Afflicted by her father’s refusal to let her be with the man she loves – the young Turkish cadet, Kemal – Eleni has decided to dedicate her life to waiting.

Her younger sister, searching for Damjan, her young fiancé – her brother’s best friend and leader of the insurgents against the Turks – falls captive to the murderous and slighted Osman, a renegade from the Sultan’s authority.

To this end, he also uses his troops and his most loyal “watchdog”, Rasim, his man for the dirty jobs, the sole person who understands him entirely and who is prepared to lay down even his own life for him.

Side plot: Edisse, a French prostitute of the highest class sets out on a journey from Paris to the Sultan who has purchased her and aboard the Orient Express encounters Ikonomo a Macedonian merchant who finances Osman and she falls in love with him.

She returns to Paris as a witness of as many as three unfulfilled Balkan loves that have fallen victim to the relentless course of the new time, which would eventually be characterised, among other things, by the struggle forequality.