The story unfolds in the winter of the year 1215. A mysterious stranger who has escaped from prison arrives in a tiny, remote village in the kingdom of France plagued by famine and leprosy, and ruled by an ageing lord, a former hero from the Crusades, Lord Ocam. Together with his horde of knights, Ocam abducts a young girl from the village in order to exert his droit du seigneur over her. A handful of villagers, backed up by The Stranger, attempt to release her, but they only have until nightfall…

An English mother and her teenage son spend a week preparing the sale of their remote holiday house in the South of France. Fifteen-year-old Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother, Beatrice. She in turn is confronted by the realisation that her marriage to his father, Philip, has grown loveless and the life she knows is coming to an end. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other.

Lucie Audibert, a student of Art History, does research work on Watteau and is certain that a hidden sense that nobody has ever deciphered can be found in a few of his paintings. The further she explores this the more Professor Jean Dussart - for unclear reasons - tries to discourage her.