The Angel And The Ring
another myrockandrollbook by
Sigmund Brouwer
also look for:
The Angel and The Sword
The Angel and The Cross
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2012 by Sigmund Brouwer
all rights reserved
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people.
Angel Blog
It wasn’t easy to put this story about a boy named Brin into words.
Not that I’m not complaining. Angels never complain.
You humans, on the other hand, are so childlike that your constant whining to God often tempts me to roll my eyeballs in disgust. Yet I don’t. First, angels don’t even have eyeballs to roll. Second, rolling eyeballs is a silent way of complaining, and, for those of you who weren’t paying attention, I’ve just made it clear that angels don’t complain.
So, telling you it wasn’t easy to write this story is simply an observation. Not a complaint. If you decide that my observation sounds like a complaint, it’s your fault, not mine.
Writing isn’t easy for many humans either, from what I can tell. But let me stress that it seems infinitely slower and more cumbersome for an angel. (Cumbersome. Kum-burr-sum. If you watch too much television, you may have difficulty with the size of this cumbersome word. Kum-burr-sum. It means bulky, awkward to handle, a big load.)
See, if you were another angel, we would just have a meeting of minds, so to speak. In an instant, you’d know everything I wanted you to know. Neither of us would have to say a single word, let alone write it out.
Not that I’m complaining.
At this point, I expect you are curious about how this meeting of minds works between one angel and another.
Good. Curiosity is one of the nice childlike things about you humans. But don’t expect me to give you the answer. Nor am I going to answer exactly why and how I’ve written down this entire story about Brin. There are many questions that won’t get answered for you until you are on the other side of life. Deal with it.
If you continue with me, however, I promise to answer a lot of other questions by the end of this book. You will have to pay attention, though. Otherwise, don’t waste your time reading more. There’s always television. Or nose picking, which is at least useful and has the same entertainment value. Especially to angels, who may be invisible and watching when you least expect it. (Enough said about that.)
Have I established, then, that it has taken a lot of effort for me to put this story into your words and that you will get answers worth learning? Good. Show your gratitude and stay with me.
Even though I won’t promise a happy ending.
What, you say, not fair? Who says it’s supposed to be fair? When I’m sent from heaven as a guardian, I sure don’t get that promise. I’ve seen it end happy for the ones I’m sent to guard. I’ve seen it end sad.
That might sound mean and horrible, but it’s not.
Whatever happens to the people I’m watching over – happy or sad – works to the greater good of those who believe in our Father and His love. Think of His work as a beautiful painting. When I’m stuck in a particular place and time on earth to watch over someone, I see only what you see: individual brushstrokes. The little bits and pieces that make up the painting. I trust all of those brushstrokes will make sense when our Father has finished the entire painting, though. You should too. Life will be easier on you that way.
As for a happy or not-so-happy ending for each person under my watch, learn and remember an important concept. Maybe the most important concept. Ready? You humans are given the freedom to make choices.
Yes. Choices. You are responsible for what you do. Don’t blame other people. Especially don’t blame me or other angels.
Choices.
Imagine you’re in a room with a screwdriver in your hand. You have a choice. Jam it into a nearby electrical outlet? Or not? You make think that’s an obviously easy choice. But in guarding different people through centuries of your human history, I’ve seen a lot of things that, in comparison, make jamming a screwdriver in an electrical outlet look like a smart thing to do.
Take the people of a small mountain village one sunny morning in Italy.
At the time, my assigned charge was a boy named Brin. Probably not a great name, but that’s the way it goes.
Brin was a gypsy. Sixteen years old. I’d been watching over him for years by then. Standard stuff, like keeping him from crawling into open fires when older gypsies in the camp forgot to pay attention. Or when he was older, standing between him and wolves when he wandered into the forest. Nothing really exciting enough to pass on to other angels.
I’m not suggesting, though, that his childhood had been easy.
He’d been born before the invention of the telescope. Before steam engines. Before trains or train tracks. Before ouchless bandages, cough syrup, and flu vaccination shots. Yes, even before the invention of the remote control.
This part of Brin’s life took place in A.D. 1364 (That means Anno Domini. Latin for “the year of our Lord.” At least you humans have had enough sense to keep track of time from the birth of Jesus, the son of our Father.)
Brin lived when wealthy people often wore flea traps under their clothing. That’s what I said. Flea traps. Little cages filled with a piece of fat to attract fleas so the fleas would get stuck in the trap and not be all over a person’s body.
The 1300s were not pleasant, as you can see. Fleas, lice. No soap, no showers, no toothpaste. Try not to think about that and concentrate on the important parts of the story.
Like how humans in Europe had just spent centuries of short life spans and miserable living conditions because of all the knowledge that had been lost after the fall of the Roman Empire.
Like how the people of that small village that morning in the northern part of Italy were all about to make a choice.
Based on greed.
I was there to watch it all. I was there especially to watch Brin. I knew him well enough by then that I could guess his thoughts just by reading his face.
And let me say that the morning did not turn out the way either of us expected.
Chapter One
“Dare to wager a gypsy?”
