For the first time in a thousand years, the men in Noll's village possess the freedom to love whom they will. In order to give each man the chance to fully explore his feelings, the lord of the village decrees all marriages null and void until both spouses declare their love for one another and their desire to wed again. What many women think will be a simple matter becomes a source of village wide tension as most men decide to leave their families and responsibilities behind. Rejected by the lord and ashamed of her part in the village's history, Noll withdraws from her family and lives life as an independent woodcarver. This changes when her sister, Elfriede accuses Noll of hiding Jurij, Elfriede's former husband. Determined not to make the same mistakes, Noll decides to support her male friends through their new emotional experiences, but she's soon caught up in a darker plot than she ever dared to imagine from the men she thought she knew so well. And the lord for whom she still has feelings for may be hiding the most frightening truth of them all.