A tenement house needs to have steam heating installed. The residents find the necessary workers to do it, sign the contract and pay them in advance. The workers show up and start their job, but disappear immediately. Panic-stricken, the residents set up to search for them, only to find the workers in jail. Totally desperate, their only chance is to come up with an ingenious plan how to bring the work to the end.

XVII century, Bulgaria is under Ottoman rule. Four men break into the house of the shepherd Karaivan, raping and killing his wife in full view of their child, Maria. To protect his daughter and to enact revenge, he raises Maria as a son, teaching her to fight and kill. But as Maria grows up, she longs for a different life.