After fighting bravely in the first crusade to liberate Jerusalem from the infidels, Count Raniero of Pontremoli became a legend, by adding to his other titles Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. And it is on his return home that we meet our hero for the first time, near the ancestral castle in Pontremoli. Hungry and tired from his long voyage, Raniero asks to stay in a modest inn at a village in the Lunigiana. The inn-keeper tells him that two days before a band of pitiless brigands kidnapped all the beautiful young women of this peaceful community, tearing them away from its helpless inhabitants. Moved by compassion for the inn-keeper’s discomfort, and troubled by his unexplainable complacency, Raniero exhorts a reaction in keeping with the seriousness of the event. He offers to lead a group of the village men, neither used to weapons or combat, to catch up with the brigands before they can take advantage of their precious booty. The way is long and disseminated with encounters: first with the welcoming monks of a monastery, then a sly tribe of nomads and a travelling theatre company, and finally charming young aristocrat Maddalena, the daughter of Duke Carlo of Sarzana. Maddalena and Raniero fall in love at first sight and a burning passion will turn both their lives upside-down. In fact, the young maiden is not free; she is promised to a nobleman much older than she. Raniero, on his part, is often besieged by young ladies bored by life at court and vulnerable to the charm of this pure and fearless hero. Page after page, the story unfolds with a wealth of unexpected events whose protagonists enter the scene as honour, ideals, deceit, love and death. A romance in which Enrico Mayer, like a theatre director, entrusts the narration to the continuous dialogue of the many actors on his stage. Right up to the surprising epilogue that is tinged with mystery.