El señor de Bembibre

They want to marry. The people with power have other plans.

Don Álvaro loves Doña Beatriz. Her father favours the Count of Lemos, and a private struggle over marriage opens into the destruction of the Knights Templar. Castles, monasteries, and the valleys of El Bierzo hold the lovers between family obedience and a political order coming apart. Promises survive longer than the arrangements meant to protect them.

Gil y Carrasco gives the landscape room to breathe. He gives the lovers much less.