Brin patted himself, searching. He found the pouch of coins and relaxed a little. If indeed he had been searched for the ring, the searcher was not a common thief.
“I told you earlier that I did not have the ring,” he scowled. “How could I have lost it then?”
“As you say,” she said.
“Without the ring, am I of less value to you?”
“Every living soul has value to our Father in heaven,” she said.
Again, she spoke of heaven. The gypsies had taught Brin that it was fortune who smiled or frowned at whim, not a God in heaven.
“Aside from my value to this Father of yours,” Brin said, “without the ring, am I still of use to you?”
She dropped the damp cloth and stood, helping Brin to his feet. He saw her white horse grazing nearby, reins tied to a branch.
“Come to the stream,” she said. “Drink.”
The sun’s light had become golden. It was the quiet part of evening when the wind died and the green of the trees and fields grew soft and shadowed.
Somehow, being with this girl made Brin more aware of all the beauty around him.
Stop thinking like that! he commanded himself inwardly. There was nothing he would trust about this girl. It could have been her who drugged him and searched him. After all, she was the one who had directed him to that oak; she knew where to find him. For that matter, he didn’t even know her name.
“What should I call you?” he said.
“Rachel,” she said.
“You know I’m Brin?”
She nodded.
Brin crouched at the stream, filled his hands with water, and gulped again and again. After taking his fill, he asked again. “Rachel, without the ring, am I still of use to you and the Keepers of the Grail?”
He already knew the answer. Of course he was of use to her. Why else would she have stayed with him the afternoon? Especially if it had been her who had searched him for the ring and discovered it gone. He was simply asking to judge her reply.
She answered his question with a question. “If I supplied you with a good reason, would you be able to trace the ring’s markings on paper with charcoal?”
Brin thought of the days he had stared at the ring, and the nights he had held it in the darkness, running his fingers over the upraised symbols. It was all that held him to his dead parents. The markings were seared into his mind.
“I am able,” he said.
“And will you travel with me to Rome?”
Rome. The greatest city in all mankind. Despite his hurting head and great thirst, excitement surged through Brin. The city that his father had been sent on a mission.
“Yes,” he answered. “If you tell me about my father as we travel.”
“Then,” she told him, “you have great value. Greater than you can imagine.”
Chapter Twelve
Rachel let Brin sit behind her on the white horse. He thrilled at the prospect – he had never been on a horse before. Only the wealthy were afforded such luxurious travel.
Yet a few miles later, Brin decided the wealthy could keep horses for themselves. He sat squarely upon the spine of the beast, and it was not comfortable at all.
“Do we ride to Rome tonight?” he asked. “If so, perhaps I will walk beside this horse.”
“Hardly,” she laughed. “There is a monastery just over the next hill. We are guests there.”
“We?”
“My brother and I,” Rachel answered. “Edwin. You met him yesterday. First in town. Then at the bridge.”
Brin felt secret relief. He had not dared ask about the hooded stranger, fearing she might tell him the man was her husband or her betrothed.
“He is not hurt badly, then.” Brin said it not as a question, but as an observation.
“He suffered a cracked head and must rest for a week or two. But the monks who nurse him assure me his injury does not threaten his life.” She paused.
“How did you know he wasn’t hurt badly?”
“You showed no signs of worry or grief.”
“Gypsy,” she said, “it bodes well that you watch things closely and use logic as a tool. I shall welcome your help.”
Brin cautioned himself against enjoying the warmth of her praise.
“Again,” he said rather roughly, “let me ask you to tell me about my father.”
Rachel laughed once more. “And again, let me tell you that one more night matters little. At the monastery, you shall be fed well. You will be invited to bathe, and after a complete night’s rest, you and I will begin our journey.”
“Just the two of us?”
“Just the two of us,” she answered.
“No soldiers to guard us?”
“You are a gypsy, accustomed to living by your wits. What do you fear?”
Brin nearly gave the answer closest to the tip of his tongue. What he feared was what he did not know about her.
“It is not usual for a young woman to travel unattended,” he replied instead. “Bandits along the road will see us as easy prey.”
“They will not see a young woman,” she said.
“I do not understand.”
“Because we must leave Edwin behind to rest and heal,” Rachel said, “you and I will travel as beggars. Do you fancy the guise of an old man or an old woman?”
“What!”
She laughed again. It was a sound that, against his will, Brin was growing to like. “An old man, then,” she said. “We shall keep one of your arms beneath your shirt. It will appear as though you are maimed. Better to be seen as totally helpless.” She shifted on the horse. “As for me, I shall pretend to be your wife, still faithful after years of poverty. Does that suit you?”
“Answers suit me,” he growled. “And thus far you have strung me along as a donkey follows the carrot on the end of a stick.”
More light laughter from Rachel. “You said it, gypsy, not I!”
Angel Blog
Yes, indeed, Brin was right. Rachel was stringing him along like a donkey follows the carrot on the end of the stick.
