The magical world of Videssa was not always shocked by the tread of the Roman legionnaires Marcus Scaurus. Half a thousand years earlier, no less significant and fateful events took place, and they began with that gloomy night when young Crispus and his relatives were captured as slaves by the northern barbarians. Could the people of Videssa know, paying a ransom to the barbarians for the kidnapped peasants, what the return of Crispus to his native places would mean for the country?..