McKillip has been successfully publishing high fantasy novels since the Seventies, and her latest, The Bards of Bone Plain, released last month in a trade paperback edition is fabulous. It does not score as highly on the Paganometer as some of the other books we review here: the society it portrays is, apparently, wholly non-theistic, and the relationships it presents are implacably heteronormative. However, if you are part of a bardic tradition, like making music, or enjoyed the subset of McCaffrey’s Pern books centered on the Harper Hall, then you will almost certainly enjoy this book.
The novel is structured into two parallel narratives separated by several hundred years, and the chapters alternate between the two. The earlier narrative takes place at the founding of the kingdom of Belden and the establishment of the kingdom’s first bardic school at Caerau which will grow to become the capitol city of the kingdom. The later narrative takes place at the school in a time when the monarchy is long-established and steam power has just been discovered which gives the novel the faintest tinge of Steampunk.
The earlier narrative thread explores the relationship between the bards Declan and Nairn. Declan is an older, experienced bard who accompanies the invading lord who will unite the territory and establish the kingdom of Belden. Nairn is the son of a farmer, and he uses his musical talent to escape from his large and indifferent family. Declan meets Nairn and perceives that Nairn has the rare talent for the magic that music evokes in this world, and so even though Nairn is enlisted to serve the forces resisting the invasion, Declan reaches out to Nairn to teach what he knows of this ancient magic of song.
The later narrative centers on Phelan who is a talented but feckless student at the bardic school that Declan established centuries earlier. Phelan is in that ABD (All But Dissertation) stage which will be familiar to anyone who has pursued a Ph.D. He has met all the other requirements of the school, but needs to write a thesis to complete his training. He has an uneasy relationship with his father, Jonas Cle who is a rich, eccentric philanthropic archeologist. Phelan chooses to write his thesis on Nairn, and so each chapter of the earlier narrative is introduced by excerpts from Phelan’s academic thesis. Phelan is best friends with Zoe who is the protégé of the current royal bard, and Belden’s princess Beatrice who has found her calling as an archeologist at Jonas’ dig-sites play a crucial role in this narrative as well.
Thus, there are at least four viewpoints explored by this novel. There are the two standard discursive narratives at the two points in the history of Belden, there is Phelan’s academic research on the earlier period, and that research quotes bits of poetry and lyrics which has been written about the earlier period in the intervening time.
But the two narratives have additional parallels as well. In both a contest is called to determine which bard will be the next royal bard of the kingdom, and in both a mysterious bard appears to participate in the contest who then serves as the antagonist in the narrative. Both narratives climax in a bardic duel between the mysterious bard and the protagonist which rips open the fabric of reality and takes the participants into an ancient realm of magic.
McKillip is content to leave many of the mysteries raised in the course of the novel as mysteries. We learn that there is an ancient magic, twig-like script carved on the standing stones in the kingdom, but the stones were there long before Declan arrived and no one throughout the novel learns how to pronounce them though they do deduce what some of them mean. We learn through the lyrics of ancient songs that any bard who finds himself in the realm of magic will face three challenges: the Turning Tower, The Inexhaustible Cauldron and the Oracular Stone. But even after the climaxes of the bardic duels, McKillip never really explains what the challenges are or represent. The book would be excellent choice to discuss in your Pagan Book Group.
Despite these unresolved mysteries, however, the book is quite satisfying. I shall not spoil the book, but it should be said that there is a closer connection between the two narratives than the mere parallelism, and the dénouement ties everything together a pleasingly human way. The book is pretty much a must-read if you derive any of your sense of self and power through bardic arts. McKillip achieves in this novel some moments of transcendent insight into what it means to be a bard:
You will find the roots and wellsprings of this land within you, and sing them until the moon herself weeps.
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