Valeran is a fanatical and ruthless church judge, convinced of his right to cleanse the world of heresy and black magic with fire and iron. His cruelty and arrogance conceal a raging passion for the gypsy thief, whose image has displaced faith from his soul, replacing it with an obsessive desire to possess her body. Now he is a hunter, obsessed with one prey, ready to cross any boundary to turn hatred into a perverted ownership right.