The Secret of Santa Vittoria by Robert Crichton

need for The Band to know who was the leader so they could plan some kind of counteraction.
    â€œBut suppose it is true,” Dr. Bara said.
    â€œThen we will have to deal with Bombolini,” Vittorini said. “In a war one doesn’t choose one’s enemies. If an insane mob has chosen Bombolini then we have no choice but to deal with the man the mob has chosen.”
    â€œAh, well,” the doctor said, “we will soon find out who the leader is, whether we want to or not.” And Francucci began to weep again.
    â€œI want the priest. I want my priest. I want to make my last confession,” the baker said, and then some of the women began to weep as well.
    â€œShut up and start acting like a man,” Copa shouted at him.
    â€œI don’t know how,” Francucci said.
    â€œHe’s right though,” Vittorini said. “We need the priest. Every member of the fiancheggiatori must be united for the common defense.”
    The fiancheggiatori is the alliance of the Crown and the Vatican with the bureaucracy and big business which forms the traditional combination of power in this country. The man who can keep the fiancheggiatori satisfied and in balance with one another is said to hold the key to the kingdom. It was one of the postmaster’s favorite words, but as Babbaluche pointed out one day the only thing missing from the combination was the people. They sent a young boy into the piazza to go to the bell tower and summon the priest.
    â€œTell him someone is dying,” Mazzola said. “That will be sure to bring him.”
    They put Francucci in a far corner of the cellar, in the deepest part of the darkness, but even from there he could be heard, saying it over and over like a litany in the church.
    â€œThey are going to roll me in flour and sprinkle me with water. They are going to put me in an oven and bake me like my bread.
    â€œThey are going to roll me in flour and sprinkle me with water.…”
    *   *   *
    â€œNo, I don’t believe it,” Mazzola was saying when the boy came back with the priest. “I refuse to believe it. No mob, even a mob from this city, would be insane enough to choose Bombolini for a leader.”
    But Padre Polenta told them the same thing, and they were forced to believe it.
    â€œYes, it’s true,” the priest said. “The people are cheering Bombolini.”
    â€œBut why? Why Bombolini?”
    â€œIt is in the nature of mobs to cheer fools,” the priest said. “Now where is the dying man?”
    Doctor Bara waved his hand around the room.
    â€œEverywhere,” he said. “All of us. It is only a matter of time.”
    There was a great shout from the piazza then. The force of it was so strong they could feel its weight on the door. And each shout was followed by one after it and then another, like soldiers on the march. The shouts grew so loud and so steady that Francucci himself could no longer hear his own litany.
    *   *   *
    The shouts were the counting. Fabio had gotten Bombolini three quarters of the way down the pipe when the counting began. Someone in the piazza had counted the number of rungs that still remained and when there were fifty of them the people began to shout the number left.
    â€œForty-nine.”
    â€œForty-eight.”
    Great explosions of sound. The progress would come in flurries, four or five rungs, and when the two men got tired and held on, the people held the number and repeated it, over and over, until the men went on.
    â€œForty-seven, forty-seven, forty-seven…” Like a steam engine waiting in the station.
    They had come to see Bombolini fall off the tower, but now the mood had changed. Now they were cheering him down. When there were only thirty-four or thirty-five spikes still to go, however, with the end of the ordeal so near and yet with the distance still great enough so that if he slipped and fell he would