Book Review – Child of the Prophecy

Author: Juliet Marillier
Publisher: TOR
Publishing Date: June 2003
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Cover Artist: John Jude Palencar

Child of the Prophecy is the final installment in Juliet Marillier’s award winning Sevenwaters Trilogy, which she begun with Daughter of the Forest and continued with Son of the Shadows, and I am pleased to say that she delivers a tale with an emotional depth and intricate characterization that effortlessly matches the previous books while at the same time providing a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, which means that Child of the Prophecy isn’t as self-contained as the previous novels. Marillier does, however, follow the general pattern set by the previous novels and focuses on a new generation of the Sevenwaters family.

Child of the Prophecy is the story of Fainne, the only child of Liadan’s ill-fated sister Niamh and the young druid Ciàran, the son of Niahm’s grandfather Lord Colum of Sevenwaters and the evil sorceress Oonagh – the woman who turned seven brothers into swans and caused the Sevenwaters family immense hardship and sorrow. Fainne has grown up in relative isolation in Kerry, far away from Sevenwaters – separated from her larger family by her father who blames his beloved Niamh’s cruel fate on the bad choices her relatives made for her. Fainne’s life has been a lonely one. Her mother died by an apparent suicide when she was a child and her father lives a life of solitude where he studies the mysteries of the spirit and practises the arts of sorcery – arts that he passes along to his daughter. Fainne’s only friend is Darragh – a boy of the travelling folk who has a special ability to gentle and tame the creatures of the wild. His unswerving friendship will prove to be crucial for Fainne when her grandmother begin to meddle in her life.

In Fainne’s sixteenth year, her mysterious grandmother makes an appearance in her life and it seems that the lady Oonagh has malevolent purpose for her granddaughter and her abilities – a purpose that threatens the family at Sevenwaters, the family that Fainne never has been a part of. Oonagh trains Fainne relentlessly in the different arts of sorcery – such as glamour and transformation – and finally reveals her reasons for inflicting such sorrow and pain on the people of Sevenwaters. The Lady Oonagh is an inherently cruel, malevolent and ruthless creature, driven by a lust for vengeance that excludes any feeling of kindness and love. She is a descendant of the Fair Folk (the Tuatha Dée Danann) from the line of an outcast, punished for an evil use of magic. It is, in fact, unclear whether Oonagh herself is the outcast of the Fair Folk or merely the descendant of one. Nonetheless, she is driven by a burning desire for vengeance and the family at Sevenwaters is simply in her way because they stand as the guardians of the last refuges for the Fair Folk and the Old Ones, whose influence are slowly waning as Christianity slowly spreads.

Through the novels, the clan of Sevenwaters has been involved in a long and bitter conflict with Britons of Northwood, warring over the passion of a small group of islands in the strait between Ireland and England. These islands, occupied by the Britons for generations, are sacred to the druidic faith. The islands have a sacred position as the Last Place – the last refuge for the supernatural races of Erin, the Fomhóire and the Tuatha Dée Danann – and they are the subject of an old prophecy that may now have come to fruition. The prophecy speaks of a child that is neither of Erin nor of Britain, yet of both, born under the mark of the Raven. The people at Sevenwaters have long believed that Liadan’s oldest son Johnny is the child of the prophecy, born of an Irish mother and a British father, a man whose body is tattooed with the mark of the raven. Johnny has grown into a strong and capable war leader, ready to retake the islands. The Lady Oonagh wants Fainne to journey across Ireland, to meet her family at Sevenwaters and undermine their efforts from within, destroying her own family – and the sorceress will use her own granddaughter most cruelly in order to see her will not. The question remains whether Fainne is strong enough to resist her grandmother’s evil intent.

Juliet Marillier has once again wrought a compelling story that hinges upon a nuanced and finely drawn portrait of Fainne. She employs the first person narrative to its fullest effect as she portrays a young and lonely girl caught in a terrible dilemma where she is forced to hurt people she has come to love in order to save another person that she loves dearly. Child of the Prophecy is in many respects the darkest of the Sevenwaters trilogy, set apart from the others by featuring a heroine that has an outsider’s view of Sevenwaters. Fainne has grown up very isolated, brought up by a man devastated by loss and marked by bitterness towards his family, a bitterness that has been transferred to Fainne. Like her father she blames Liadan and her brother Sean of Sevenwaters for her mother’s suicide, feelings that her grandmother maliciously exploits. She arrives at her family’s estate feeling like an outsider – someone who doesn’t really belong anywhere, someone who is tainted by her heritage and capable of evil. However, while caring for her young cousins Fainne slowly learns the value of family making it harder and harder for her to do her grandmother’s bidding.

