Rhys was mindful of the sheep, for he was their shepherd, but he did not keep close watch on them. There was no need. His dog, Atta, lay on her belly some distance from him. Her head on her paws, she watched the sheep intently, noting every move each made. Atta saw three starting to stray from the flock, wandering off on a course that would soon take them over the hill, out of her sight. Her head raised. Her ears lifted. Her body tensed. She cocked an eye at her master, to see if Rhys had noticed.
Rhys had seen the errant sheep, but he pretended he didn’t. He continued to sit at his ease, listening to the song of sparrow and goldfinch, watching a caterpillar crawl up a blade of grass, his thoughts with his god.
Atta’s body quivered. She gave a low, warning growl. The sheep were almost at the top of the hill. Rhys relented.
Rhys rose easily, effortlessly to his feet. He was thirty years old. His years showed on his face, which was dark-skinned and weathered, but not on his body. Daily exercise, his rigorous outdoor life, and his simple diet made him strong, lean, supple. He wore his dark hair long, in a single braid down his back. Extending his arm in a sweeping gesture, he gave the command, “Go bye.”
Atta sped up the hillside, her black and white body a blur against the green. She did not head straight for the sheep or even look directly at them. Such a move from an animal that sheep equate with a wolf would have panicked them. Facing away from the sheep, watching them out of the corner of her eyes, Atta flanked the sheep on the right, causing them to veer left, back toward the herd.
Rhys put his fingers to his mouth, gave a piercing whistle. The dog was too far away to hear his voice, but the shrill whistle carried clearly. Atta flopped onto her belly, keeping her eyes on the sheep, waiting for the next command.
Rhys made a fist of his hand, held it between the sun and the horizon line. One fist for every hour between now and sunset. Time to think about returning his flock to the pens in order to be back for supper and the ritual training exercises. He gave another shrill whistle—long, short. This was “away,” the command that sent her to her left.
Atta herded the sheep down the hill, back toward where Rhys stood with his staff. She kept her body in a straight line with the shepherd, balancing his movements with her own, the sheep between the two of them. If Rhys moved left, she moved right. If he moved right, she moved left. Her duty was to keep the sheep in motion, facing the correct direction, making certain they stayed together, and do all this without sending them into a panic-stricken run.
The flock was about half-way down the hillside when Rhys spotted a sheep left behind. It had wandered into a stand of tall grass and he hadn’t noticed it. Rhys whistled again, a different command, one that meant “Lie down.”
Atta slowed her pace. The command was not meant to be taken literally, although sometimes the dog would actually lie down on her belly. In this instance, she came to a halt. The flock slowed their pace. Atta fixed them with her mesmeric brown eyes, holding them, and they stopped.
Rhys whistled again, another different signal. “Turn back,” he commanded.
Certain that the flock would remain where she left them, Atta turned and sped up the hill. She spotted the lone sheep and got it moving, heading back to the flock. Once it was apparent that the sheep would rejoin the herd, Atta urged her flock on toward Rhys.
All was going well until a ram took it into his woolly head to defy Atta. The ram, which was far heavier and several times larger than the small dog, turned around, stamped his hoof, and refused to budge.
Atta crouched, froze in place. She stared at the sheep, her eyes intent. If the ram remained stubborn, she might rush in to give him a nip on the nose, but that rarely happened. The ram lowered his head. Atta began to creep forward at a moving crouch, her eyes fixed on the ram. After a moment’s tense confrontation, the ram suddenly gave way before the dog’s mesmerizing stare and whipped around to join the herd. Atta started them off once again.
Rhys felt the blessings of the god swell within him. The green hillside, the blue sky, the white clouds, white sheep, the black and white dog flying over the grass, the darting swallows, a spiraling hawk, grasshoppers jumping up on his robes; the bright, hot, sinking sun; the feel of grass beneath his calloused bare feet: all was Rhys and he was all. All was Majere’s and the god was all.
The blood flowing warm through his body, his staff lightly thumping the ground, Rhys moved without haste. He enjoyed the day, enjoyed the view, enjoyed his time alone in the hills. He enjoyed going back to his home again in the evening. The granite walls of the monastery stood on a hilltop opposite him and inside those walls was brotherhood, order, quiet contentment.
His routine this day had been exactly the same as that of countless days previous. Majere willing, tomorrow would be no different. Rhys and the other monks of the Order of Majere rose in the dark hour before dawn. They spent an hour in meditation and prayer to Majere, then went out into the stone courtyard to perform the ritual exercises that warmed and stretched the body. After this, they ate a breakfast of meat or fish, served with bread and goat’s milk cheese, with goat’s milk to drink. Lunch—cheese and bread—was eaten in the fields or wherever they happened to be. Supper was onion soup, hot and nourishing, served with meat or fish, bread, and a mix of garden greens and fresh vegetables in the summer, apples and dried fruit and nuts in the winter.
After breakfast, the monks went to their daily tasks. These varied by season. In the summer, they worked in the fields, tended to the sheep, pigs, and chickens, and made repairs to the buildings. Fall was harvest and laying in stores, salting down meat so that it would keep through the long months of cold and snow ahead, packing apples in wooden barrels. Winter was a time for indoor work: carding and combing wool, weaving cloth, cutting and sewing clothes; doing leather work; concocting potions for the sick. Winter was also a time for the mind: writing, teaching, learning, discoursing, discussing, speculating. Majere taught that the mind of the monk must be as quick and supple as the body.
Evenings, no matter what the time of year, were spent in the ritual practice of unarmed combat known as “merciful discipline.” The monks of Majere recognized that the world is a dangerous place and although they practiced and followed Majere’s precepts of peace and brotherhood for all mankind, they understood that peace must sometimes be maintained with force, and that to protect their own lives and those of others, they must be as ready to fight as to pray. Every night—rain or shine, snow or blazing sun—the monks gathered in their outdoor courtyard for training. They fought by waning sunlight in the summer, in darkness or by torchlight in the winter. All were required to attend practice, from the eldest—the Master, who had seen eighty years—to the youngest. The only excuse for missing nightly training was illness.
Stripped naked to the waist, their bare feet slipping on the ice-rimed ground in the winter or the mud in the summer, the monks spent long hours training both body and mind in disciplined combat. They were not permitted to use blades or arrows or any other type of steel weapon, for Majere commanded that his monks must not take life unless innocent lives were in peril and then only when all other options had been tried and failed.
Rhys’s favored weapon was the emmide—a staff that was much like a quarter staff, only longer and narrower. The word, emmide, was elven in derivation; the elves used such a staff to knock fruit from the trees. He had become a master of the art of fighting with the emmide, so much so that he now taught others.