Through wolf ravines, through freezing swamps, the fugitive peasant woman Ustinya makes her way. She is rushing to Moscow, to her lord Nikita Zakatov. Under the fugitive’s coat is an invaluable manuscript that will save two hundred lives. But it isn’t only duty to her fellow villagers that drives Ustinya. In Moscow, at her lord’s, Efim is supposed to wait for her—fearless daredevil, Ustinya’s only love. For the sake of his fiancée, Efim committed a mortal sin and burned all the bridges behind him. Only the hope of meeting her beloved keeps Ustinya from losing heart under the rain and snow. Meanwhile, штабс-капітан Zakatov—confident that happiness is lost to him forever—makes a fatal mistake.