1544 Cozy Holland, the birthplace of skates, tulips and windmills, is plunged into darkness - Catholics and Protestants live here side by side, building invisible but very strong walls day by day. Today you meet your neighbor with a glass in your hand, and tomorrow you meet with a sword. The country, like all of Europe, was gripped by the Reformation. The Spanish Inquisition, which opposes it, skillfully adds fuel to the fire of its fires, encouraging local informers and spies with ringing florins or swimming in an ice hole. Depending on the circumstances. In the hour before sunset, on Christmas Eve, the heiress of the wealthy shipbuilder Van Hout becomes a stumbling block, an involuntary cause of two irreconcilable conflicts that will turn her whole life upside down. The next volume of the "Masters of Adventure" series includes Haggard's historical and adventure novel "The Beauty of Leiden", the action of which develops in the turbulent era of religious wars.