Seven years after the disastrous Battle of Alcácer Quibir, where King Sebastian and the nobleman Dom João disappeared, the latter's wife Dona Madalena de Vilhena finally gives up hope that he'll return and marries the knight Dom Manuel de Sousa Coutinho, with whom she has a daughter, who is afflicted by a fatal illness. Now only the tutor Telmo Pais retains the hope that the lost husband is alive, a premonition that may be confirmed after two decades, with the arrival of a mysterious pilgrim...