The Angel and the Ring

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Your first moments outside the safety of the womb. What a shock! What a strange and new universe! Instead of warm fluid surrounding you, there was the harshness of cold air. Strange noises. Bright lights that made no sense. And when the fluid drained from your lungs, you were forced into a totally new existence where you had to draw your own oxygen. You cried and kicked and wanted nothing more than the safety of the only world you had known, the place where you were bound so tightly that you couldn’t even extend your arms or legs.

  Yet within hours, you understood that the womb had been a prison. And as you grew and explored more of the world, you would never for a moment trade your freedom to be bound like that again.

  On our side, in the presence of our Father and among those of you whose earthly faith in Him gave eternal life in His presence too, we all understand that the new freedom you gained by leaving your mother’s womb is infinitely less than the freedom our Father offers to all humans after death.

  When we are sent to watch over you, not a single angel spends an anxious moment thinking about whether you will die. Because we know it is inevitable that you are going die. Our concern is whether you are prepared for eternity before it happens.

  As for Brin, I could only hope he would find the faith that his father had. Nothing could be more important. Not even whatever was waiting for him in Rome. . .

  Chapter Sixteen

  When Rachel had finished reciting the letter, the sudden silence was as loud as a clap of hands, and it brought Brin back to the reality of the hillside where he sat beneath a tree.

  Many thoughts went through Brin’s mind, but he only spoke one. “It is not me you sought. You sought the ring.”

  She understood the slight bitterness in his tone.

  “You are wrong,” she said. “Yes, the ring is of great value. But your grandfather wishes very much to have you rejoin him in Scotland.”

  “Me? A gypsy mongrel he has never seen?”

  She smiled. “You will be welcomed as royalty.”

  Brin’s puzzlement was obvious.

  “Your father wrote this letter to his own father,” she said. “Your grandfather. Does that not mean anything to you?”

  Brin’s mind had been full of the bitter sweetness of hearing his father’s last words.

  “I suppose,” he said slowly, “it means he loved his father.”

  “You can have no doubt of that,” Rachel said. “But think. The bearer of this letter was promised a half year’s wages. Could a peasant farmer afford to pay this?”

  “Perhaps not,” Brin answered.

  “The lord of the kingdom could afford it,” Rachel said. “Your grandfather, who cherished you from the moment he knew of you. Do you not think, then, that part of our task, beyond finding the ring, was to bring you back to him?”

  Brin turned his head away from her. It would not do for Rachel to see that he blinked away tears. He composed himself before speaking again.

  “I have a home waiting for me?”

  “Yes,” she said gently.

  The letter also clearly showed a trust his father had in God. Why? How? Brin wanted to know more. And he wanted to know more about this Christ. How could a man die and then rise again from the dead? Much as he wanted to discuss these matters, Brin was compelled to ask different question. The obvious question.

  “Who betrayed my father? Do you now know?”

  “That is as much a mystery to us now as it was to your father.”

  “Could it be the same who betrayed Edwin? Who drugged and searched me at the tree?”

  “I think it likely,” she said. “Which is why we travel in disguise.”

  “The ring,” he said after some reflection. “Tell me about it.”

  Rachel paused a moment before answering. Etched over her silence was the tittering of birds and the rustle of tall grass in the breeze.

  “It is part of a map,” she finally said. “And I can tell you no more until we reach Rome.”

  There was such firmness in her voice that he knew further question would be of no use.

  As if to keep him from pressing her, she stood. “Shall we go?”

  He rose and followed her back to the road.

  Christopher, he thought as he walked alongside her. I now know my father’s name. What a gift. Christopher.

  Brin’s joyful mood lasted the entire day. He realized he had begun to trust Rachel. This too gave him joy. Rachel had brought him the knowledge he had wanted his entire life. Best of all, this knowledge was far better than he could have dreamed. His grandfather waited for him with love!

  Brin’s joy did not diminish as he fell asleep. They had stopped at a roadside inn, and Rachel had produced the coin needed for a meal and one night’s lodging.

  Alone on his straw bed, Brin smiled into the darkness, thinking about all he had learned. Sleep began to take him. The warmth of his joy was almost as comforting as a blanket.

  I was born into family of royalty, he thought for the hundredth time. I have a home waiting for me.

  Life is a wonderful mystery, he told himself in his final moments before sleep.

  Brin’s joy did not last long. When he woke, it was to a sack over his head and rough hands turning him over.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A hand pressed against Brin’s mouth before he could scream. His own arms were pinned against his side.

  He fought and twisted. He kicked out to feel a satisfying thump. He heard a muffled curse.

  A blow rang his ears. He shook off the pinpricks of white pain that lanced his eyes and twisted more. He lashed out with his feet, this time hitting nothing but air.

  Another blow to his head. This one harder.

  Brin guessed that two, maybe three people were holding him down on the cot. What chance did he have, fighting blind?

