The story starts when the priest Jan Ponicea has a visit from a secret guest, Ján Kalina. He had left the village of his birth to study in Wittemberg four years ago, and now he has returned even though a reward for his head has been announced. He finds out, that his sister has disappeared, vanished into thin air, three days ago.

He is suspicious of authority, but the priest advises him to be quiet, because an uprising in Doža has recently been crushed and every suspicious character will be regarded as a rebel.

Meanwhile, the priest is talking to Jan Kalina about what has happened during his years of absence, when suddenly a naked, cripple woman burst in. She has got a piece of her cheeks pulled out of her face scratched breast and within five minutes she is dead. The catchpoles try to burst in with Ficko in the lead, the most dutiful servant of MILADY. Jan uses the moment of panic to run away to visit his mother. There he meets a beutiful girl called Maria Šútovská.

They are not happy for a long time, because Ficko is everywhere and he finds him. Rebel cohorts save Kalina. Their huge and well-built captain, in who Kalina discovers his long time friend Adam Drozda, is their leader. He joins this group.

Pavel Ledener, a friend of Jan Kalian’s, returns home to New city and his girlfriend Barborka Repasova. But destiny isn’t on his side; in his absence she has married an alcoholic and sadist. Pavel is sad to death he doesn’t know what to do and what will happen.

At the same time Alzbeta punishes the catchpoles for the unsuccessful capture of Jan Kalina. She is mad, she is raging, and she is fighting like a Kilkenny cat. She takes comfort only when she sees the drubbed Ficko and she bursts out with a mad laugh, but the smile on her face is rapidly frozen when she sees Andrej Drozd, the instigator of Ficko's suffering coming through the gate. He gives her a letter from Jan Kalina where he goads her into open combat. Andrej Drozd capitulates. Catchpoles capture him. But right away he pulls the ropes and runs away on the Milady’s beloved horse, which is worth more than one hundred self-rebellions to milady. When Andrej gallops through the wood, he meets Eržika Príborská the young villain. He falls in love with her, so he gives her the beautiful horse. Milady is sad and cries herself nearly to death. She thinks of Senescence her biggest enemy, whom she can only fight with the help of virgin blood in the same way as bestial Lukrezia Borgia did.

Suddenly the sorrow of her soul is interrupted by the tickling cackle of Eržika, her niece. She tells her, she has brought back her horse VIRHAR. Alzbeta from gratefulness tells her the secret of her life – her love story with a mysterious man and because of this she conceived a child. At the end of her narrative they find out that the child is Erika. Recovering from the betrayal of his love, Pavel Leder gets an offer from a strange man to be a locksmith, and because he is the best in this kind of work he takes the offer. He arrives at the sinister basement and he finds out that the strange man is FICKO.
Ficko gives him a job to repair the iron virgin that was responsible for killing young girls. Pavel repairs it, but only because he wants to obtain Ficko's trust so that he can send secret messages to the rebels.