Christian (40), a  widower from Vienna, inherits from his father an inn on the edge of a small town called Crna Bara (Schwarzteich), somewhere in still semi-cultivated Pannonia, at a time when the Empire has just started to drain the swamps of former sea, malaria is still not completely eradicated in those parts and horses are not just the main means of transport, but also a necessary tool.

At first, everything goes as Christian imagined. However, a reckless purchase of a horse and misunderstanding of rural economy causes a string of bad decisions that bring Christian on the brink of failure as father and businessman, his horsegroom, war veteran, Vasa on the verge of return to the "Heart of Darkness", and his spoiled son Uli to a series of maturity tests, the last of which is - to kill his beloved horse.

Not only their lives are prone to constant change - the stable is transformed from a "catacomb" to a "cathedral", an inn goes from a posh place to a "dump", the community re-examines and changes social postulates by which it functions, and both people and horses live, suffer, get sick, heal, perish, die.