  He stopped fighting.

  Beneath the hood, mouth held tight, Brin panted for breath through flared nostrils, as much from fear as from his efforts. Was this an execution? Would a dagger slice through his ribs next?

  Brin waited for the burning slice of steel. Instead hands pushed against him.

  He tried to make sense of what he could feel. Two pairs of hands held him down. Another pair searched the clothes he wore beneath the single blanket.

  No words were spoken. Not from Brin, for the hand on his mouth was unwavering in pressure. Not from his attackers.

  The search ended.

  The hands, however, did not release him.

  Brin strained to hear. It sounded as though one of the attackers was now searching the tiny room. The shuffling sounds continued until the searcher had gone through the room twice.

  Brin heard a grunt. A grunt of disappointment?

  “Nothing,” came a harsh whisper. “It is not here.”

  “The straw then,” came a whispered answer.

  The hands pushed him onto the floor and held him there with great strength. Brin could imagine his attackers leaning down on him with the full force of all their weight.

  He heard the third person rip apart the mattress. Then he heard the jingle of coin. They had found his small pouch of silver and gold.

  The coins were scattered on the floor.

  “Not among these,” the harsh whisper announced. “Where can it be?”

  “Enough,” the answering voice whispered. “We have risked too much time in here.”

  The hands released him just as quickly as the attack had taken him from sleep. Quiet footsteps left the room.

  Brin gasped for a mouthful of air, sucking the fabric of the hood against his face. He pulled it away and yanked the hood off his head.

  Were it not for the hood, the light of a single candle set in a holder left on the floor, and the scattered coins visible in that soft light, Brin might have been tempted to believe he had just woken from a vivid nightmare.

  He knew, of course, what the attackers sought.

  The ring.

  ***

  Time passed until Brin found the streng
th to move. He rubbed his face, sick with the only conclusions he could draw.

  They had traveled all day in the hot, heavy disguise of old, poor peasants. Who else could know they were here, then, but Rachel? Who else could have sent them into the room but her?

  His betrayer was Rachel.

  It was now obvious to Brin that she hadn’t believed him when he said he did not have the ring.

  He thought more. He decided she would not have been able to send these attackers into his room the night before at the monastery among the monks. This night, then, had been her first and best opportunity.

  Brin began to wonder if everything she had told him during the day was as false as her motives.

  He did not wonder for long. He immediately told himself it was ridiculous to believe that he could be the grandson of a lord of a kingdom in a faraway land.

  Rachel could just as easily have lied about his parents. As a gypsy accustomed to fleecing peasants, Brin knew the best lies were the ones that people desperately wanted to believe. Brin could think of no lie he would want to believe more than a wonderful tale about a mother and father who risked their lives for a great love.

  Brin pondered all of this, growing more bitter and angry at Rachel as the night passed.

  Then it occurred to Brin that his attackers had not killed him as he feared. He began to wonder about that too.

  This ring must be of such great importance that they could not risk killing him until they knew for certain where the ring was. Or until he had sketched the symbols for them to read.

  A map, Rachel had said.

  A map to what?

  All Brin needed do was close his eyes to bring back all the symbols on both sides of the ring. He knew, though, it might be a letter of death to actually put these symbols into charcoal lines on paper. Once they had the ring or its symbols, his life had no value. It seemed, then, his greatest value was in the knowledge only he had.

  If that were true, he decided, he must keep the knowledge to himself as long as possible.

  Anger and bitterness gave him resolve.

  Whatever this game was, he was determined to win. If the ring were the only weapon he had, he would use it. He would play along with Rachel, pretending he trusted her. When he finally discovered what treasure the map would bring, he would find a way to betray her in turn. And take the treasure.

  With a grim smile, Brin piled the straw back into the shape of a mattress. If he wanted to win this game, he needed rest.

  He blew out the candle and slid beneath his blanket.

  He closed his eyes.

  In the morning, he would gaze upon the innocent smile that she used to hide her treachery. He would smile back with equal innocence. And with equal treachery.

  Chapter Eighteen

  From the north, they traveled the Via Flaminia — the Flaminia Road — into Rome. Rachel was talking about history and drawing pictures with words so clearly that Brin could see the marching lines of Roman soldiers as they returned triumphant from the wars centuries earlier, hear their measured footsteps along the stones, and imagine the throngs of citizens and slaves cheering them on as they entered the city.

  Before they reached the Tiber River, rolling hills of pasture and olive groves with occasional stone farmhouses were to be seen on both sides of the road. Once near the Seven Hills, however, buildings began to press upon them, as did a stream of travellers in carts and on foot, mule, and horse.

  Brin and Rachel allowed themselves to be swept along with the confusion and bustle of travelers. For Brin it was almost overwhelming. Much as he had heard about the great city, he never dreamed there could be so many people, so many great buildings.