Brin had heard Marcel issue this challenge dozens of times, in dozens of crowds of peasants, in dozens of market towns. It was like casting fish bait.
“Spawn of the devil!” an old woman cried out. “Thieves! No good layabouts! Get back on the road!”
Brin had heard this before too. He stood among perhaps 20 people. There were housewives, farmers, apprentices, maids, and beggars.
Marcel held a piece of rope above his head. The rest of the rope was wrapped around Marcel’s thick body, coiled over one shoulder and under the opposite armpit.
“One end of this rope, there!” Marcel pointed to the tiled roof of an ancient stone building. He moved his arm to point across the cobbled street. “The other end, there! And I walk across!”
Marcel paused. His black eyes glittered in the midafternoon sun.
Brin wished he could have the same arrogant manner. Brin wished he had the same dark good looks, the same heavily muscled body. At 21, Marcel was in his prime.
Brin? Brin was small. Fair-haired. He rarely spoke above a whisper. No amount of wishing could give him the same power and command that Marcel held among the gypsies.
There too was the matter of Brin’s entrance into the gypsy world. His mother, a gypsy princess, had died from the Black Death barely a day after giving birth to Brin. This ill omen had cast a dark shadow on Brin. Another baby might have received sympathy for entering
such a harsh world without a mother.
Not Brin.
His father had not been a gypsy, and those from outside the clan were hated and distrusted. But it didn’t stop there. Brin’s father had done far worse than most strangers. He had taken the gypsy princess away and had married in a church. Nearly a year later, she had returned without Brin’s father, ready to give birth and in the final stages of the dreaded plague.
This was all Brin knew about his parents. Neither had been around to care for him. Both had left Brin an inheritance of disgrace, something Brin paid for dearly among his gypsy clan daily.
“I shall walk across this rope!” Marcel repeated. He stood upon the back of a wagon, and no one nearby could fail to notice him or his family members sitting on the wagon behind him. “And I shall be blindfolded!”
More peasants, farmers ,and idle townspeople gathered. It was a hot day. Brin smelled bodies that had not been washed for months, waste thrown from houses onto the cobblestones, and manure from cattle driven down the streets.
Brin took refuge in his mind by thinking of cool nights in the gypsy camp. He thought of his quiet world in the shadows, outside the circles of gypsies who sat around the campfires, and how those moments seemed to bring him what little sanctuary he could ever find in a day.
“Yes, blindfolded!” Marcel said. “I will juggle three eggs as I walk from one side to the other!”
“What is your wager?” someone finally called from the crowd.
Despite his lonely thoughts, Brin smiled. There was always one person to ask that simple question. And so the hook was set.
“Why, if I drop one,” Marcel said, “every person gathered to watch will collect ten lira.”
The noise of the gathering crowd swelled into excited babble.
“Quiet! Quiet!” a man shouted.
Brin stood on his tiptoes to see above the shoulders of the people around him and caught a glimpse of this new speaker. He was a large man with a red face beneath a dark beard, wearing the luxurious colors of a wealthy shopkeeper. A circle of hair ringed his bald head.
The crowd obeyed his command. This man, Brin decided, was one of the town’s respected leaders. Perhaps a mayor.
“If you drop an egg,” the man said, “you will pay ten lira to every person gathered.”
“That is so,” Marcel said.
“Blindfolded, walking across a rope, juggling three eggs.”
Marcel smiled. “If you like, have men beneath with pitchforks pointed upward at me. So if I fall, I impale myself.”
Crowd noise began to rise.
The shopkeeper raised his hands to keep the noise down.
“You announced this as a wager,” the shopkeeper said. “Not a contest. What, then, is the wager?”
Marcel waited until every eye in the crowd was upon him. It grew so quiet that the only sounds were of squawking chickens in the market stalls further down the road.
“What, then, is the wager?” Marcel said. “The only fair wager possible.”
Again, he paused.
Brin admired Marcel’s showmanship. Marcel knew how to play a crowd.
“If I succeed,” Marcel said. “Each of you gathered pays me ten lira.”
People in the crowd turned to each other to trade their views on this.
Marcel did not ask for silence. Instead, he held up a small leather pouch, bulging with coins. Heads turned back to him. Mouths shut.
“Is ten lira not a fair price to pay for entertainment? After all, I risk not only my hard-earned coins but my very life!”
Brin knew with certainty that the wager would occur.
Few were the opportunities for entertainment. These were not men and women of royalty, able to hire musicians, throw extravagant feasts, or travel with bodyguards to summer estates near the sea. Instead, these simpler poor folk lived their entire lives within the town walls, or on farms within a half day’s walk from the town. A hanging in the public square was entertainment for them. Or drunken brawls. Or the spectacle of chasing gypsies.
They would take the wager, simply for the chance to watch someone risk falling onto pitchforks.
Brin knew, too, what was going through the minds of most of these townspeople.
Greed.
The townspeople hated the gypsies. If he drops an egg, Brin knew they were thinking, we will make him pay. If he succeeds, we will not pay, but run him and his clan out of this town. After all, they are only gypsies.
“I will take that wager,” said the wealthy shopkeeper with a greedy smirk. “Any others?”
