The film is a novelized biography of François Villon (1431-1463), known as the Wandering Poet, who led a troubled life due to the fact that he supported the free expression of people in a coercive climate.

In the middle of the 18th Century, the Ruster family immigrates to America. The father, a former farm laborer, leads a hard life as a settler along with his family. One day the nine year-old George, his second-youngest son, is kidnapped by Iroquois. He is taken in by an Indian family in the place of a deceased son and receives the name "Blue Bird." The boy has homesickness and difficulties accustoming to the customs of the Indians.

A continuation of a story started in the drama "With Clean Hands" (1972).

The devious general Cethegus plays the Byzantine and Gothic forces against each other for his own gain.