Publication
Date: December
2018
Genre: Epic
Fantasy/ Mature YA Fantasy/ Coming-of-Age
Minstrel?
Spy? Witch? What is Mirin, really?
She’s
a young girl. She’s a boy. She loves her sister. She loves a man.
More
important, who is she?
The
gods have given her a task, to save a realm, to save a queen.
In
a brutal world where the young are forced to grow up fast, Mirin’s
story is about coming of age too soon, about love and betrayal. It’s
about the heavy costs of standing for a cause but standing for it
anyway because it is the right. About finding the lost and finding
yourself along the way.
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to Goodreads
Blackbird Rising is the first book in Jane Wiseman's Harbingers series and if you enjoy in-depth fantasy novels then you are not going to want to miss this book. I will say this, if you are expecting the typical fantasy storyline of: magic, fae, mystical creatures, and the like then you are probably going to be disappointed with what you find within these pages. But if you are one who enjoys the fantasy aspect of the thrill of superstitions, danger at every turn, and a hint of romance, then I encourage you to pick this book up.
Blackbird Rising is the first book that I have read by this author, but I know that it won't be the last. The author begins this book with a young girl coming back to her home to find her family taken from her. Because Mirin wasn't there she was spared, but if the soldiers had found her, she would have been taken from this world as well. She runs away, but she has no idea why a bounty is placed on her head, why her parents were killed, and where her sister was taken. Her life is in danger, but there is a plot that goes deeper than she could ever know.
This book is packed with lots of fascinating characters, and a storyline that wraps around you in the subtlest ways and draws you in further and further. The author does a fantastic job showing Mirin's growth over time and that while she is on the "run" she is able to find a place of refuge. It's not a long time that she is able to rest and call this new place home, but it is enough for her to grow attached to these people. I love the swirling of secrets. The mysterious song that the author really makes the focal point at times really piques my interest. I kept wondering - is there a meaning to the words of this song? The answer? Yes! Piece by piece this story comes together and I ate it up.
There is a huge twist in this book, that honestly catches me by surprise. My jaw was on the floor. LOL! I won't give any spoilers, but Wat will be the one who tells the tale, but the truth will come fully from another. I loved it. This story is engaging, complex, and a true page-turner. I'm eager for the next book in this series to find out what happens next.
I am rating this book 5 out of 5 stars. This is such a good coming-of-age fantasy novel that packs so much. Each of the chapter's titles is perfect. They pique your interest further into the story and then give you the answers that you are looking for. If you love a good fiction novel with engaging characters and a storyline that keeps you page-turning, don't miss out on this book.
Trailer
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CHAPTER
NINE
Playing
for Time
By
morning, I had a bad case of jitters. I could see Wat did, too. After
we breakfasted on some of the scraps we had managed to snag during
our march the night before back through the kitchen shed, Wat sat
thinking a long time. I tried not to interrupt, although I was
itching to do it.
Finally,
he looked up at me. “We’ll go in together.” He sounded certain,
but his eyes betrayed him. I could tell he was far from certain.
Wat’s eyes were a clear azure, like a cloudless noontide sky. But
when he was angry or worried, they turned. They became somehow duller
and sharper at the same time, as if you were to stare into a pond
reflecting a clear noontide sky at the moment a cloud passes over. Or
as if you were to sight down the blade of a sword made of
fine-tempered steel. As you see, I’d had a long time to study Wat,
and at close quarters, too. I knew how to read him, and I read that
he was sick with worry.
“How?
How will we manage that? Master Charlo is on to you now. He won’t
allow it,” I said.
“Probably
thinking I’m looking the place over to see what I can steal,”
said Wat. “Yes, you’re right. But I’ll manage it.” He
summoned up a smile. “You’re modest. You know that? You’re too
modest to bathe in front of strangers. I need to be there. That’s
what I’ll tell them.” “Will it work?”
“Maybe,”
he said. “What if it doesn’t?”
“I’ll
create a diversion.” “How in the Nine Spheres will you do that?”
The corner of Wat’s mouth quirked up in what passed for one of his
enigmatic smiles. But people were starting to drift down the road in
our direction. They wanted to be entertained. Wat didn’t answer me.
