Bartolo flew into a rage inside his grand house, smashing his favorite Venetian glass wine cup hard against the floor.
"Lies! This is slander!" he roared at his trembling wife and servants. "That pretty faced bastard! That priest trickster! I will kill him! I swear I will kill him!"
Humiliation and fury burned in his chest with nowhere to go. He wanted to make an example of someone, to remind those stupid villagers how frightening he truly was.
Taking out the whip he usually used to discipline tenants, braided from thick, stiff cowhide, he stormed out of the house with his servants and charged straight into the village.
The moment people on the street saw his savage expression and the terrifying whip in his hand, panic spread. Doors slammed shut one after another as villagers rushed into their homes.
In an instant, Bartolo stood alone in the empty street. He wanted someone to beat, someone to scream at, but there was no one. That emptiness humiliated him more than being cursed to his face. It felt as if the entire world had abandoned him.
Cursing aloud, he rampaged through the village until he caught sight of movement at the far end of a narrow alley. A figure flashed past. A man.
Bartolo's eyes instantly turned red. He had found his target. Gripping the whip, he chased after him.
The man was one of his tenants, named Nio. Very poor, with elders to support and children to feed, Nio survived only by farming a few thin plots rented from Bartolo. When he saw Bartolo rush out earlier, he ran at once.
But he was not fast enough. The alley ended, and he was cornered.
"Run. Go on." Bartolo panted as he closed in step by step. "Weren't you all so brave? Didn't you say you would rather starve than work for me? Why are you running now?"
Nio turned pale and pressed himself against the wall, shaking all over. "Ma… Master Bartolo… I… I didn't…"
"Didn't?" Bartolo pointed the whip at his face. "You lazy, ungrateful dog! I rented you land so you could live! And now you dare follow that pretty-faced bastard and betray me!"
"I… I didn't… I was just afraid…"
"Afraid?" Bartolo sneered. "I will show you what real fear is!"
He raised the whip.
Crack!
The sharp sound echoed through the alley as the whip lashed hard across Nio's body.
Nio screamed and curled up on the ground, a bloody mark appearing at once through his torn coarse cloth.
Bartolo did not stop. Like a madman, he struck again and again.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
A servant rushed forward in panic. "Master, stop! You will kill him!"
Bartolo flung him aside. "Do you want to die too?!"
The servant dared not speak again. The sound of the whip cutting the air mixed with Nio's screams and Bartolo's curses.
"You dare betray me!"
"I'll teach you fear!"
"I am the master here! You dogs!"
He poured all his anger and humiliation into the whip, venting it on the helpless tenant.
Nio's screams grew weaker, turning into faint moans, and then stopped altogether. He lay completely still, blood slowly seeping beneath him and staining the dusty earth red.
Bartolo finally stopped. Panting heavily, he looked down at the body, and only then did the rage burning in his head cool slightly.
He had killed someone. But so what? What did one dead tenant matter?
Just then, he heard a faint sound behind him. He turned sharply.
At the other end of the alley, behind an olive tree, stood a child. A small boy of seven. It was his son, Anton, still holding a wooden spinning top. No one knew when he had followed them out.
The child stood frozen.
He looked at his father, tall and usually so imposing.
He looked at the whip in his father's hand, still dripping with blood.
He looked at the man on the ground, motionless and soaked in red.
His face was white as paper, his eyes wide open. In those clear eyes, like a young deer's, there were no tears, only a terror far beyond what a child his age could understand.
Bartolo looked at his son. Father and son faced each other across the blood soaked body.
* * *
The news that tenant Nio had been beaten to death by Bartolo swept through the silent village of St. Lucia in less than half an hour.
This time, there was no doubt and no rumors. It was a bloody fact that everyone had seen.
The last trace of hope in people's hearts collapsed.
They believed completely now. Bartolo was the devil.
Only someone possessed by the devil could be so cruel, so utterly without humanity. Every word the abbot had spoken had come true.
* * *
Inside the monastery, Giovanni sat in his room, calmly flipping through a book on ancient Roman architecture he had bought in Florence.
Luca burst in, his face flushed with excitement.
"Abbot! Abbot! Bartolo… he… he killed someone! He beat a tenant to death with a whip!"
He blurted it all out in one breath, gasping as he waited for instructions.
Giovanni did not even lift his head. He simply extended one finger and gently turned a page, then said softly, "The time has come. The Lord will bring down His wrath Himself."
* * *
That night, crying rose from far away and slowly drew closer, carrying along the village path until it reached the square before the monastery gate.
Villagers opened their doors and peeked outside.
They saw Nio's wife, Margaret, dressed in torn black clothes, leading her three thin children as she walked step by step toward the center of the square.
Her hair was a mess, her face streaked with tears. She cried as she walked, her sobs tearing at the chest. The three children followed behind her, crying as well. They did not fully understand what had happened. They only knew their father was dead, that they would never again see the man who used to lift them high above his head.
The villagers watched the scene in silence. There was pity, fear, and a trace of relief, relief that the blood covered body lying in the alley was not their own.
Margaret led the children to the center of the square and dropped straight to her knees. The children followed her and knelt as well, pressing themselves onto the cold stone ground before the tightly shut monastery gate, crying loudly.
Everyone who saw it felt their breath tighten.
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