Old Archibald is chased from the countess's city after she made her physician and counselor Esculaap taste the droppings he bought from him for her. On his way out, he finds a baby in a bundle, marked 'take care of Mariken', and raises the girl his weird, yet sort of wise way, in the wild. One day she wanders off and is captured by the Black Widow -who lost her family and neighbors in a Black Death epidemic- with chained Jan the 'rat boy', being calling both devil's seed, but he helps her escape to the city.