SEALED IN MARBLE Chapter I At The Doors Of Sin
Father Garupe X Sculptor!reader
This is a fic I’m still working on with my friend and partner in crime and it was published on AO3 months ago !
Hope you enjoy it !
Tags you need to read before : NSFW - VIRGIN GARUPE - READER IS AN ARTIST - READER IS NOT RELIGIOUS.
Ps : the events happen in the 17th century, but sorry, it’s written in a very standard English ^^
Candle lights illuminated the exiguous modest space, trembling on the ancient granite walls, and casting long deformed shadows on the poor furniture of father Francisco Garupe’s room. Father Garupe was sitting, fists clenched on his old desk, eyes narrowed as he focused on the cursive writing he seemed to study anxiously.
A few hours earlier, and to his big surprise, father Garupe received a personal letter, coming from afar. The sender was a forgotten relative, a cousin, lost of sight long ago. Garupe hid the letter in his habit all day, dreading the moment he might open it, but now that moment had come at last, proving Garupe’s fears right.
In a long letter, Garupe’s cousin narrated how her husband had died of an unknown illness, leaving her penniless with three little girls to feed and some cruel –lord forgive them–parents who decided to throw her out in the streets, having spawned no son to perpetuate the lineage. The tone of the letter was hopeless and Garupe could almost hear the cries of despair of his cousin, in a passage where her tears had dampened the crackled paper , and where she begged him to help her, having no one left in the world but him, his distant, but beloved pious cousin.
Garupe closed his eyes and sighed as he finished reading the letter for the third time. He could not sleep that night, as he laid in bed, eyes wide open, a question in his mind. How could a poor priest like him help anyone in the world if not by fervent empathic prayers? That was his job, praying for the poor and the unfortunate people in the world, but how could he write to his poor cousin telling her simply that he prays for her? While she clearly needed money and a roof to protect her from a cruel world that had no mercy for people like her? Her faith and his prayers and sermons, as strong, as sincere as they were, he knew, weren’t what his cousin needed the most, and it was stated clearly, weren’t what she needed from him.
The next day Garupe woke up feeling the anguish of the previous night, and during all day, he was distracted and mindful. He knew that every hour counted, and that time was pressing. And even as he doubled his prayers and kept on his knees for hours, holding tight to his rosary beads, praying to Mary and St Paula to have mercy on the tormented widow and reciting every pious verse he knew, the persistent feeling of hopelessness stayed with him, like a dark cloud in his heart, and a lump of anxiety knotted in his throat.
But as the day progressed, he felt another thing coming from deep inside him, something he dared not confess to himself, something darker and more dangerous than despair, he knew, it was barely vailed by his luminous faith in the justice of God, but it was there, viscous, waiting patiently for the right moment to overcome the light he was trying so desperately to cover it with and to emerge like a wild demon from the pits of hell.
Garupe felt the first drops of tears falling from his eyes as he interrupted his prayers, swallowing his pain. Dry mouth unable to finish his words of faith, he left his eyes wander for a while on the beauty of the basilica he was in. He inhaled a deep whiff of fresh clean air as his eyes took in the attractive ornaments of the walls that he knew too well: colored holy scenes from the bible, majestic marble sculptures of saints and angels. He was being fairly distracted and finding himself carried away with admiration for the professional and skilled works of the artists the church hired and chose carefully to fill its holy buildings with marvels, even though, men of faith had always had little esteem for artists, and Garupe was no exception, being raised by holy men that disapproved strongly of the way of life of the latter.
Garupe was lost in his thoughts as his eyes fell on an unfamiliar shape. It was a new sculpture, it seemed, as its marble was bright white, unaffected by the yellowish tone that the passing years painted on the other sculptures. But that wasn’t its only allure. The sculpture, which was of saint Anthony of Padura, was different, Garupe believed, and as he stared and stared, mind now completely absorbed by the beauty of the saint’s soft face features, he remembered fragments of a conversation he caught in the gardens of the cathedral, concerning a new favorite sculptor of the local church and a new commission. He believed hearing the too-easy-to-retain name of Francisco De Luna, a rising talent and skilled new master. As soon as Garupe remembered the name of the master, an impossible idea seduced his mind.
Garupe was a man of God, a churchman, a man who took the vow of poverty, among other just as important vows, whose mission was to guide the faithful and to pray for them, to hear confessions and to conduct masses and to help the poor, but he always found ways to get some time for himself, and that time wasn’t wasted on commenting the taste of wines or conversing idly with other priests, no, Garupe always trained and cultivated his body to be firm and in good shape.
His efforts were never motivated by a penchant for luxury and pride as some of his enemies liked to think, but by a simple desire to be healthy and keeping his agility as he climbed the infinite stairs of the church buildings daily. His continuous exercise shaped his body but he never took pride in his perfectly chiseled chest or the firmness of his stomach, he barely noticed his strong arms or the tight muscles of his back, for as he knew too well, those were dangerous thoughts to linger on as they were portals to unnamed seductions. But now, at that very moment and for the first time in his sin-free life, Garupe had thoughts, thoughts that he immediately deemed unworthy of a man of God, but he couldn’t help playing and replaying in his mind.
For the first time in his whole life, Garupe thought of using his body for other matters than praying and working. Using the shape of his body as a mean to earn “easy” money. The thought made him shudder in uncontrolled disgust. But it was money he needed and money his helpless cousin needed, a considerable amount of it. It was a serious question, he tried to convince himself, it was forgivable, it was for a noble Christian cause, it wasn’t like prostitution, god forbid, it wasn’t like he was going to pose …nude, no, he shook his head. He would find the sculptor and ask him, beg him if necessary, to take him as a model, as he heard a rumor saying that prestigious ateliers promised fortune for even their simpler models.
Many times he replayed the procedure to follow in his mind, and many times his inner voice raised to sermon him in severe hurtful words. As he stood up from the basilica ground, as he found his fellow priests for the prayers of the day, as he ate his lunch, during the whole day, arguments and counter arguments collided in his head, depriving him from sleep at night and haunting his dreams.
The third day, Garupe woke up with a resolution.
He took advantage of a brief rest after the morning prayers, excused himself, pretexting a headache, and sneaked his way out of the church building and into the quiet morning of the city.
It was an easy task to find the location of the sculptor’s atelier, as he had quite a reputation. Garupe just had to mention the new commission and the sculptor to Padre Joao, one of his fellow priests known to have a loose mouth, to make the latter spit out all the things he knew about the matter.
With resolute feline movements Garupe traced his way through silent streets and sinuous dead ends, and found himself climbing a slope, hearing only his footsteps on unpolished gravels and his thundering heart beats.
Heart pounding in his ears, Garupe stood still before the atelier at last, it seemed like a spacious place, a forged steel portal covered with vines blocked the way to a yard with a small fountain. On the wall was sculpted in beautiful lettering:
Francisco De Luna, Sculptor.