  He had long given up asking Rachel where they were going in Rome, so he remained silent, drinking in the sights and sounds and smells of a city of dust and stone in the midday heat.

  On and on they pressed until Brin began to believe the city stretched forever. Through the markets. Into slums of buildings pushing in crooked lines against each other.

  Then the road opened. Brin gaped from a distance as they passed the Palace of the Popes, yet Rachel did not allow him to stop.

  She brought him past great ruins — columns of stone standing alone amidst rubble — then to a coliseum of such proportions that he believed her stories of men called gladiators who fought beasts or each other in the open arena before spectator crowds of thousands. He marveled with horror at other stories of believers of the man called Christ, cast before lions and bears to be killed for the amusement of those same spectators. Although Rachel had spent much of their travel talking about Christ, Brin still could not understand why men and women and children would choose such a death before giving up their beliefs in the Christ.

  Brin began to notice they were now traveling against the stream of horses and mules and carts and stragglers instead of with it. Soon after, the buildings began to thin and the green of countryside became open once more.

  Brin could not stop himself from asking. “Have we passed through Rome? Where are we going?”

  She surprised him by answering without evasion.

  “We are now on the Via Appia, the road that a man named Paul had taken into Rome as he brought the belief of Christ to the Romans.”

  Rachel pointed to the city wall behind them. “The outer limit of the ancient city,” she explained. “Ahead, we walk as this road gently climbs the ridge. In three miles, we reach our destination.”

  “How can you be so sure?” If, finally, Rachel was prepared to speak of those things she had earlier remained silent about, he wanted to press her.

  “Before I left Scotland,” she said, “your grandfather taught me all that I should memorize as we moved through the city. He taught me how to find the place.”

  “And how did he know?”

  “Many, many years earlier, he traveled the same road.”

  “Why?” Brin asked. “Is this where you finally explain about the Keepers of the Grail?”

  “Can’t you wait the half hour until we arrive?”

  “Arrive where?” he asked, unable to count how many times earlier he had asked the same question.

  “Now that we are so close,” she said, “I see no harm in answering. Ahead, our guide waits for us at ancient burial grounds.”

  ****

  They stopped in a grove of olive trees just off the road.

  “I am not tired,” Brin said. “We need not rest on my account.”

  Rachel smiled. “My friend, we have arrived.”

  “Here?” Brin swept his arms to take in the trees, the small shrubs, the tall grass. “How can this be an ancient burial ground? Where is our guide?”

  “Patience,” she answered. “There, past the trees. That building is our destination.”

  It was midafternoon, now, just past the greatest heat of the day. Despite his irritation and curiosity, Brin was glad to be off the hot dusty road and in the shadows of the trees as they walked.

  As they arrived at the small stone building, Brin snorted. How could this be a destination worth a week of travel in disguise as an old man? It was almost in ruins. Half of the clay tiles of the roof were gone, the other half crumbling. Where a door had once stood, there were only traces of rotted timber.

  “Inside,” she said. “There we wait.”

  “I do not understand.”

  “You will tonight,” she said. “When our guide arrives. He will see the lit candles I place in the window and know that after all these years, the Keepers of the Grail have returned.”

  Rachel began to pull the wax disguise away from her face. She invited Brin to do the same. She removed her old outer clothes, as did he. Grateful to shed the weight and filth, Brin felt as if he had become a new person.

  He looked at Rachel with a sideways glance. He fought a mixture of admiration and distrust. In the dappled shade from branches and leaves of a tree above the ruined building, she was a wonderful and unwanted distraction.

  Rachel moved to a wall deepe
st in the shade and sat, leaning back against it.

  Brin paced.

  “The small lights of candles this deep among the trees will be impossible to notice this far back from the road,” he said. “Only if someone has been watching will they even know we have entered here.”

  “I am certain we have been watched,” she replied. She reached into the cloth sack she had been carrying for their provisions. She offered him water from a leather pouch, along with bread and cheese.

  Brin, however, could not relax. Her serenity and certainty only agitated him more. “For a week, you tell me nothing,” he said, an edge to his voice. “Then you promise an ancient burial ground and bring me instead to a ruined building. And now you want me to believe that someone has been watching and waiting. You want me to believe that day by day, year by year, this forgotten grove of olive trees outside of Rome has always been watched.”

  “Of course,” she said. “A treasure as great as the one which waits below us is always guarded.”

  She gave him a smile. “Trust me, all we have to do is wait.”

  Trust her? Brin smiled back, hiding his thoughts. Never.

  Angel Blog

  There’s probably something I should mention at this point. Something, um, important.

  Remember earlier when I emphatically educated you about angels’ wings? (The fact that we don’t have them!)

  There are other bad public relation myths about us too. Ones like buying good luck charms in the shape of an angel will give you divine protection. Or others that make us look like cute, cuddly cherubs. You could guess my response by now to those, couldn’t you.

  It’s simple. We are spiritual beings. You are physical beings.