Torra’s happy Year and a Day of handfast to her lovely songman is nearly over. Only the Day itself remains before they must marry or part, and what better match could a harpist get? But the town Sage bids Torra to follow local custom and try out a man altogether different – just for the Day, just to be sure.

She won’t even get to choose her own Dayman. That’s where the wisdom of the Sage comes in. The Sage always knows whose body will make up a lassie’s mind for her… and for Torra the Harpist, the key to deciding her future lies with Raith the Stonemason, a secretive big man with the roughest hands imaginable…