The Angel and the Ring

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Brin, too, intended to arrive at a deserted camp. But he intended to arrive long before the townspeople, and he expected to find more than ashes and bones. He would reclaim what belonged to him.

  Chapter Nine

  “Do you need help?”

  Although Brin felt his heart leap inside him like a startled rabbit, he forced himself to straighten slowly to the soft, pleasant voice behind him.

  A girl’s voice.

  He put a calm look on his face before turning. After all, if she had meant immediate harm, she would have acted instead of spoken. Whatever answer Brin gave her, he preferred to do so without showing weakness of fear.

  Brin finally faced her. Behind him was a fire pit, long cold since the departure of the gypsies. In his hand, he held the broken stick he had been using to dig into the ashes.

  “There is blood on your clothing,” she said, “and straw in your hair. You stir a fire, yet I see no flames. I find all of this curious.”

  His questioner looked about his age. She wore the fine clothes of royalty and sat astride a white horse. Her hair was long and reddish blonde and tied neatly behind her shoulders.

  Brin almost bowed to her, such was her manner.

  “I am sorry to be an intruder on your field,” Brin said, assuming she was the daughter of the landowner. “I shall leave immediately.”

  “Before or after you find what you sought in the dead fire?”

  Brin kept his face frozen. He did not want his expression to betray how badly he needed what was hidden in the earth below the ashes.

  “Do not answer,” she said with the trace of a smile at his discomfort. “Instead, let me ask again. Do you need help?”

  “I need nothing from any person,” he said. “I need only to be alone.”

  “I find that an interesting lie,” she frowned. “How do you intend to flee the four men who approach on horseback?”

  She pointed behind him. He followed her arm with his eyes. He saw only the stone fence at the distant edge of the field and the rising hills beyond.

  “There are no horsemen,” he said.

  “Were there not four men last night?”

  How did she know?

  “And if I could find you so easily,” she said, “they will too. Where else would you go but to this camp? They will be on horses and coming from the town.”

  “Who are you?” Brin asked, suddenly afraid.

  “Your guardian angel.”

  Brin shrank from her.

  She laughed. “It is only a figure of speech. I am sorry. I had forgotten how strongly the gypsies cling to old stories and superstitions.”

  “You are here to guard me?” he asked.

  “In a manner of speaking, yes.” She smiled. “Those men on horseback seek the ring.”

  The ring. Brin immediately became guarded. If she knew about the ring…

  He looked beyond her to the trees along the stream at the other side of the field and the faraway woods past the stream.

  “Were I you,” she said, reading his mind, “I would not flee. Yes, before they arrive, escape is likely. Yet escape will not solve your problem. No matter where you travel, their spies will find you. They will seek you day and night. They will not rest until they have the ring.”

  “I cannot give them what I do not have,” Brin said boldly. “Last night, I tossed it into the darkness.”

  “You tossed a coin,” she countered. “You are quick-minded. I admire you for it.”

  How did she know this? And so quickly?

  “I cannot give them what I do not have,” Brin repeated. First a hooded stranger. Now this girl on horseback. Both of them knowing about the ring. Mystery overwhelmed him. His best path seemed to be in keeping his own secrets.

  “They believe you still have it as well,” she said. “They will torture you until you give it up to them. Or until they are satisfied you do not have it.”

  “What do you know of the ring?” Brin asked. “Why do you offer to help me?”

  “The story is far too long to tell now,” she said. “If you want to hear it, you must travel with me.”

  “Where?”

  “That too is part of the story I will tell as we travel.”

  “No,” Brin said. His muscles ached. He was cold, hungry, and thirsty. He was tired of these games with words. He did not trust her. Perhaps she was only after the ring like the others. “I will find my own way.”

  “To where?” she asked. “Back to the gypsies? It appears you have left them.”

  “Why should you care?” Brin said. “My life is my own.”

  “Your path matters much to me,” she said softly. “And your life is not your own. Or have you no faith in our heavenly Father?”

  “Must you speak in riddles?”

  “I will stop,” she said as she pointed. “They approach.”

  Indeed, there were four men. They were beyond the far edge of the field, coming toward Brin on black horses.

  “Chose between me and them,” she said. “You might have your doubts about me, but they are merely doubts. Of them, on the other hand, you can be certain they mean you harm.”

  There was no choice for Brin.

  “How can you help me?” he asked.

  “Give them what they seek,” she said. “Once they have it, they will no longer pursue you.”

  “I have already told you that —”

  Brin stopped, cut short by the motions of her hand as she tossed him a round piece of metal. He snapped it from the air and glanced at it.

  The ring.

  “It is a close copy, is it not?” she asked.

  Brin studied it. It was the same size and had similar markings, but it was not identical.

  “A close copy,” he agreed.

  “My advice to you,” she said, “is to give it up reluctantly. That will convince them that it is the ring they seek.”

