The year is 1531, late autumn. Marchioness Sophie de Marginel finds herself a prisoner in the castle of her fiancé, the dangerous Duke Claude de Guise
The Marquis de Pays-Rouge continues his search for her, and a false monk, hiding his disfigured face beneath a mask, tries to discover who she is.
... in 1517, the Marchioness de Marginel, Sophie's mother, was also imprisoned.
Marie seeks a way to escape from prison, and it is then that the ageing Master Leonardo da Vinci intervenes in her fate in a peculiar way. He has only recently joined the court of the young King Francis I.
Among other things, the ruler expects him to paint a picture of the Winter Madonna. The first two royal daughters have been born, and the coronation of Claude of Brittany is expected in a few months. In the kingdom, after the demonstrative execution of the Marquis de Marginel, everything seems to be in order, and the temporarily weakened Brotherhood of the Dog is trying to save not only its new Chosen One.
