The rivalry between the local powerful clans grows into a civil war, which has no clear political coloring, it rather is a clash of spiritual monsters reared during the lull of several centuries.
For this reason, the war has no obvious cause, and the only tangible conflict is the primacy of the clan to receive the state insignia from the British Governor.
The family traditions and internal regulations comprise a sophisticated system of numerous prohibitions and complicated, opinionated restrictions, which eventually causes dramatic developments in the personal lives of the younger generation.
One of the central stories is a love relation between Salome Visramiani and Sandro da Costa, the heir of an eminent Genoese family.
Data’s appearance on the pages uncovers yet another layer in the traditions and cultural life of Santa Esperanza, related to a popular local card game Intee (‘run’).
The emergence of the Blue Songs was rather strange too: a woman would sit at the waterfront, accompanying the waves with her wordless, but deeply emotional singing.
Data, together with Panteleimon, an Orthodox monk, his only and the most loyal friend, flee the turmoil in a boat, not knowing whether they are going to ever reach any coast.
It is through the Monastery window that an old-fashioned arrow finds its prey, Nick, a mobster seeking refuge on Santa Esperanza.
The Visramianis force him to marry Salome, but a mysterious intrigue and a constant necessity to hide, make him an irreconcilable opponent of his new family.
Nick, the Georgian mobster, and Parna the Standard Bearer, a professional gambler and Data’s friend, are among her courtiers, who share a tragic end with their Sovereign.
Seven or eight centuries ago, having decided to safeguard them, one of the Georgian kings asked the then governor of Santa Esperanza to take these people under his protection.
The Sungalis are illiterate peasants with a militant spirit, who strictly follow their archaic traditions and live in small communities on their island, where everyone is everyone else’s relative.
These people stranded in the history have two leaders: a retired bailiff Khetia, who keeps a country guest-house, and Martia, the head of the Visramiani security.
One of the characters is Lamour the Walker, the representative of an old local trade: in the pre-newspaper times, his ancestors used to make a living by passing the news across and between the islands.
But he manages to combine his hereditary trade with the job of a private eye, which enables him to sell gossip in a most cynical manner.
Rummaging through Queen Agatha’s possessions, Alfredo da Costa, the Museum Director, comes across a sack full of the pipe pieces.
Salome succeeds in putting an end to the hostilities, but the flourishing Santa Esperanza of the British period is razed to the ground.