  “After that?”

  “Once they leave, go to the stream. You will see a tall tree, once struck with lightning and now white from years of weather. Wait for me there.”

  “What if they kill me?” Brin asked. His sore arm was a reminder of how close they had come to succeeding the night before.

  “Look,” she said. “They wear masks.”

  Brin looked. Far away as they were, he could see their faces were covered with dark cloth.

  “The masks show they wish to remain unknown to you. Would they go to such effort if they intended to kill you? No. They only seek the ring. To them, you are merely a pawn.”

  “And to you?” he asked.

  The four horsemen had reached the stone fence, perhaps a half mile distant.

  “That is a fair question. Yes, to us, you are also a pawn. It will be a great service to us if you mislead them with this false ring. Yet you are more than a pawn. You will have the opportunity to test yourself and join us if your heart is right.”

  “Us?” he asked.

  The drumming of horse hooves reached him faintly. His attention, though, remained on her.

  “Those who sent your father into this far land.”

  Again. His father!

  “Who?” Brin demanded. “Who are you?”

  She turned the horse with a flick of the reins. She looked back at him and uttered five simple words before riding away from him and the approaching horsemen.

  “Keepers of the Holy Grail.”

  Angel Blog

  There. Finally, you think. You now know the extremely important reason that our Father sent me into Brin’s life.

  The Holy Grail! The cup that Jesus used in His Last Supper! Something that people have searched for over the last 20 centuries!

  Boring. Boring. Boring. Your human ideas of what’s importance are often ridiculous.

  I wish you could fully understand what truly matters to our Father. Your precious souls, not some cup. End of story.

  But I’ll explain anyhow.

  In light of all the centuries of human history, the life and death of an old
beggar in the slums of some big city might seem so unimportant that it would be beyond notice. Yet my greatest glory and honor to our Father has come on the occasions when He sent me to protect such beggars from untimely deaths. Even with people as poor and dirty and unnoticed as beggars, our Father wanted to give them one more chance to live long enough to choose faith in our Father and join us in the Eternal Home. And upon arrival after they did die, each of those beggars – unknown to you but infinitely treasured by our Father – received such joyous welcome that it was as if there had been no other soul ever saved in such a way.

  Still, you say, surely this time my mission had something to do with the Holy Grail.

  Maybe. But I wasn’t going to get too excited about the possibility.

  Boys and girls, the Holy Grail is just a cup! After what I’ve just explained about human souls, do you still think our Father places any significance in lifeless lumps of metal?

  Let me repeat: Our Father loves your souls. He wants to give you every chance possible to reach for Him. That’s all it takes - reach for Him. (To more fully understand this concept, read the Gospels and how our Father saved your souls by letting His Son accept the punishment you deserve for turning away from Him.)

  Still stuck on the Holy Grail as the important part of my mission?

  There are lots of reasons our Father sends us among you. I’ve been on countless missions over the centuries, and I have listened to other angels describe their missions to me.

  Sometimes, yes, it’s immediately apparent why our Father wants us involved. Let me just say that World War II, as you’ve called it, kept many, many, ,many of us busy. (Not flocks. We don’t have wings. Myriads.) For a while, Satan thought he had a good thing going with Hitler and the concentration camps. I shudder to think what would have happened had Hitler managed to put together a world empire. But enough of you made the right choices, and evil was defeated.

  Other times a mission might seem totally unneeded.

  Take a kid about 900 years ago. He grew up in an area of Europe that would later become Germany. He had ten brothers and sisters, and they were such a big brood that the mother, a widow, could hardly keep track of them. This kid had a thing about climbing trees. Big trees, little trees, old trees. Didn’t matter to him. He just wanted to climb. And he always did it when his mother was busy with another brother or sister. Boy, did he keep me busy for a stretch of five years. Then one day, he got over the tree-climbing thing. It wasn’t because he’d fallen; no, I made sure he was safe each time. He just decided to quit. And only then was I called back to the glory of our Father’s presence.

  Much as I wanted to ask our Father why I’d been put to all that work for a little tree-climber, I just waited. And waited. (It’s not really “waiting,” though, because time is much different on our side than yours.) I saw first that the kid gave his soul to our Father about ten years after my mission was over. There was another big celebration when he stepped through death’s curtain and showed up among us. And I’ve been very mature ever since – I haven’t once burst his bubble and explained it was me, and not his great athletic skill, that kept him safe during his tree-climbing years.

  Still, I wondered if there had been more to my mission than that. Then 376 years later, his great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson was born. November of AD 1483. The grandson didn’t seem like much to anyone around him. But I’d been sent to watch over him, and the world would need him soon enough. (Trust me, our Father has a great sense of humor. He knew all along I’d been wondering about that little tree-climber who was such a rascal, and I was about to get the answer.) See, all those centuries later, in November of 1483, after the long line of families who were all offspring of that tree-climber, comes this boy named Martin. You may have heard of him. Last name was Luther. If that tree-climber nearly 400 years earlier had fallen and broken his neck, we wouldn’t have had one of the most important people in church history. He stood up for God and truth and turned people back to our Father.

