The year is 1136, the place Tropèa, a walled sea town in southern Italy during the Norman domination. Kallyna d'Àrgira, daughter of a fisherman, and a master of the loom, is pledged in marriage by her father to a man she hates. Into her life comes Dàlibor d'Hancourt, a Norman knight sent by the king to be the new governor. Their opposite stations pit them at first against each other, but a common threat draws them slowly together during a time that saw the founding of the greatest kingdom in Italy.