The Angel and the Ring

by Sigmund Brouwer

  Rachel took the torch and stood to the side of the opening. Yellow light flickered into the giant crypt. It was the size of a small room. The roof was arched, the inside filled with coffins.

  From outside, still holding the sword to Brin’s throat, Edwin spoke. “You said sacks of jewels. Yet I see coffins.”

  “I pulled the sacks from the coffins,” Brin said. “Take me inside with you so that I cannot run away. Together we will find those coffins empty.”

  Edwin hesitated.

  “I cannot run,” Brin said. “Rachel will not flee and leave you to slit my throat. I want you to see them empty. To know I have moved them elsewhere. For Rachel and me, it is our only hope.” Brin paused. “And your only hope of ever getting the jewels of St. Callixtus.”

  “We go forward,” Edwin said. “Slowly. Remember, I carry the sword.”

  Brin shuffled forward, keeping his feet so close together his legs rubbed as he walked. He stepped through the exact center of the opening.

  Edwin kept his grip on Brin’s shoulders and followed.

  Brin thought of the gypsy Marcel and the balancing act across the rope. It was a matter of perfect timing, of total concentration.

  And Brin forced himself to relax, waiting for the single split second that he needed. Any earlier or any later than the one-half heartbeat of opportunity that was about to arrive and the sword blade against his throat would draw deep.

  One step.

  Two.

  Three.

  Then it came.

  Edwin grunted a curse of startled pain and staggered sideways. With the quickness of hands that made him faster than any gypsy, Brin grabbed Edwin’s wrist, pulling the deadly sword away from his throat.

  For long, terrible moments, they were frozen like that. Both of Brin’s hands braced against Edwin’s strong wrist. Edwin straining to draw the sword inward. Brin could not push it any farther away. Edwin could not pull it closer.

  Brin gritted his teeth with effort. His two arms against Edwin’s one. The man was strong. His hot breath washed over Brin’s neck.

  “Die, gypsy,” Edwin said. “Die.”

  How much longer could Brin hold the sword away?

  Five seconds.

  Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.

  And then the sword began to bite into the skin of Brin’s throat. Small lines of blood appeared.

  Edwin grinned in cruel satisfaction.

  Brin’s arms began to collapse. He fell to his knees, gasping at the pain of nails piercing his skin.

  “Die, gypsy,” Edwin said, flexing his arms to cut through the cartilage of Brin’s neck. ”Die like the mongrel you are.”

  “Dear Jesus,” Brin whispered. “I believe. Take me home.”

  To Brin, in his last moments of life, the tomb seemed to grow cold. His body tingled.

  Suddenly and inexplicably, Edwin gasped in fear, looking beyond Brin.

  Edwin dropped the sword.

  “No!” he shouted in horror. “No!”

  He fell to his knees and scrambled backward. “No!”

  His last cry of horror was a strangled gasp, and he toppled sideways. Then he collapsed completely.

  “Brin!” Rachel cried from the opening of the tomb. “Are you hurt?”

  “Stay where you are!“ he shouted to her without turning. He could not take his eyes off Edwin. He’d hoped and expected the bigger man would lose his strength, but he had not been prepared for the terror in Edwin’s face when it happened. “Don’t step inside! You’ll be…”

  It was too late. Rachel was already running toward him…then gasping with pain.

  Brin slowly found his feet and turned to her.

  “My feet,” she said, stumbling as she neared him. “They have been pierced!”

  Rachel fell in his arms. He held her. It had taken 15 or 20 seconds for Edwin to fall. Soon, she too would lose consciousness.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, tilting her head to look in his eyes.

  “Nails,” Brin said. “Last night, I buried them upright just beneath the dirt. But I left a narrow path in the center to step through so I could be safe. It was a trap, meant for you and Julius. But I fell on them too.”

  Her words grew heavy. “The nails. Were they tipped with poison?”

  “Lay your head on my shoulder,” Brin answered. “I won’t let you go.”

  “Am I going to die?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said quietly.

  “Oh, Brin, that makes me so sad. I have come to love you.”

  With one arm holding her, he used his other hand to stroke her hair as her eyes slowly closed.

  “And I,” he said, “have come to love you.”

  Her strength was fading, but she managed a sad smile. She tried to speak, but nothing came out.

  Slowly, all of her movement ended.

  For Brin too, the blurring darkness came. In his last moments of consciousness, Brin cradled her and set her down gently.

  Then he let out a deep breath and fell beside her.

  Angel Blog

  Well, there you are.

  A happy ending.

  Some of you might disagree after watching Brin and Rachel collapse in the catacombs. But death is only a bad ending if it takes you away from our Father instead of to Him.

  To me, the story has a happy ending because Brin had called out to our Father when he believed he would die. My duty with him ended then. He’d made the right choice, and as I heard him utter his last words to Rachel, I was already looking forward to welcoming Brin to the angel’s side of existence and telling him about all the years I had watched over him.

  But, as it turned out, he fooled me.

  Because when I saw Brin next, it was still on your earth. Our Father permitted me one last visit with Brin, and for the first time in all the years I had spent looking over him, he and I actually had a conversation.

  To be sure, it was only a brief conversation.

  But I told him what was important.

  The rest he’d find out on the other side, when all of us angels could rejoice at his arrival.

  Twenty-Eight

  Alone, Brin reached the top of a high hill. The hill itself held only tall grass and the low, flat bushes of the Scottish moors. With no trees to impede his view, he saw the tops of other hills far away and lost in a gray mist that only added mystery to the sensations he already felt.

