Honeyed Words: The Bristling Wood by Katharine Kerr

The Bristling Wood by Katharine Kerr · 8 February 2007

This book, third in the Deverry series by Katharine Kerr, takes place in two times. The "present day" is the period of 1063-1064 and the past is a bit less than 200 years gone.

This book has definite strengths and weaknesses. Like the others in the series, it centers around the character of Nevyn, pronounced "no one," and his unnaturally extended life. And also like the others, it deals with the reincarnation of people that Nevyn, formerly Galrion, encountered as a young man and entangled in his Wyrd, or destiny. Nevyn is in the process of spending hundreds of years to make good on a promise to the gods inspired by the mistakes of his youth.

The first two books in the series focused more on the past lives of the characters. In this third book, we tread mostly in the present and the reader finally spends enough time there to care more about the current incarnations of the characters than the past ones. This caring comes at a price though. When Kerr attempts to fold the past into the preset in this book, she shortchanges it. In the first two books, the past held a complete story and each character learned a lesson that furthered the mending of their own tangled Wyrd.

In this book, the incarnation of Brangwen, the girl that Nevyn must bring to the study of good magic, or dweomer, is given only a cameo role. The incarnation of her lover spends time with Nevyn, but the whole purpose of the interlude seems to be to prove Nevyn's ability to manipulate situations, in this case choosing who will sit the throne, a feat which was proven in the previous books. The interlude trailed off, leaving the reader with a sense that Kerr would return to it to wrap up the dangling ends, but she never did.

When the main story picks back up Kerr allows herself to focus on a tightly crafted plot of treachery and abduction. Jill, Brangwen’s present day incarnation, and Rhody, her lover, have been following the long road, the path of the mercenary Silver Daggers for some time now. For Jill, who grew up as the daughter of a Silver Dagger, it feels like home. For Rhody, the wrongly exiled brother of a powerful gwerbret, or regional lord, it is just starting to become bearable rather than shameful. Kerr does an admirable job of maintaining continuity between the books in her series and this one is no exception. The world and the type of people who inhabit it make sense to the reader, and after three books in Deverry we have a good understanding of the prickly pride of the noble warrior class and nod along sympathetically with many of the hot-headed reactions of both Rhody and Jill.

Jill and Rhody are ultimately separated by magical means and Rhody's enemies use this separation to lure him into a trap. Perhaps it had been too long since I had read the other two books, but the motivations of the kidnappers could have used a bit more illumination for my taste. There are two fronts in the battle that this series focuses on. The first front is the everyday one, the fight of the common man, of politics, and petty power. This is the fight that has stripped Rhody of his home and title and there are many who would like to see him disappear, or re-appear, to suit their needs in the swirling power struggle over the succession to his brother’s lands.

The second front is the magical front that Nevyn fights on, a separate battle between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. The forces of light are united in banishing those who abuse the dweomer. The forces of darkness are rarely united, like many stereotypical bad guys, most of them seem to be interested only in being bad, and in avoiding crossing or getting killed by the other bad guys. There is the supreme bad guy, of course, called simply the Old One, who has a personal bone to pick with Nevyn for having lost some battle in the past.

As the characters surmise, it would be logical for the political baddies to attempt to remove Rhody. Yet, it's the forces of darkness that kidnap him. And while all is eventually revealed in time (but not in this book), the reader is left wondering why the kidnapping took place. For all our confusion, we are genuinely sympathetic to Rhody and his cause, and especially to Jill who is heartbroken about his capture and their separation.

I have a strong dislike of "middle" books, and it's probably my bias that is speaking a bit here. I prefer a novel that pulls from the history of the previous books, and hints towards the future, but doesn't depend on the future book being published to make it a good story. I felt that the Bristling Wood was just a segue to the next book. As a book upon which other books will be built, it introduces a fair number of concepts to the construction of the world.

We learn more about the elves, the Westfolk as they are called. Currently a nomadic race, they gather at the beginning of the book to remember the times when they lived in spectacular and advanced cities, before being driven out by a previously unknown invader. Salamander, a half-elf, who will become Jill's companion for much of this novel, surmises from his time spent among humans that the hordes of migrating men drove the invaders into the elves territory long ago. He keeps this knowledge to himself, rather than stir up more animosity in the already strained human/elf dealings.

Fans of the series love that the story unfolds as it does, a bit here, a bit there, but in my opinion, this book does not do justice to that method. Kerr has shown she is capable of bringing resolutions to snippets of stories in both Daggerspell and Darkspell the previous books in the series. Both prior books tie the past into the future and impart relevant information to the reader without leaving loose ends. With The Bristling Wood, Kerr is traveling dangerous ground by creating an alternate timeline and leaving it open. She foreshadows the coming of the One True King and leaves the story there, at an obvious cliffhanger. The preset day story is also left without resolution. Readers are left to wonder how many more books we will have to read before both stories pick up again, and whether continuing on with the series will become too cumbersome.