Juliet Marillier has a real talent for creating characters with both complexity and emotional depth and she is particularly adept in portraying the tangled skeins of human relationships. Child of the Prophecy explores the darker and more painful aspects of these by casting the protagonist as a reluctant villain as well as a heroine. Fainne does real and irrevocable harm though her hand is forced by her grandmother and she has to live with an ever growing burden of guilt and fear, as only her secrecy and resolve can save her father. She is put in an impossibly painful situation and Marillier’s portrayal of the psychological terror that Fainne is subjected to very chilling indeed:

I retired early to my sleeping hut, thinking, But for me this child would be well. This is my fault. How could I forget? How could I let myself make another friend? How could I be foolish enough to believe Grandmother would let me be, even for a moment? […]I flinched. Although I had been expecting blame, I had not thought that she would confront me so directly.“No, Aunt Liadan.” Was it my imagination, or did my voice sound less than certain? Indeed, I had not done it; I had laid no spell on the child, nor would I ever have considered such a thing, even if Grandmother had bid me; even if she had threatened direst punishment. Coll was only little. I would never have hurt Coll. But I was guilty all the same. If not for me, my grandmother would never have noticed the lad. She would never have taken it into her head to hurt him. This was as much my doing as if I had indeed used the craft.

Oonagh makes Fainne complicit in the crimes committed against the very people that she loves. She uses all Fainne’s capacity for love and kindness and twists them into weapons and letting Fainne bear the guilt for the fact that she cares about these people. It is the most insidious form of cruelty and it is absolutely heart-breaking to follow Fainne’s anguish and guilt, feelings that she cannot divulge without endangering her father. Fainne is manipulated into believing herself inherently evil and not deserving of love and kindness – a burden that tests her inner strength to the utmost of her capacity. In this respect, Fainne is a very different heroine from Sorcha and Liadan. She is just as strong but she is more deeply flawed and the abuse is far more intimate and cruel as she is lead to take on the blame for her Grandmother’s crimes.

Child of Prophecy also differs from the previous books in another manner. Marillier utilized the supernatural and magical elements of the story in a very subtle way in both Daughter of the Forest and Son of the Shadows, but in Child of the Prophecy these elements are used in much more active manner. Whereas Sorcha and Liadan mostly had some latent (and largely passive) magical abilities such as the ability to see the future and speaking mind to mind, Fainne’s magical abilities are far more powerful. She is able to change her appearance, transform people and objects as well as conjure fire from air. Furthermore, the supernatural races of the Fomhóire and the Tuatha Dée Danann appear more frequently throughout the narrative. This is, of course, related to the prominence part prophecy plays in this tale. It can be tricky to employ prophecy as a plot-device but Marillier deftly avoids the danger of predictability by showing how prophecy is more than a way to lock a narrative into a predicted pattern, instead she highlights prophecy as a riddle that can be more misleading than enlightening and more complex than it appears.

Child of the Prophecy is, as said, somewhat different from its predecessors, and it took me a little while to get used to these differences – especially in the depiction of magic. Fainne’s conflict felt somewhat forced in the beginning and the magical elements a bit flashy. But as the story progresses Marillier makes Fainne’s dilemma eminently plausible and psychological truthful and she skilfully employs the magic as a means of characterization. Thus Fainne’s initial pleasure in using the Glamour conveys some very important things about her character – it tells us that Fainne feels very isolated and alienated from anyone but Darragh and her father. She uses the Glamour to make herself seem prettier, more trustworthy and likeable – partly because it makes it easier to do her grandmother’s bidding, but also because she feels that she herself isn’t worthy of love and affection.

Child of the Prophecy is a very compelling and emotionally powerful reading experience, just like the previous books. Marillier has created yet another complex and flawed character in Fainne, set in a world that has many similarities with Marion Zimmer Bradley’s neo-pagan vision of Arthurian Britain. Graced by the same lovely prose as Daughter of the Forest and Son of the Shadows, this novel provides a poignant and bittersweet conclusion to a trilogy of exceedingly high quality. It is very highly recommended.

Trine D. Paulsen

Buy it now at Amazon!

About Trinuviel