“In the fortress of Peter and Paul, on Hare Island, the junior non-commissioned officer of the Semyonovsky Life Guards Regiment, Vasily Rychkov, found himself for three reasons: green wine, evil mockery and guards aplomb - either in the stirrup with his foot or in the stump with his head.” Having landed In the clutches of the search office of Major Ushakov, non-commissioned Rychkov is forced to go to Sol Kama, far from the capital, with an order: to find out which of the first sovereign governors and with what intent are condoning the heresy of the mysterious elder Nektary from a remote monastery in the upper reaches of the Kolva River. If only the veteran of Narva and Poltava knew where his path as an assessor in the Office of the Secret Affairs of the Sovereign would lead him, he would probably prefer to work in the Demidov mines.