He headed over to our wagon and disappointed them by slapping a large
NO PERFORMANCE TODAY sign on the outside of the wagon,
and
shaking his head firmly at the many who couldn’t read. I wanted him
to tell me about his plans, but he wouldn’t talk about it. Instead,
he made me go back into the wagon box bed.
“Otherwise
every young girl in the Hundred is going to come crowding around to
see if she can catch your eye,” said Wat as he shuttered me in. “I
look like a girl,” I shouted through the slats.
“I
think that may be the point,” he said in a reasonable tone of voice
that sent me into a suppressed fury. “You’re not threatening. The
mothers don’t fear you’ll run off with the daughters. You’re
like a pet. But they can pretend to dream about you. Girls that age.
That’s what they do.” He was sitting on the wagon seat, leaning
back against the box bed, so we could have a conversation just as if
we were face to face.
“No,
not today. Sorry,” I heard him call out to someone. “I’m a girl
that age. I don’t have thoughts like that.”
“You
haven’t had time to. If you were home with your mother, you’d be
having them about now.”
“That’s
a lie,” I said between gritted teeth. Why was I getting so angry?
Maybe so I wouldn’t think about what it would have been like, if I
were home with my mother. Maybe because Wat hadn’t bothered to
answer my question. “Not a lie. It’s just the truth,” said Wat.
“And keep your voice down. Sorry, no performance today,” I heard
him call. “How would you know what girls think?” I muttered.
“Oh,
I know,” he said. He was infuriating, Wat was. I think he enjoyed
it. But he was my master, so I knew not to push him too far. He had
never beaten me, not yet. Once he was about to. “Remember your
promise to Old Gwen!” I had screamed at him.
“I
made her no such promise,” he told me as he circled around to get
behind me with the strap he used to hobble Millicent. But in the end,
he didn’t beat me. I don’t even remember what I had done to get
him so worked up. Probably something dangerous. Every now and again I
noticed it. He feared for me. Yet he wasn’t allowed to. That
frustrated him, almost beyond bearing.
The
time of our summoning drew closer, and the people had all wandered
off, so he let me out of the box bed. He still hadn’t told me how
he planned to create a diversion. I pulled the Kenning the Juggler
costume on again. It was all I could do. The people in the castle
would see the boy they expected to see. “We won’t stuff the rags
in,” Wat decided, looking me up and down. “They may fall out at
the wrong moment, and we don’t want any extra attention. You’ll
be fine. You look fine. The servants are not going to be looking too
close, down there.”
I
turned away to hide my blushing. This part of my costume always made
me feel uneasy and wrong. “But when I step into the bath, they’ll
notice,” I said, pressing the point.
“They
would indeed, but we won’t let them see.”
“How
do you plan to keep them from it?” Answer me, Wat. Before he could
explain, we noticed Master Charlo shouldering past the guards. He
came down the hill toward us.
“Follow
my lead,” said Wat to me. I suppressed an annoyed grimace. Wat was
always figuring out some plan, I’d have no idea what it was, and I
just had to follow along, the instrument the master played upon.
“Don’t forget your rebec,” said Wat. When Master Charlo was
near enough to speak but not so close that we could give him any
vermin or diseases, he addressed Wat. “None of your tricks, young
man. Just the boy. I want just the boy.”
Wat
bowed to him. Master Charlo reached out his hand to me, then snatched
it back. “Come with me,” he said. He turned on his heel and
started marching up the hill. With a helpless glance at Wat, I
followed the elegantly clothed Master Charlo. But I quickly realized
Wat was right behind me. At the gate, Master Charlo turned to me
again. When he saw Wat, he frowned. “Fellow, I told you—just the
boy. Not you.”
“Good
Master Charlo,” said Wat, with another low bow. “My brother is
very modest. He is frightened near to death. He’ll not be able to
sing.”
It
was true. I was frightened, frightened near to death. I didn’t have
to act it. “I need to come with him,” said Wat. “At least for
the bath and the dressing of him. He hasn’t been parted from me
since he was a baby, when we were orphaned.” If Wat thought that
heart-tugging story would affect Master Charlo, he was wrong.
