Isabelle is a teenager in France at the end of the 12th century; unlike most young women at the time, she is outspoken and adventurous, and the bane of her conventional mother’s existence. As soon as she is able, Isabelle’s mother marries the girl off to a powerful man who is both rich and cruel – although at first, he and Isabelle seem to form a romantic and sexual connection and the teenager is thrilled by the attention, the clothes, the castle -- and very happy to be free of her disapproving family. But Isabelle is unable to provide her husband Gerard with the one thing he demands – a healthy, male child. After miscarriages and a stillbirth, Isabelle decides she can no longer face pregnancy – and she conspires with a witch in the woods to prevent conception. Although Gerard doesn’t know the extent of Isabelle’s betrayal, he sours on her because she is barren. He sends her away. In the backround, all of Isabelle’s life, is Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, the royal who has been married to King Louis of France as well as to King Henry of England. She is known and revered by many in the land – but she is abhorred by many, too, for her free thinking, modern ways. She believes a woman should read, write, speak up and seize power. She has become a lifelong role model for Isabelle. When, after her divorce, Isabelle enters the Abbey in Fontrevaud, she is overjoyed to meet her idol; she is befriended by the Queen (who has come there to die) who regales her with stories of her life, and implores Isabelle to become the brave and outspoken woman she has always wanted to be.