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A Young Trio of Warriors Is Changed by Their Quest in the Musically Minded Fantasy The Harp of Kings
Though it retains the cozily Celtic, epic flavor of her enduring Sevenwaters saga, Juliet Marillier’s new novel The Harp of Kings marks the promising beginning to an entirely new series focused on warrior bards in an ancient Ireland. Though some of the main characters have ties to her previous Blackthorn & Grim series, this one stands completely alone, and can be enjoyed on its own terms.
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It tells the story of three young people coming to terms with who they are, and who they might become, against a backdrop of magic and music, risk-taking and king-making. They three go questing for one thing, but both the journey and the destination change along the way.
We are first introduced to Liobhan, Brocc, and Dau as they spar as students on Swan Island, home to a sort of monastic order of warriors and spies. Liobhan and Brocc are dissimilar siblings: she’s a tall, hasty sort, and he’s more musical and measured. Liobhan and the haughty Dau are locked in a schoolyard rivalry. He’s the son of an important man, and lords his education and his gender over her: no common girl will best me. (There is nothing common about Liobhan.) They are at a scary point in their training —their teachers will soon choose a lucky few to stay on to complete their educations—when all three are tapped for a covert mission alongside more seasoned Swan Island warriors.
In the small kingdom a couple days ride from the island, a sacred ceremonial harp has gone missing: the titular harp of kings, whose origin lies with the fair folk (it was guarded by druids before its theft). The kingdom has been in a regency for half a dozen years, and the late king’s son is now old enough to assume the throne—but without the harp, the coronation won’t be seen as legitimate, throwing the kingdom into political disarray. Liobhan and Brocc are to pose as musicians—an easy task for Brocc especially—in their quest to find the harp. Dau’s role is less suited to his upbringing: he’s to pose as a rough and mute farrier. They only have a month to establish their identities and locate this important relic.
All three struggle with their roles in one way or another. Liobhan has a hard time playing timid, and is more inclined to punch her way out of any given situation. She also has a hard time staying aloof, and is drawn into caring for a young girl—the sister of the king—who is neglected and abused. Dau’s mean situation keeps calling up his brutal childhood, when he was set upon by cruel older brothers. While he sometimes still clings to the arrogance he uses as a shield, working silently with the horses draws out the poison of his upbringing. Brocc walks easy in his role as the trio’s musician, first working with the druids with their lore, and later with the uncanny folk of the forest. So quickly does he adopt his role as bard that he sometimes forgets his role as brother and warrior of Swan Island.
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As they live and work in the small kingdom before the coronation, they three begin to question their task. The crown prince is an unforgiving, incurious man, prone to sudden bouts of violence and disinclined to take sage advice. Finding the harp will legitimize his sovereignty; not finding it will ruin their lives. Liobhan especially gets in trouble with the prince, for she can never quite submerge her defiant self under the character she must play. All three have encounters with a wisewoman who lives just outside the city with her hound Storm, and all three face the otherworldly and malevolent crow creatures who haunt the wood. The young students try on and inhabit a myriad of different roles as they search for the harp: sister and rival, mute and musician, lover and friend. In the end, they will have to decide which fits them best, and learn to trust in both one another and themselves.
The first volume of the Warrior Bards series will please readers of deeply textured, character-based fantasy. If the action never quite registers on an epic scale, its exploration of its characters is still powerfully felt.