“Nonsense,”
Master Charlo snorted. “The boy is to come with me. You are to
stay.” He looked over at the guards. “See that this fellow
remains outside.” Both of them stepped forward. They were very
large armored creatures with solid, inscrutable faces under the cones
of their helmets. They both carried menacing steel-tipped pikes. Wat
simply made another of those obsequious bows. “As you wish, Master
Charlo.
"Aedan,”
he said to me. “I’ll be waiting here for you, never fear. They’ll
send you out to me soon.”
“He’ll
sing, or he’ll wish he had,” said Master Charlo. “No one goes
against a direct command of her ladyship.” I began to cry. It
wasn’t hard to make myself do it.
“What
a pathetic excuse of a boy you are,” Master Charlo said to me.
“What those girls see in you—”
“Their
ladyships?” asked Wat, his voice innocent. Master Charlo gave him a
sharp look. “Yes,” he said slowly, with a kind of menace. “Their
ladyships.”
“Well,
go then, and do your best, brother,” Wat said to me in kind,
unctuous tones. “They won’t hurt you. They won’t hurt him, will
they? When he can’t? Sing?” he said to Master Charlo. Over Master
Charlo’s shoulder, I arched an eyebrow at Wat. He gave me the
smallest of shrugs back. We hardly had to speak to each other, Wat
and I. That’s how well we knew each other by then, at least where
giving a performance was concerned. Really? You’re going for that
again? I was saying to him. Might as well was his reply. Might work.
Worth a try. Master Charlo’s face clouded up the way the day was
clouding up, big thunderheads boiling from behind the castle keep.
It’s not going to work this time, I thought. You could fool Master
Blue, but not this man.
“Come
with me,” Master Charlo snapped. I stepped in behind him and
the
guards
stepped aside. “Both of them,” he said tight-lipped to the
guards. Wat gave me a small sidelong smile as we came through the
gates together at Master Charlo’s heels, but when the man turned to
make sure we were following him, and probably to make sure Wat was
not scouring the place for items to thieve, Wat had made his face as
open and sincere and concerned as it was supposed to be. Wat’s ruse
had worked again. It really had. Now I did have to act. Act to
suppress an admiring exclamation, one actor to another. The fright I
felt was too overwhelming, though.
We
threaded our way through the castle outbuildings, as before. A patter
of rain was starting to fall. I lifted my face to the sky. The rain
felt good, comforting somehow, but I knew there was nothing
comforting about our situation. Only Wat’s quick thinking saved us
this time, as last time, but I knew our luck had to be running out.
Finally
we came to an obscure shed with steam rising from its smoke-hole. A
woodsy aroma wafted from the shed into the damp air. It reminded me
suddenly of home. Master Charlo knocked. A man stuck his head out and
glanced at us. “Which one is the boy?”
“Which
one do you think?” Master Charlo’s voice was full of
exasperation. “Come in, then,” he said to me, and opened the door
wide. As Wat made to follow me, he put a hard calloused hand out.
“Not you.” To Master Charlo he said, “I’m supposed to bathe
one stinking fellow. Not two.”
“This
man is his brother, and he says—” Master Charlo began, then
clamped his lips together. He turned to the two of us. “The boy is
to go in. You may stand outside,” he said to Wat. “I’ll send
someone to make sure you don’t wander around. I have things to do.”
He stalked off, stopping to talk to another servant, pointing back at
us. The other servant, one of the lower-order brown-clad ones, began
making his way over to us. Wat looked at the man who was about to
bathe me. “My brother is very modest and very frightened. It would
be better if I bathe him. You can stand outside.”
“No,”
said the tub man.
That
was it. There was no arguing with the man. I could see that, and so
could Wat. Wat shrugged and turned to lounge against the side of the
shed. The servant Master Charlo had sent to watch Wat was nearing.
The tub man motioned me inside. I had no choice. Our luck had indeed
run out. I went in with him.
There
was a large cask steaming with hot water before a roaring fire. I saw
stone crocks filled with fragrant soaps and lotions. I saw a suit of
clothes, bright and lovely, laid over a bench. I saw large soft
towels at the ready. I wanted to get into the cask.
