Guns are rumbling, thick gunpowder smoke is spreading on the ground, and nuclei are whistling the fortress walls and towers! Cavalry dashingly attacks, sabers sparkle, while at sea - ships under a blue flag with three golden crowns. Flag of the Swedish king Karl Gustav! 1656. The Baltic Sea is a "Swedish lake," the Swedes in the Baltic are everywhere. There is another Russian-Swedish war, and the Russian army, under the command of the tsar himself, is sent to Livonia, the goal is the siege and capture of Riga. This is a difficult matter, and it would be nice to have your faithful person among the besieged. Such a person - the envoy of the sovereign Alexei Mikhailovich himself - becomes the young Tikhvin landowner Nikita Petrovich Buturlin, who previously showed himself in a case in the Swedish city of Nien. Nien was taken, and now Buturlin must penetrate Riga. Find a business for yourself, acquire the necessary connections, collect information and transfer it to the Russian army. And everything would be fine, but Nikita Petrovich came across one cunning girl, whom many considered a witch. Her pearl-gray eyes somehow imperceptibly bewitched our hero... In addition, at the very beginning of the war, treasures from the royal wagon train were stolen, among which was an icon memorable for the whole sovereign family...