A woman has been found strangled in a sedan chair in front of a church .
In her hand is a pouch containing fifty escudos and a handwritten - but unsigned - not bearing the words' 'For masses for her soul '. Chief Constable Martin Saldaña confides in his old friend an comrade-in-arms, Diego Alatriste. Still in danger from the powerful enemies he made in his first adventure, Captain Alatriste is now considering a return to Flanders where war just resumed.
But first, his old friend , the poet Quevedo, asks him for a favour. The daughter of one of his acquaintances must be rescued from a convent , where two powerful priests are seducing the young women in their charge. It is a dangerous mission, but for a man who lives by his sword, there is no choice but to fight...