“Put
that fiddle down on the bench.” I did so. “Strip,” said the
man, “and don’t give me any nonsense about it or I’ll see you
beaten. I don’t want to hear about your damned modesty. Just do it.
Get in that tub.”
“Will
you look away?” I said in a timid voice. He just stood there with
his arms folded over his leather apron. “What are you, a little
girl? Strip and get in the tub. Don’t think I’m going to touch
you. I don’t want your vermin. Leave those silly-looking clothes in
a pile over there where I can pole them into the cistern.”
When
I hesitated, wondering why he was going to dump my Kenning the
Juggler costume into a cistern, he barked at me. “Do it. Do it
now.”
Playing
for time, I bent down and unwound the yellow cloth from around my
tunic and then the cross-gartering from each leg. I dropped the long
strips of yellow cloth beside me on the floor. I turned away from the
tub man and began to pull the green tunic over my head.
With
an impatient grunt, the tub man snatched it from me and threw it to
the floor. And then he had the drooping leggings off me. He let out a
bellow of surprise. He came at me, and I dodged around the cask of
steaming water, trying to knee him in the groin as I darted past him.
I missed. That made him angry. He caught up with me. His pig eyes,
too small for his lump of a face, were narrowed and glinting. He drew
back a meaty fist. There was a scuffle from outside the shed. The tub
man and I both whirled around in time to see Wat and the brown-clad
servant hurtling through the door and into the shed, falling on the
floor and fighting.
“Nine
Spheres,” said the tub man. He moved around the cask to pick up his
long pole and stood over the two as they rolled and fought, looking
for a chance to rap Wat on the head with it. I bent down and lifted
one of the stone crocks of soap. I heaved it high and brought it down
on the tub man’s skull as hard as I could as he was leaning over
the fighters. It barely staggered him, but just enough so that Wat
had time to knock the servant to the ground, spring up, and get the
tub man by the throat, twisting the man’s leather apron straps
tight about his neck. Wat shoved me aside as he hoisted the tub man
up by this improvised garrote. “The door,” he said to me over his
shoulder. I kicked it shut. When I turned around, Wat had thrust the
tub man into the cask, pushing him under the water, holding him down.
“Now hand me that pole,” he said.
I
stood frozen. I grabbed up the tatters of my clothing and held them
to myself.
“The
pole,” said Wat. His voice was tense. He bore down on the man in
the cask with both hands. Cords of muscle stood out on his arms.
Water flew everywhere as the tub man struggled for his life. I
reached down with one hand to get the pole, still trying to keep
myself covered up with the other. I handed the pole to Wat. He shoved
it straight down into the water and leaned on the tub man’s chest
with it, keeping the man under. The man thrashed and kicked, but soon
weaker. Soon not at all. A stream of bubbles erupted from the water.
Then the water was still. “You did well, Mirin,” said Wat,
stepping back and casting the pole aside with a clatter.
“You
bought me a bit of time.” Still trying to cover myself with my
ripped jerkin and leggings, I stood staring in horror at the man in
the cask. Wat and I were both soaked, and Wat was breathing hard.
The
tub man’s clothes were billowing up to the surface now. “You
killed him,” I said. I looked down at the brown-clad servant, who
lay sprawled at my feet, his eyes open, his mouth gaped wide. “And
him.”
“Yes,”
said Wat, not noticing my half-naked state. “Singing is your
talent. This is one of mine.”
Available
on Amazon
About
the Author
Jane
Wiseman is a writer who splits her time between urban Minneapolis and
the Sandia Mountains of New Mexico. Her interlocking fantasy series
include HARBINGERS (I Blackbird Rising, II Halcyon, III Firebird, IV
Ghost Bird), the prequel series STORMCLOUDS (I A Gyrfalcon for a
King, II The Call of the Shrike, III Stormbird), the eerie BETWIXT &
BETWEEN duology set in the Stormclouds/ Harbingers world (I The
Martlet is a Wanderer, II The Nightingale Holds Up the Sky). A tenth
book, Dark Ones Take It, is a stand-alone novel about the origins of
the series villain. The Harbingers series has a YA-into-NA feel. The
other books are many shades darker.
Jane
M. Wiseman
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