The tragedy of a woman who - after seven years of vain searches - gave up hope of finding her husband, a knight lost in battle in Marroc with Sebastião, king of Portugal. She marries, has a daughter by her second husband, and endures the silent reproach of an aid, Telmo Pais, the only who kept his hope that his master shall return, as well as the king... One day, a mysterious pilgrim arrives at the mansion.
A virtuous Spanish princess becomes queen of Portugal, and soon is affected by the social struggles and the reckless fight to power between the king's faction and that of his son's.
The confrontation of two different temperaments: Figueiredo, a hard-working shopkeeper; his brother-in-law, José, disorderly and wasteful, heir to a family with noble titles but poor. Figueiredo tries to rescue José from this path of perversion that had led him to invest in an attempted theft, followed by a frustrated murder and seduction ...
The fatalism caught up and the amorous tragedy between Teresa de Albuquerque and Simão Botelho, who survives the intolerant litigation of her noble families.
Having abandoned his family due to religious differences, Dr Silveira moves to Coimbra, where he dedicates himself to his patients, and rejecting any attempts at reconciliation. But, when a terrible accident happens to his son, he must seek a resolution to the debate between faith and science.
In Porto Santo, a small island next to Madeira the drought rages and Gonçalves, a local farmer, tries to overcome the catastrophe, with the help of Bastiana, whom he dearly loves. João Venâncio, who refuses to share the water of his field, tries to steal her heart. One day Gonçalves decides to fight for his beloved, beating violently Venâncio in front of an enthusiastic crowd.