It’s probably just as obvious to you as it was to me that the carrot he was chasing was a lot more than the answers he thought she could give him about his father. He just wanted to fool himself into believing there was nothing more going on. That he wasn’t really about to act like a donkey.
But there was something more going on, wasn’t there? And like most guys, he was going to have a hard time not making a donkey of himself as he tried to figure it out.
Yes, boys and girls. We’re talking l-o-v-e. In capital letters.
L-O-V-E.
My, oh, my. Have I seen plenty of that over the centuries.
Angels are complete in the glory of the presence of our Father. We weren’t built like you. You know, where one and one equals one. Don’t pretend you don’t understand. I don’t mean the kissy-smoochy stuff. I mean the joining of the hearts of one man and one woman in a relationship blessed by our Father, suddenly becoming so complete as partners they are like one person.
We aren’t built like you, but we angels talk. We compare notes. This boy-girl stuff is fascinating.
On one hand, it looks so wonderful that if we weren’t complete in the glory of the presence of our Father, we’d understand what it means to yearn for something.
On the other hand, we’ve seen you mess up our Father’s incredible gift so many times that we’re very glad not to get mixed up in any of it.
LOVE. Joy and heartache. Elation and desolation. Hope and despair.
I think boy-girl love is one of the most complicated things I’ve seen in the universe. (Even more complicated than, say, the dance of electrons and protons around the nucleus of the uranium atom, and believe me, that’s complicated. Only our Father could have created the basic forces of the universe to work in such harmony -- electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity. I’m losing you here with quantum physics, aren’t I? Sorry. But on the other side, you’ll sense
how our Father put it all together, and you’ll spend all of eternity marveling at it like we do.)
My advice about LOVE?
Love is a fire. Under control - in the stove in a kitchen, for example - a fire’s warmth is wonderful. Out of control or abused, a small fire will become a disaster that burns your house down.
Aach. Forget I just told you that. It’s true, of course, but chances are you’re going to learn about it the hard way no matter what anyone tells you. Heartbreak is not easy. But heartbreak you can get over, even though at the time it seems impossible. It’s when you mess up physically before you’re in a marriage and before you’re ready to have your own children that love, or what you think is love, can really hurt you. And the people around you.
So if you’re going to forget my advice, just like you’ll probably want to ignore the advice of anyone older than you, at least forget one other thing – most of what you see in movies. Love is not what a man and woman do with each other. It’s what they do for each other.
That’s the way our Father intended His great gift for you.
As for Brin, he was clearly smitten already, even if he wasn’t going to admit it to himself.
I almost envied him.
And certainly felt sorry for him. . .
Chapter Thirteen
An old woman woke Brin on his sleeping mat in a bare room in the monastery. Brin fell back in surprise as the crone’s face loomed over him. Her nose was long and twisted, her skin gray and scarred. There was a filthy cape pulled over her head.
What repelled him most, however, was her smell.
Without thinking, Brin put his hand over his nose.
“I’m not the woman of your dreams?” the crone whispered.
He shook his head, blushing as if the old woman had read his mind. The woman of his dreams rode a white horse, had long reddish-blonde hair, and looked nothing like this smelly old—
“Rachel!” Brin said, suddenly remembering their conversation the night before. “Is that you?”
The old woman cackled briefly, then dropped her voice to normal tones.
“None other,” Rachel said.
“This is astounding,” Brin said.
“Well-placed wax and plant dyes,” she said. “We Keepers of the Grail have a habit of altering our appearance. Lord Thomas told me many such stories. His own father was in disguise. Indeed that is how he first met his wife, Katherine.” Rachel lost herself in daydream thoughts for a moment, as if she was remembering the tales as they were told to her. She shook herself to bring herself back to the present. “But those tales…”
Brin grinned, still holding his nose at her stench. “I know now that you are dangling a carrot. But I refuse to ask more questions until we are on the road to Rome.”
“You learn quickly,” she said. She dropped some clothes on the floor. “Wear these. You will get accustomed to the smell.”
“Must the garments be so repulsive?”
“It will keep strangers from prying too closely,” she said. “Rome is but a week away. We will not suffer long.”
Brin groaned.
Rachel cackled again. “Hurry, my husband. Already the sun has risen. While you dress, I will visit Edwin and wish him well on his recovery. He has promised to follow and meet us in Rome as soon as he is able.”
Brin’s brow wrinkled. “Rome is a city of untold thousands and thousands and thousands. How will he find us there?”
“Do not fear,” she said. “All you need to do us trust me.”
*****
During their first hour of travel, Rachel repeatedly corrected Brin for his habit of walking like a young man. As passersby approached, she would urge to him to stoop his back, lean on his crooked walking stick and to put the impression of pain into his steps.
Thus, to any observers, they appeared as poor, aged peasants. Once the road cleared of other travelers, however, both straightened and walked with rapid, firm steps.
“We have the ancient Romans to thank for our ease of travel,” Rachel told Brin.
“Why is that?” Brin asked, reminding himself not to enjoy her company until the time might come that he could trust her.
