In his sprawling manor, Bartolo flew into a rage that shook the halls.
He slammed his favorite Venetian glass goblet onto the ground, shattering it to pieces.
“Framed!
I’m being framed!” he roared at his terrified, trembling wife and servants.
“That pretty-boy priest!
That holy fraud!
I’ll kill him!
I’m going to kill him!” Humiliation and fury burned in his chest, yet he had no way to vent it.
He needed someone to make an example of.
He needed to make those foolish villagers remember just how terrifying he could be.
Grabbing a whip, he stormed out of the house with his servants in tow.
It was the same thick, stiff cowhide whip he normally used to discipline his tenant farmers.
He charged into the village.
The moment the people on the street saw his murderous expression and the dreadful whip in his hand, they nearly jumped out of their skin.
They scrambled into their houses and slammed their doors shut.
Bartolo stood in the middle of the empty street.
He wanted someone to beat.
But there was no one.
This feeling of isolation humiliated him even more than someone insulting him to his face.
He felt as though the entire world had turned its back on him.
He rampaged through the village, spewing curses at everyone.
Just then, he caught sight of someone.
A fleeting shadow darted across a narrow alley nearby.
A man.
Bartolo’s eyes instantly flushed red.
He had found his target.
Whip in hand, he gave chase.
The man was one of his tenant farmers, named Nio.
Nio was dirt poor, supporting both the elderly and the young, relying entirely on renting a few meager acres from Bartolo to survive.
He had seen Bartolo coming and tried to run, but he wasn’t fast enough, and Bartolo cornered him in the alley.
“Running, are we?” Bartolo panted, advancing step by step.
“Aren’t you lot supposed to be so full of backbone?
Supposedly you’d rather starve to death than work for me?
So why are you running now?” Ashen with fear, Nio pressed his back against the wall, trembling all over.
“M-Master Bartolo…
I…
I didn’t…” “Didn’t?” Bartolo pointed the whip at Nio’s face.
“You lazy, ungrateful dog!” “I leased land to you so you could survive!
And now you dare join hands with that pretty boy to betray me?!” “I…
I didn’t…
I was just scared…” “Scared?
Then I’ll show you what true fear is!” Bartolo raised the whip.
*Crack!* A crisp sound echoed through the alley.
The whip struck Nio with brutal force.
He shrieked, curling into a ball on the ground.
A bright red welt instantly tore through his tattered burlap shirt.
Bartolo didn’t stop.
Like a madman, he lashed down on the groveling farmer again and again.
*Crack!* *Crack!* *Crack!* A servant tried to pull Bartolo back.
“Master, stop!
You’ll kill him!” Bartolo violently shoved the servant away.
“Do you want to die too?!” The servant shrank back, not daring to utter another word.
The whistling of the whip splitting the air, Nio’s agonizing screams, and Bartolo’s vile curses tore through the quiet alley.
“I’ll teach you to betray me!” “I’ll give you something to be scared of!” “I am the master here!
You pack of dogs!” He poured all his rage and humiliation into the whip, driving it into the body of the helpless farmer.
Nio’s screams gradually weakened, fading into faint moans.
And then, total silence.
He lay motionless on the ground.
Fresh blood slowly seeped out from beneath him, staining the dusty earth red.
Bartolo finally stopped.
Breathing heavily, he looked down at the corpse.
The mind that had been consumed by rage cleared slightly.
He had…
killed someone.
He scoffed internally.
*It’s nothing.
What’s one dead tenant farmer?* Just then, he heard a slight movement behind him.
He whirled around.
At the far end of the alley, standing behind an olive tree, was a child.
A little boy, seven or eight years old.
It was his youngest son, Anton.
The child was still holding a wooden spinning top.
No one knew when he had followed them.
He stood there numbly, staring at his father—the tall, imposing man he knew, now holding a whip dripping with blood.
He stared at the motionless man lying in a pool of red.
The boy’s face was as white as paper.
His eyes were wide open—clear, deer-like eyes devoid of tears, filled only with an extremity of terror far beyond what a child his age could comprehend.
Bartolo stared back at his son.
Father and child looked at each other across the bloody corpse.
*** The news that Bartolo had beaten the tenant farmer Nio to death swept through the dead-silent village of Santa Lucia in less than half an hour.
This time, it was no longer speculation.
It was no longer a rumor.
It was a bloody, inescapable fact that everyone had seen with their own eyes.
The last sliver of wishful thinking in the villagers’ hearts shattered.
They were thoroughly convinced now.
Bartolo was the devil.
Only a man possessed by the devil could be so cruel, so utterly devoid of humanity.
Every single word the Abbot had spoken had come true.
*** Inside the monastery, Giovanni was casually flipping through a book on ancient Roman architecture he had purchased from Florence.
Luca burst in, his face flushed red with excitement.
“Abbot Giovanni!
Abbot Giovanni!” “Bartolo…
he…
he killed someone!
He whipped a tenant farmer to death!” Luca blurted it out in one breath, panting as he waited for Giovanni’s command.
Giovanni didn’t even raise his head.
He simply extended a finger, gently turned a page, and murmured softly, “The time has come.
The Lord Himself shall send down His wrath.”