In a poor coastal fishing village, a beautiful girl unknowingly attracts the attention of a local aristocrat. She is soon forced to marry this man she has never seen and leave behind all that is familiar to her — her carefree days spent helping her mother with daily tasks, dreamily listening to the sounds of the wind and the waves and watching boats come and go. She is taken away to her husband’s manor in the city and plunged into a strange world of opulence and quiet severity.

What follows is a tale of a young woman’s journey down a lonely and painful path to maturity. Along the way, she confronts the harsh realities of a society in which females are little more than property, a society made up of those who issue orders and those who carry them out.