  He began to cross the ridge, the wind blowing a wild sensation of freedom across his face and hair. His whole body trembled in anticipation.

  His grandfather’s kingdom would open up below him when he reached the opposite crest.

  It did not take him long to reach the edge of the hill. He stepped forward and for the first time in his life saw it. A place he had never been, but somehow, a place his heart knew had always been waiting. No more would he wander through fields at night to pass away sleepless hours in his own solitary dance of darkness. No more would he feel the piercing pain of utter aloneness.

  Deep in the valley below was a fortress rising high.

  Brin wanted to shout with joy. Could it really be? Home? With his father’s father, waiting for him with love?

  Sun broke through the gray mist, as if an answer from heaven.

  Brin took a deep breath. It had been a long time since tears rolled down his face. He dropped to his knees in a prayer of gratitude.

  When he opened his eyes, a haggard old woman was standing in front of him.

  Brin stood, startled.

  “How did. . .” He looked in all directions. Here, in the tall grass, it was wide open. Surely he would have seen her approach. Had he spent that long in prayer?

  “This kingdom will be yours someday,” the old woman said. Her eyes glittered. She’d wrapped her head in dark rags as protection from the wind. “And I have a message for you. A promise.”

  Brin was still bewildered. Still looking around, as if trying to decide how the old woman had suddenly appeared in front of him.

  “Who are
you?” Brin asked.

  The old woman squinted and looked in the distance, trying to decide whether to answer. Finally she gave him a strange smile. “An old friend.”

  “Old friend? But I’ve never seen you before.”

  “Listen carefully,” the old woman said. “Follow the way of our Father in everything you do, and your kingdom will have peace and prosperity. Don’t forget the poor. And treat all with justice.”

  “Our Father?” Brin echoed.

  “Our Father,” the old woman repeated. “The same one who sent me to protect you in the catacombs.”

  “You cannot know about the catacombs,” Brin gasped. Only two others had been there with him. Rachel and Julius, and each had sworn the other to secrecy.

  The old woman smiled a mysterious smile. “You think it was the potion on the nails that saved you. Haven’t you ever wondered why Edwin died when it was only a sleeping potion you used? Why you and Rachel suffered no harm?”

  “You cannot know about the hidden nails!” Brin protested.

  “Edwin died of fright,” the old woman continued. “He saw something behind you that no man can see and survive.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Impossible? Nothing is impossible with our Father,” the old woman said. She smiled again. “I should know. I was there.”

  “No!” Brin was truly afraid. How could this old woman know what had happened in the catacombs? How could she speak about it with such certainty?

  “Our Father has a plan, Brin. And I got to be a part of that plan in your life.”

  Brin was silent.

  “Goodbye,” the old woman said. “Until I see you again on the other side.”

  “The other side?” Brin pleaded, shocked out of his silence. “Wait. You must tell me more.”

  Without warning, a hand touched his shoulder.

  He whirled.

  It was Rachel, who had come up the other side of the hill.

  “Who are you talking to?” she asked.

  “To…” Brin turned again to point to the old woman, but he saw only the tall grasses and the valley below.

  He closed his eyes. What had just happened?

  “You were speaking,” she said. “But I saw no one.”

  Brin let out a deep breath. How could he explain his conversation with an old woman who appeared not to exist anymore?

  “It’s as beautiful as you promised during our months of travel,” he said finally, sweeping his arms to indicate the valley. Later he would think more about what had just happened – and what it might mean. But now he would enjoy the first view of his long-awaited home…with his new wife.

  “Forgive me for my mumbling,” he said. “It was nothing.”

  She moved closer, letting him block the wind, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind him. She rested her chin on his shoulder to look down on the valley, thinking back on what had happened in the year since they had left Rome to travel by horse and boat to get back to England. Julius, nursed back to health. Secret arrangements with the Keepers of the Grail to use the incredible wealth of what St. Callixtus had left behind for good. And — her chin on his shoulder as a reminder — Brin’s sudden growth as he moved into full adulthood. He was close to four inches taller than her now.

  “Forgiveness for your mumbling?” she echoed. “The only thing for which you’ll never be forgiven is how you deceived me into declaring my love for you.” She laughed.

  “I did not lie to you in the catacombs,” he said, slipping into their favorite argument. “For surely, unless the Lord returns, there will come a day when you die.”

  He was facing away from her, but she heard his grin as he continued the familiar ending to this argument, one she brought on as often as she could because she never tired hearing what he would say next.

  “I pray, however, that day will not arrive until you are an old woman,” he said. “And not until we have a brood of grandchildren.”

  He paused as he always did. “After all, I am not to blame if the sleeping potion from your own bag of tricks took you before I could say what I needed to say.”

  “No, my dear beloved.” She kissed the back of his neck lightly. “You are not to blame.”

  She stepped away from him and took his hand.

  “Stay with me always,” she said as she led Brin down the hill. “Your grandfather waits. And we have arrived where we belong.”

  Historical Note

  Readers may find it of interest that the Catacombs of St. Callixtus indeed exist in Rome as described, were abandoned and forgotten as Julius described, and were not rediscovered until late in the fifteenth century.

  Historical scholars still debate whether the Knights Templars were rightly or wrongly accused when their mighty order was dismantled by the rulers of France and England and Spain early in the fourteenth century.

  No scholars have ever made mention of the Keepers of the Grail.