Passau, Christmas Eve 1099. The impoverished merchant's daughter Alice arrives in Passau, wounded and disgraced, after the conquest of Jerusalem. At the same time, her hidden lover Count Bernhard von Baerheim, who has since married another woman following her supposed death, must take sides in the conflict between the Emperor and the Pope. But then Count Bernhard is brutally murdered at the height of his influence. Who had a reason to eliminate him, and why does the deceased have a smile on his face?.