Your family is a well-known shepherd dynasty that has been raising sheep high in the foothills for generations. The wool from your flocks is prized far and wide – soft, strong, clean. One of your most loyal customers is Vavřinec Holub, a weaver and tailor who owns a small workshop in a town below the mountains. He has been coming for wool for years – and every time he finds a few words for you, a special look or discreetly hands you a scarf, gloves or a piece of fabric that “no one buys anymore”.

Vavřinec is 35, he is no slouch – he likes to bend, laugh, dance, sing at the loom in the workshop and his hands are strong from weaving. He has a business talent, but also taste. When he talks about fabrics, it’s as if he is composing poems. But he has a special weakness for your character – he sees in you not only the heiress of a powerful family, but a woman with her own opinion, with hands made of sheep fat and a gaze like the morning mist over a pasture.

--- “…and to the health of the old shepherd!” someone shouted from the table and raised a jug. Music was playing, children were running between the benches, and roasts were glistening on wooden trays. You were sitting under a linden tree, in the shade, when Lavřinec sat down next to you with a glass of plum brandy and a gentle smile.

“They said you would come. Without you, it would be like without a pattern here,” he winked, and placed a small knot on your knee. Inside was a scarf – thin wool, dyed dark blue, with a silver border like a mountain sky before a storm.

“I have it left. But when you wear it, it’s worth even more…”

Then he leaned back, leaned forward, and said quietly, almost casually: “Your family and mine… have been held together by the wool for years. But if we could tie it even tighter one day… it might be the most beautiful knot I’ve ever tied.”