The statue is so curious that I can’t help the question falling from my lips. “Who is that?”
“Mithros,” Gáspár surprises me by answering. “He was a mortal man granted the favor of the Prinkepatrios. He proved himself to be a great hero, so the Prinkepatrios made him immortal. He stepped into the sea and vanished, joining God in heaven.”
I don’t like how very much Mithros sounds like Vilm?tten. As we approach the altar, I can see the bulging sinew of Mithros’s bare thighs, and the appendage hanging between them. It makes me wonder how Gáspár ended up so fretfully prudish when he’s spent his life worshipping at the feet of some lusty naked man’s statue.
The king and his sons kneel before the altar, hands clasped. From behind, I can see only their bent backs and their hunched shoulders, their hair. The king’s, gray with age; Gáspár’s, his dark curls twining down his neck; Nándor’s like whorls of liquid gold. They are still and quiet for several moments until the érsek emerges from behind the altar, swathed in a cocoon of brown muslin. He totters unsteadily up the dais and blinks his wet little eyes. I remember him now—he was the man fixed beside Nándor in the courtyard, soberly watching my father stand in pig’s blood.
“My lords, why have you come here today?” the érsek asks. He has a low, nasal voice, and I am reminded of the wicked minister from Zsigmond’s story, the one who ordered the deaths of all the Yehuli. In truth I can hardly imagine the érsek doing such a thing, if only because I think Nándor would leap up to do it first.
“Today, I pray for wisdom,” the king replies. “So I may learn how to set right the mistakes of the past.”
“Then wisdom you shall have,” the érsek says, and he brushes his thumb against the king’s forehead. He turns to Nándor. “What do you pray for today, my son?”
“Today, I pray for strength,” Nándor replies. “So I may do what weaker men cannot.”
“Then strength you shall have,” says the érsek, his thumb brushing Nándor’s forehead. It lingers there for longer than it should, and Nándor closes his eyes and lets out a shuddering breath. I remember Szabín’s story—how he has lived his whole life with the priest whispering in his ear—and something knifes through my loathing, an unexpected and hard-won pity. How much can you blame a hunting dog for biting when it’s only ever been trained to use its teeth?
My pity shrivels when the érsek turns to Gáspár. “What do you pray for today, my son?”
“I would like to confess a sin,” he says.
The air in the cave seems to thicken, and my muscles tense. The érsek gives a nod, and says, “Speak, my son.”
“I took a man’s life. Two men. They were both guilty of terrible crimes themselves, but they were good Patritian men, pious and prayerful. I would like to cleanse my soul of sin.”
He has not confessed to kissing me, to touching my breasts or stroking me between my thighs. I cannot see Gáspár’s face, only the heave of his shoulders as he takes his labored breaths. The érsek brushes his thumb quickly over Gáspár’s forehead, barely grazing his bronze skin.
“Godfather Life grants you mercy,” he says. “You have made your full confession, and you are now absolved of your sin.”
As the king and his sons rise in perfect synchrony, I gape at the érsek. For all of Gáspár’s prattling about souls and justice, it takes only the touch of a priest’s finger to absolve him? I wonder how the men he killed would feel about that. Before I can even give voice to my bewilderment, they each produce a small leather pouch, bunched shut with a drawstring. From the pouches, they pour out a small pile of gold coins, the carved profile of Saint István glinting on every one. They hold the coins out in their cupped hands, and the érsek takes them, sliding each piece into a satchel of his own. He tugs the drawstring to close it, the coins rattling as he slips it into his robes. The bag forms a bulge in his side beneath the brown muslin, an answer to my unspoken question.
“The Prinkepatrios accepts what you have given,” the érsek says, bowing his head. “Where there is sacrifice, great things are sure to come.”
The érsek ambles toward the shadowed doorway, his gait now lopsided with the load of the coins, and Nándor bounds up the dais to follow him. Their faces are close as they speak in whispers. Perhaps it was even the érsek who left the note at my door, another one of Nándor’s slavering followers. The king stalks aimlessly through the pews, murmuring to himself. And then I am standing alone with Gáspár.