The Hutterites are quiet people, hard workers, and known for their natural medicines. They also live in communities, or Bruderhofs, and will not attend the state church. Michael Bruhn, his younger sister Gudryn, and their widowed mother live in a castle in Moravia. After Madame Bruhn's husband dies, she illegally welcomes Hutterites to her estate, giving them permission to build a Bruderhof because she feels they worship God in the right way.

When a doctor wearing ragged clothing comes to heal Gudryn, Michael thinks he, too, must be a Hutterite. He learns later that this is the famed doctor, Paracelsus. Michael is impressed and begins to plan when he can also be a doctor.

Then tragedy strikes the Bruhn household. They are arrested along with the Hutterites. Their land is taken by King Ferdinand. Michael is put into chains with the  Hutterites, doomed to become a galley slave.

Join Michael as he tries to find his family again, listen for God's calling on his life, and learn from the mysterious doctor in rags.

From the back of the 2003 PB Edition