Sunday.
The church was packed to capacity.
Crammed fuller than it had ever been before.
The villagers bore identical expressions on their faces.
Fear, and supplication.
They pinned their sole remaining hope on this stone building, placing it upon the man about to step onto the altar.
The Mass began.
Giovanni walked onto the altar clad in his magnificent chasuble.
His face bore an expression of exhaustion and grief, as though he had not closed his eyes for days and nights, constantly praying to God for the sake of this village.
This moved the believers below even more, deepening their trust in him.
The process of the Mass proceeded as usual.
Prayers, hymns, blessings.
However, during the sermon, Giovanni’s voice suddenly paused.
He closed his eyes, his brow furrowing deeply, as if listening to some distant sound.
Silence fell over the church.
Everyone held their breath, watching him.
A long time passed.
Only then did Giovanni slowly open his eyes.
His eyes were filled with shock and a profound, knowing sorrow.
“My children,” he spoke slowly, “just now, while I was praying, the Lord…
gave me another revelation.” Everyone pricked up their ears.
“The sinner who brought disaster upon our village…
the one who desecrates the holy altar and walks with the devil…” “The Lord has shown me his face.” “His heart is consumed by greed.
He values money above the gospel of the Lord.” “His wealth is built upon the exploitation of the poor.
He makes his brothers toil and sweat for him, yet grants them barely enough food to survive.” Greed.
Exploitation.
These words caused the villagers to think of one person in unison.
Bartolo.
“He once openly mocked the sacred festival granted to us by the Lord.
He called the Firstfruits Thanksgiving a fraudulent trick.” “He used his lies to bewitch innocent believers, leading them away from the Lord’s grace.” Giovanni stopped there.
He did not speak the name.
He didn’t need to.
The clues were already clear enough.
So clear that it was as if the word “Sinner” had been carved straight into Bartolo’s forehead.
The villagers began to whisper among themselves.
“It’s Bartolo…” “It must be him…” “He’s the richest, and the greediest…” “I heard it too, he walked around saying the festival was a scam…” “So it was him!
He brought the curse upon us!” The voices grew louder.
Shifting from whispers into open debate.
Giovanni stood upon the altar, listening to the noise below.
In this sacred place, a “divine revelation” spoken directly by his mouth as the “Lord’s spokesman,” processed through the believers’ own “deduction” and spread by word of mouth…
This would no longer be a rumor.
It would be the “truth.” Mass ended.
Several women in the village famous for their piety—and equally famous for their sharp tongues—such as Maria, the blacksmith’s wife, and Sophia, the grocer’s wife, looked as if they had acquired a grand prize, their eyes gleaming.
The moment they stepped out of the church, they couldn’t wait to begin their “evangelism.” They took the “divine revelation” Giovanni spoke of and re-enacted it with dramatic flair.
“Have you heard?
The Lord Rector received a revelation from God!
The villain harming everyone is Bartolo!” “The Lord Rector saw it with his own eyes in a vision!
A devil belching black smoke was standing right behind Bartolo!” “Every single gold coin in his house is stained with the blood and tears of his tenant farmers!” “He mocked the Lord’s festival, and the Lord heard him!
That’s why He sent down punishment!” “Our village well, Giotto’s bread, Martin’s ox…
he caused it all!” Rumors spread faster than any curse Giovanni could have fabricated.
In a single morning.
The claim that “Bartolo is the culprit” spread to every corner of Santa Lucia.
*** Bartolo quickly sensed that something was wrong.
After lunch, he strolled through the village as usual to inspect his “domain.” Yet today, the atmosphere in the village had completely changed.
Those who used to lower their heads from afar and respectfully greet him whenever they saw him…
Today, when they saw him, it was as if they had seen the devil.
They stopped in their tracks, staring at him from a distance.
In their eyes, there was no longer reverence.
There was hatred.
And fear.
Someone spat on the ground near his feet.
Someone grabbed their child nearby and rushed back into their house, as if afraid that a single glance from him would make the child sick.
A few half-grown boys even threw clods of mud at his back.
Though they missed, the humiliation turned Bartolo’s face purple with rage.
“Get lost!
You little bastards!” he roared.
The children scattered, laughing.
Bartolo trembled with rage.
He couldn’t understand.
What on earth had happened?
Why had everyone gone mad overnight?
He grabbed a slow-running villager.
It was an honest, simple farmer who used to be his tenant.
“Speak!
What’s wrong with all of you?” Bartolo asked, grabbing him by the collar.
The farmer shook violently, not daring to look him in the eye.
“M-Master Bartolo…
you…
you had better go home quickly…” the farmer stammered.
“Go home for what!
Make it clear!” “You…
you…
you are…
Satan’s servant…” The farmer plucked up his courage and blurted out half of what he had heard.
“It’s you…
who brought the curse upon us…” With that, without knowing where he found the strength, he shoved Bartolo away and scrambled off in terror.
Satan’s servant?
Bartolo stood frozen on the spot.
He finally understood.
It was that fair-faced rector.
He had incited these fools inside the church.
He had framed him for everything that had happened.
The rage of being wronged and the humiliation of betrayal surged into Bartolo’s heart at the same time.
He, Bartolo, was the king of this village.
What these people ate, what they wore, depended entirely on his grace.
Now, they actually dared…
They actually dared to treat him like this over a few words of garbage from a holy fraud?
He stormed back to his manor.
He was going to prove who the real master of this place was.
He was going to make those treacherous tenant farmers pay the price.
Just as he walked into the manor grounds, he saw several tenant farmers gathered together, packing up their farm tools and preparing to leave.
Seeing Bartolo return, they all stopped what they were doing, looking at him like startled rabbits.
“What are you doing?” A bolder tenant farmer stepped forward.
It was Piero.
He leased Bartolo’s largest plot of land.
“Master Bartolo,” there was no longer any of the past flattery or dread on Piero’s face.
“We can no longer farm for you.” “What?” Bartolo thought he had misheard.
“We want to cancel the lease,” Piero said.
“Cancel the lease?” Bartolo laughed in extreme anger.
“It’s planting season, and you’re telling me you want to cancel the lease?
What are you going to eat in the second half of the year?
Eat dirt?” “We’d rather starve,” Piero grit his teeth and said, “than continue farming for…
for someone cursed by the devil.” “We don’t want to go to hell with you,” another tenant farmer muttered softly.
That single sentence stabbed brutally into Bartolo’s heart.
His authority—the authority built over a lifetime on money and power…
At this very moment, it was utterly destroyed.
And it was destroyed by a group of dirt-caked peasants he had always looked down upon.
He realized that his money and his land were worth nothing in the face of the words “devil” and “hell.” His authority was as fragile as paper before the imaginary “divine wrath” fabricated by that fair-faced rector.
He flew into a violent rage.
Yet there was nothing he could do.
He couldn’t drive away all the tenant farmers.
Otherwise, his land would truly lay waste.
He could only watch with wide eyes as those tenant farmers who had once been completely submissive to him packed their belongings one by one and walked past him.
As they walked away, they didn’t even dare to cast a single glance at him.
As if dodging the plague.