  Get the idea?

  Every mission is important.

  Just not always the way you might expect.

  Still, hearing the girl talk about the Holy Grail did make me curious. Century after century, enough of you humans have made fools of yourselves searching for it that I knew, as you often say, the plot was about to thicken.

  Chapter Ten

  The mysterious girl had been right.

  The horsemen let Brin live. They took the fake ring and departed without striking a blow or uttering a threat.

  As the morning sun grew hot, Brin worked at his task at the fire. He kept digging until he found his treasure. Beneath the ashes, protected by a thick layer of packed dirt, was his leather pouch of coins.

  Brin had secretly saved the money over the years. Marcel’s father Antonio always searched Brin’s clothing after he pickpocketed the townspeople, but Brin usually hid one coin beneath his tongue. As his collection grew, he had to find clever hiding spots for his coins. Since his was in charge of preparing the fire pit, he often chose to hide the coins deep in the soil beneath the fire, knowing no gypsy would stumble upon his treasure there.

  With the coin pouch safely in his hand, Brin felt much better. To be sure, he had no home, and the feeling of sadness surprised him. The gypsies taunted him, sometimes beat him, and they always treated him as worse than a slave. Why would he be sad that he was no longer with them?

  Because it’s the only life I’ve known, he admitted to himself. Part of him wanted to set off in pursuit of the clan. Better to be lonely among them, he figured, than alone in unknown dangers.

  What held Brin back, however, was the knowledge that someone among the gypsies had betrayed him to the hooded stranger. It didn’t matter if the stranger’s intentions were good; Brin had been betrayed by someone in the clan. He could never go back.

  Should he take his coins and wander? Perhaps a farmer might give Brin work. Or he could learn a trade. If he worked very hard, perhaps one day he could have a home to call his own. And if fortune really blessed him, he might even marry and have a family.

  The thought made him smile. A home and family of his own was one of his favorite daydreams.

  But he was equally drawn to the mysterious girl. Not her looks, he scolded himself, but the promise of what she knew about his father.

  Should he risk traveling with her?

  Although Brin thought about the question for a while, he knew deep down that there was only one answer.

  Yes. He would travel with her. He had too many questions. If he turned his back on them now, he would regret it his entire life, regardless of what fortune brought him.

  Questions.

  How could she have known that Brin had tossed a coin and not the ring onto the cobblestone at the bridge? Only the hooded stranger and the four men would have known that. But if she had learned this from the four men, why had she helped Brin trick them again? No, the hooded stranger had to have told her. They must be friends if not partners.

  The hooded stranger knew of Brin’s father. As did the girl. That alone drew Brin to them.

  And the secret behind the ring. Why were men willing to risk their lives for it? How could it matter so much that men were willing to kill?

  And who were these Keepers of the Holy Grail? Why had they sent Brin’s father into this land?

  Brin was determined to learn the answers.

  Even at the risk of his life.

  He would go carefully, however, trusting no one.

  Brin walked to the stream. He washed himself, glad for the cool water.

  He searched for the tall, white tree and found it downstream, only a hundred paces away. Brin settled himself into the shade of the tree, and despite his best intentions, he fell asleep.

  He dreamed a dark dream. He was falling, falling, falling into a deep, black hole. When he hit bottom, his arms and legs could not move, and flies tormented him by crawling on his face, flies he could not wave away. In his dre
am, his tongue grew thick with thirst until a gentle singing voice pulled him out of the deep black hole.

  Brin woke, blinking, to a damp cloth smoothed over his cheeks and forehead.

  It took him a moment to realize the gentle song was not part of the dream but belonged to a girl who cradled his head and soothed his face.

  It was the mysterious girl.

  Chapter Eleven

  She smiled.

  “You’re awake,” she said. “I feared you might never return.”

  Brin pushed himself to a sitting position. He croaked with surprise to see the long shadows of evening upon him.

  “The sun! Nearly gone! Surely I haven’t slept all day!”

  “I doubt it was sleep,” she said. “More likely, you have been drugged.”

  Brin tried standing. His legs failed him and he sat again.

  “My head hurts. My tongue is a block of wood.”

  “Drugged then,” she said. “I have been with you a good part of the afternoon, shading your face from the sun.”

  “Drugged?” He thought of the sensation of arms and legs like blocks of wood, of flies crawling across his face. “But why?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but I fear the worst.”

  “The worst?”

  “Your ring,” she said. “Someone searched you for it.”

  “How could that be?” Every answer she gave him only led to more questions. “Those horsemen believe they have it.”

  “Did you lose the ring?” she asked, ignoring his question. “Was it taken from you while you slept?”