“Perhaps you have heard the expression ‘all roads lead to Rome’?”
He nodded, although he had not. Life among the gypsies did not provide much in the way of learning.
“Well,” Rachel said, “all roads do lead to Rome. It was a great empire, controlling lands thousands of miles away. To rule, however, the Romans needed to be able to move armies in quickly at the first sign of revolt. They built cobblestone roads that stretched to all points of the empire. An army of thousands could arrive within two or three months. Such quick action not only stopped revolts but discouraged the provincial rulers from even starting trouble.”
There was a long stretch of empty road ahead of them, stretching to the top of a slowly rising hill.
Rachel let her thoughts wander. “The Romans were intelligent in their politics. You see, they did not believe in ruling by force, but by threat of force, which takes much less effort. And unlike other empires, they did not strive for total domination of a conquered country. Instead, each country was allowed its own rulers, own customs, and own religions, as long as it continued to pay taxes and tribute to Rome.”
Much as Brin wanted to push her to talk about the Keepers of the Grail, he found himself soaking in the knowledge like a thirsty plant. He considered what she had just told him.
“I think I understand,” Brin said after a few minutes. “If you chose force as the way to control, then you must send in an army to occupy the lands. If it takes one army to control one country, and you only have ten armies, then you can subdue only ten countries. But if you rule the way the Romans did — without sending in your armies to occupy the land — then you can add far more than ten countries to your empire. And your ten armies are free to rove where needed.” He grinned in triumph. “On roads that let them move quickly.”
Rachel applauded. “You are an excellent student. I can see our time to Rome will pass quickly.”
They passed a few more minutes in silence. No travelers appeared over the crest of the hill. They continued to walk quickly.
“Think on this,” Rachel said. “Our Father in heaven placed His Son on earth during the one time in all of history that the world itself was best poised to allow men to spread His gospel. Had Jesus Christ been born even 50 years before, it would have been too early, for the Romans had yet to subdue Judea. Yet by the time He had been crucified, His followers could take His message out of Judea on Roman roads into the largest empire the world had ever known. And best of all, this was the first great empire that gave its people the freedom to choose their own religions. This was the one time, then, that the gospel could have a chance to take root. And of all those local religions, the one true faith endured and grew through the centuries that followed. How ironic, that this great empire, which crucified the Son of God, would soon worship Him.”
She stopped. Brin’s face showed puzzlement even beneath the heavy disguise of old age.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Heavenly Father? Son? Son of God?”
Rachel grew quiet for a few moments before speaking again. “Please forgive me,” she said. “I forget you grew up among gypsies. Who there would have told you about the Christ?”
She shook her head, continuing to admonish herself. “We who have the faith sometimes assume everyone knows the story, and that those who don’t believe persist in unbelief out of stubbornness. Instead, I suppose, we need to take the other’s view and wonder what needs to be spoken. The message must be heard and understood before it can be believed.”
“Message?” Brin laughed. “You have really lost me now.”
“I suppose I have,” she said. “But Rome is a week away, and I will tell you all about—”
“The Keepers of the Grail,” Brin interrupted. “And how it is you have such knowledge of times past. I have been a dutiful donkey thus
far, letting you dangle the carrot in front of my nose to bring me along this road. I will go no farther unless you begin to tell me as promised.”
“Yes, I will tell you,” she said. “All of it. And soon. But first we need to find our way past those men ahead. I fear their intentions are not the most kindly.”
Brin turned his attention from her to the road. He saw the outline of five men who had crested the hill, a quarter mile ahead.
As they grew closer, it was obvious by their clubs and swords that they were highway bandits, confident that the isolation of this stretch of road made any travelers easy prey.
Chapter Fourteen
“What do we do?” Brin asked. His first impulse was to flee. He was not big, but he was fast. Yet if he outran Rachel, she would be alone against these bandits.
As a gypsy, Brin knew well the dangers of open countryside. These men could beat, rob, and kill Rachel. They could toss her body into a grove of trees. It might be days or weeks until a passerby happened to notice. And what of it? Who would waste effort searching for the bandits? No one. There was no threat of punishment, no threat of avenging soldiers to stop these men. Without a way for the countryside to be policed, solitary travelers always faced this risk.
If he ran, she faced death. If he stayed, they both faced death. What should he do?
The men walked purposefully toward them. Brin looked back over his shoulder. The road stretched down the long hill. Empty of all other travelers.
“What do we do?” Rachel asked. “We continue to walk toward them.”
“But—”
“Fear not,” she said. “Keepers of the Grail have many weapons.”
“You have no sword,” he said. “And even if you did, there are five against us.”
The men were now a couple hundred yards away.
“Sword? Too crude.” She placed a hand on his arm. “There is a marvelous substance called black powder, which most of Europe has yet to discover. Charcoal, sulphur, and saltpeter. When sparked, it explodes with fearsome force, sending a flash of white fire that can almost kill a man. I have some of that in my bag beneath this cloak.”
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