrier against the voice she most wanted to hear.

  Silence would be ominous for dead men do not speak.

  Then, when she felt in a panic-stricken way that everything was quiet and she was sure that Rex was lying bleeding to death from a knife thrust, she heard his voice.

  She could not hear what he said but she recognised his calm tone and because it was such a relief once again the tears ran down her cheeks.

  He went on speaking and occasionally another voice joined his in the whining tones, she thought, of a man pleading for mercy.

  ‘Why does he not kill him?’ she asked angrily and then was shocked at herself that she should be so bloodthirsty.

  But, if it was a matter of Rex’s life or another man’s, she knew that there was no question of choice.

  One man or a thousand, they could all die as long as Rex lived.

  A few minutes later she heard Captain Anderson’s footsteps as he came to join her and as he did so Rex opened the door of his office.

  He stood there silhouetted against the light and everything that Quenella had wanted to say died on her lips.

  She could only stare at him as if he was an apparition from out of the sky Heaven-sent to take away her fear.

  “Come in, Anderson,” Rex nodded to the aide-de-camp and, when Captain Anderson moved, Quenella followed him into the room.

  On the floor was a miserable creature, his hands bound with his own turban, a handkerchief gagging him and preventing him from making any further sound.

  Rex made a gesture towards him.

  “Have this man taken away and locked up,” he said. “He will be charged with theft, as will the woodman whom you will find in the cellar. Two gardeners, Daud and Hari, are to be arrested and will also be charged with conspiring to steal. They are to have no communication with one another.”