Mytilene 1478. A red-hair boy is born in a village. He is the son of a converted Albanian and an Orthodox Christian Greek woman. The young boy will reach the heights of the imperial Ottoman bureaucracy and become admiral of the fleet. He will also defeat the united Christian fleet in the Battle of Preveza. At a time when the line between honest sailors and ruthless pirates is often blurred, Hayreddin plunders the Aegean Sea. For the Turks he is a great admiral, an organizer of the Ottoman fleet, a national hero. For the Europeans, on the other hand, and the islanders, he is a Barbary pirate, a demon with a red beard.