A small child, no more than four years old, begs in the rain on the steps of a small church. He is wrapped in rags and covers his face. He is soaked, the cold has entered his bones and he trembles conspicuously as he holds out the tiny bowl of offerings. He’s so skinny he could be taken for a little dog, his bones almost look like they’re going to pierce his skin.
In so many years, the church hasn’t changed at all. It is white, with a simple wooden door increasingly damaged and an increasingly elderly parish priest. He did not believe that he would find himself there again, almost thirty years later. He pulled his hood over his head, getting ready to wait on that rainy Sunday morning.
A thin man, dressed in a black robe from head to toe, approaches him. At first, the little one is frightened, the man is all black and black is never good, it is the colour of hearses, then he notices the small white collar around his neck, but above all the scent of freshly cooked food under the nose. He reaches out with his small shaking hands and squeezes them over the hot bowl, sighing in relief. <Why don’t you come in?> His voice is like a choir of angels.
The church is starting to fill up, people swarming around him without noticing him, while he makes sure the doors stay wide open. There is only one person he is waiting for, and he advances with the same expression he had thirty years earlier: indignation and superiority.
A sudden slap knocks him to the ground, and with him the food. He’s too hungry to be picky, he reaches for the still steaming morsels, but elegant women’s shoes kick them off him. <What are you doing with this devil? Is it people like him that you give the money I give you?> He feels long cold fingers lifting him off the ground – he doesn’t weigh much – and tearing the rags off his face, showing the huge scar that covers half of his face, making him blind. It is obscene, and he knows it, he tries to cover his face … then he is thrown back into the mud, trampled on, and that grim face among the pearls is engraved in his memory.
Her grey hair is styled as usual in a castle, but her clothes are threadbare and devoid of the pearls they had before. He reaches out and with a bow he greets her. <My lady, I am pleased to inform you that the sale of your title and your castle has been successful. I hope your trip to the city goes as well as possible> His smile turns to a grin, while with his free hand he removes the mask from his face and enjoys the horror on hers, as she snatches her hand from his.
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