Magdalena simply does not want to fit into her God-given role as a girl. From an early age she is viewed with suspicion in her village near the Austrian-Bohemian border. When the young woman, who is now a skilled craftswoman, shoes a stranger's horse, her father throws her out of the house. He cannot tolerate her disobedience. The travelling horseman takes her with him to Krems, where she gets caught between the Catholic and Protestant fronts of the incipient Thirty Years' War.
In time she manages to earn a living in the corps of various armies despite hardship and hardship. Her life seems secure when she marries a captain. However, when her husband dies in a raid, Magdalena takes into her care a mute girl branded as a witch who has fallen into danger, unaware that this encounter threatens to be her undoing. Between love and friendship, war and death, Magdalena courageously goes her way, finding not only friends but also enemies. Enemies who will stop at nothing to get Magdalena out of the way...
