Killing Bartolo did not stop the mob. If anything, it made them even crazier.
They stepped over his corpse and rushed into the treasure room. The moment they saw the chests filled with gold and silver, reason vanished completely.
"We are rich! We are rich!"
They dragged the chests out and overturned them, spilling coins across the floor. People knelt and scooped money into their arms, stuffing it into hands, clothes, and hats. Two men fought over a handful of coins until blood ran down their heads.
Mario seized the largest chest. Unable to carry it alone, he shouted for two others to help him. The estate turned into a feast of plunder.
Furniture was smashed apart. Paintings were ripped from the walls. Grain was hauled out of the kitchen, wine dragged up from the cellar. Chickens, ducks, pigs, and sheep were chased across the yard and slaughtered on the spot. Even the lemon trees in the courtyard were stripped bare.
An hour later, the grandest estate in St. Lucia Village was nothing but a ruin. Broken debris lay everywhere. Nothing remained untouched.
Yet the mob was still not satisfied.
"He has a wife and a child!"
"Leave no one alive!"
"That little bastard will seek revenge when he grows up!"
"I heard his wife isn't bad looking…"
Some men laughed with filthy intent. Their eyes burned red once more as they searched through the wreckage.
Soon, they found them.
In a bedroom on the second floor of the main house, Bartolo's wife and his young son, Anton, were dragged out from under the bed. Her hair was a mess, her clothes torn, and she clutched her son tightly against her chest.
"Please… let us go… take the money… take it all…" she begged.
Anton, the seven year old boy, did not cry or scream. He stayed in his mother's arms, his eyes wide open as he stared at the twisted faces around him, faces he had once called "uncle."
"Let you go?" a drunk farmer burped. "Who ever let us go? If not for your family, would Nio be dead? Would our well stink?"
"Kill them!"
"Kill the little wolf!"
The woman closed her eyes and hugged her son tighter, despair flooding her face.
"Stop!"
Just as her clothes were being torn apart, a shout like a divine command rang out from the doorway. Everyone turned.
Giovanni stood there, dressed in a black monk's robe, Luca and several other monks behind him. In his hands was only a Bible.
Where he walked, the crowd parted. Heads lowered, and no one dared meet his gaze. Weapons slipped from trembling hands and fell to the floor unconsciously.
Moments ago they had been lawless beasts. Now they had turned back into obedient lambs.
Giovanni walked straight up to the mother and child. He removed his outer robe and gently draped it over the half-naked woman. Then he crouched down and looked at the boy with the empty stare, reaching out to touch his head.
The child flinched like a startled rabbit and shrank back.
Giovanni's hand froze in midair. He sighed, rose to his feet, and turned to face the villagers with their heads bowed low.
"The Lord's punishment has been fulfilled," he said calmly. "Bartolo, the sinner blinded by greed, has washed away his sins with his own blood."
He paused, then his voice hardened. "But you. What are you doing?"
"The Lord sent you to carry out judgment, not to commit violence!"
"To raise weapons against a helpless woman and a frightened child is not His will! That is the devil's work!"
"Your anger is being used by the devil! You are turning from judges into sinners just like him!"
The villagers lowered their heads even further. Hoes slipped from numb fingers and struck the ground.
Fear spread among them, not fear of Bartolo, but fear of God, fear of the sin they had nearly committed, fear that they might have angered Him.
"Abbot… we were wrong…"
Mario the blacksmith was the first to kneel. He threw the hammer stained with Bartolo's blood onto the floor.
"We… we were tempted by the devil…"
Once he knelt, everyone followed. In an instant, the room was filled with kneeling figures, like children who had done something wrong and were waiting to be punished.
At this moment, Giovanni's authority reached its peak. With a single sentence, he could decide who lived and who died. With a single sentence, he could extinguish the fire he himself had ignited.
He looked down at the people kneeling at his feet. He knew that from this moment on, St. Lucia Village belonged entirely to him.
He cleared his throat and raised the Bible in his hand, ready to announce his "judgment."
"Bartolo's sins have been washed away by blood," he declared. "But his wealth, gained through exploitation and usury, remains tainted."
"They are the fruits of sin, bait set by the devil."
Every villager's heart jumped to their throat. They thought he was about to order them to return everything they had taken.
Then Giovanni continued, "But the Lord is merciful."
"He knows that what you did tonight was not driven by greed, but by righteous anger against evil."
"You were the whip of the Lord's wrath. You were the blade of His judgment."
He stopped, then spoke slowly, his tone filled with bestowed grace. "So I, in the name of the Lord's representative on this earth, forgive your violence tonight."
"And these tainted possessions," he pointed at the gold and silver clutched in arms and hidden in pockets, "shall be regarded as the Lord's grace, granted to you through my hands."
"Take them. Divide them among yourselves. Use them to make up for what you once lost and to begin new lives."
"The Lord forgives you."
The room fell into deathly silence. Everyone stared at Giovanni in disbelief.
Had they heard correctly?
Not only had the abbot forgiven their sins, he had also granted them the very things they had looted.
After a brief pause, the eruption came, louder and crazier than anything before.
"Long live the abbot!"
"Praise the Lord! Praise Abbot Giovanni!"
They cried and laughed, bowing again and again, hitting their heads against the floor. To them, Giovanni was no longer a saint.
He was God. The only living god who could give them bread and forgive their sins.
Their worship crossed beyond faith and became a madness that could devour everything.
Giovanni stood among the wreckage and bodies, surrounded by cheers and kneeling figures. The same sorrowful and holy smile remained on his face as his gaze fell on the widow clutching her child, still trembling, and then on the orphan with hollow eyes, as if his soul had already left him.
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