All in the crowd raised their hands and voices.
“So be it!” the shopkeeper shouted to be heard above them. “Prepare the rope.”
Chapter Two
In the half hour it took Marcel to secure the rope from roof to roof, the crowd beneath tripled, buzzing with excitement.
On the wagon nearby, the gypsy families watched in silence. Other members of the clan sold simple wooden toys from a makeshift stall in the market. And the remaining gypsies were back in camp, in a field some half mile from the town.
Brin was the only gypsy not in the company of others. He was accustomed to this. He was also accustomed to wearing drab rags while all the other gypsies wore brightly patterned shirts and silky pants. Among them all, he was like a little brown sparrow hopping out of the way of larger, prettier birds.
And among the crowd gathered in the market square, Brin was just another poor peasant, of little worth and far beneath anyone’s notice.
Which is why the gyspsy clan kept Brin in drab rags. With his dirty blond hair and paler skin, no one would ever think Brin was a gypsy. Nor would anyone treat him with the suspicion accorded to all gypsies. This sparrowlike appearance made Brin very valuable to his clan.
Finally, Marcel was ready. He stood on the edge of one roof and bowed to the entire crowd.
The wealthy shopkeeper had arranged for large men to stand beneath the rope, armed with pitchforks. Perhaps he only wanted men ready to get the payment when Marcel failed. Or perhaps he truly wanted Marcel impaled at the slightest misstep. It was hard to say. Such was the life of a gypsy.
“There are now many more of us!” the shopkeeper shouted upward. “You will stay pay each of us ten lira?”
“Most certainly,” Marcel said, teeth gleaming in a wolflike grin. “As you will all pay me if I succeed?”
“Yes, yes,” the shopkeeper said impatiently. “Begin.”
With a flourish, Marcel pulled out a thin, dark strip of cloth. He tied it over his eyes and behind his head. Brin doubted any in the crowd could see what Brin knew. Marcel had positioned the blindfold over his nose in such a way that he could easily peer downward.
Marcel held out three eggs in one hand.
He took his first step onto the rope. It sagged slightly but held his weight.
“Juggle!” someone shouted. “Juggle!”
Marcel tossed the first egg in the air. Then the second. Then the third. Without walking ahead, he juggled them in perfect rotation until he was comfortable with the rythym.
Brin had seen Marcel keep six eggs in the air. This was nothing for him.
The crowd, of course, did not know this. They watched in total concentration as Marcel finally took another step on the rope. And another.
Before Marcel was a quarter of the way across, the crowd began to shout and jeer. They did not want to see him complete the balancing act.
The men below began to jab their pitchforks upward. And the jeering grew louder.
Brin had no doubt Marcel would succeed. But Brin did not pause to admire Marcel’s great athletic ability.
No, the jeering of the crowd meant Brin, too, must begin his task.
He moved beside a farmer whom he had spotted earlier. This farmer had a small leather bag hanging at his waist from a strap at his shoulders. Brin slipped his hand into the bag and withdrew half the coins inside. He knew that to remove all the coins might lighten the bag too much.
As B
rin moved on, he tucked the stolen coins inside a leather bag inside his own shirt.
He eased himself through the pressing crowd, stepping close to a housewife he had noticed. She, too, had a purse easily plucked.
Brin kept moving through the crowd, picking the pockets of victim after victim. It was simple. All attention was on Marcel. People jostled each other in close quarters. Brin had deft quick hands, capable of stealing under far trickier conditions. Here, with the noise and the bumping, it was impossible to detect his actions.
In the center of the rope, Marcel paused. He pretended to sway dangerously. He almost dropped an egg.
It was intentional, of course. All of this had been set up to allow Brin to pickpocket these simple people. Marcel simply wanted to give Brin as much time and opportunity to continue taking coins from unguarded purses.
Marcel resumed his balancing act, getting closer and closer to the other roof, juggling as he walked.
Brin slipped out of the crowd, toward a crooked side street. This was the time he must make his escape.
Marcel hopped onto the far roof, pocketed the eggs, and untied the blindfold. Already, the crowd was beginning to leave. Brin went with the stream of people, slipping away with a half dozen men and boys.
“What is this?” Marcel shouted with pretended outrage. “You wagered and lost fairly! Come back! Come back!”
“Gypsy fool,” the wealthy shopkeeper replied. “How do you propose to force payment?”
The men with pitchforks ringed the shopkeeper and looked purposefully upward at Marcel. It was a show of force that made anything Marcel might say seem totally hollow.
“This is not fair!” Marcel cried. “I might have been killed. Had I dropped an egg, I most surely would have been forced to pay my end of the wager.”
“Shut your mouth and be grateful we let you live,” the shopkeeper said. “As it is, you have outworn your welcome. You and your families move on before we take action upon you.”
Brin did not hear the end of the conversation. Nor did he need to. It always played out the same way. They were only gypsies, after all. No citizenship. No homes. No protection. Spat upon. Feared as messengers of black magic. And used by parents to frighten children. Behave, mothers would cluck, or gypsies will steal you in the night to take you to faraway lands.
The Angel and the Ring Page 1