A/N: Thanks for the kind reviews and encouragement, everyone! This is the first half of another flashback chapter. The next half will be about Arthur.

"How sweet is the Shepherd's sweet lot,
From the morn to the evening he strays:
He shall follow his sheep all the day
And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

For he hears the lamb's innocent call,
And he hears the ewe's tender reply,
He is watchful while they are in peace,
For they know when their Shepherd is nigh."

- William Blake, Songs of Innocence, 1789.

Eight years ago

The evening sun was sinking below the horizon when Merlin realised Snowberry and her new lamb were missing.

He had been driving the herd back from the wilds on the outskirts of Ealdor, his head full of dreams. Herding was a shameful job for a young man in Ealdor, more suited to children and women, but since Merlin did not get along with the other lads his age, he had been relegated to this duty. In truth, he enjoyed being around beasts more than people, and he relished the opportunity to be away from the village.

He was good at herding and thoughtful with his charges. He managed to persuade the animals to do what he wanted without carelessly beating and injuring them. The number of villagers who'd sent their livestock to him had grown over time, and he often had a sizeable herd on his hands.

It was late in the first moon of the new year, which the Palatine Church still called January, after the Old God Janus, though they denounced him as a false deity. The Saxons just named this season After-Yule. Frost was still in the air, and bitterly cold winds howled down the mountainsides. The ewes, apparently ignorant of the inclement conditions, had decided to lamb early, and it had been a challenge for Merlin to find green fields for the animals to graze, while shielding their little ones from the cold.

And now Snowberry, a first time dam, had decided to wander off with her lamb. If the pair were lost, the lamb would be unlikely to survive the night, and either frost or wolves could take the mother.

"How did you let them get past you?" Merlin asked the dogs sternly. "You were supposed to be watching them."

Jessie, the older hound, put her grey ears back and looked appropriately chastened. Her pup, Patch, who was bringing up the rear with his chest puffed out, acted like he hadn't heard.

It would be an even greater calamity than usual to lose Snowberry or her lamb. This flock was made up of livestock from the villagers of Ealdor, not from the large landholders who sometimes paid Merlin to move their herds. To the poor villagers, the loss of a single sheep meant the loss of an investment of more than a year's wages. Not only would Merlin's mother have to beggar herself to pay compensation, but in the meantime both the sheep's owner and Merlin's family would starve. Unlike the nobles and merchants, the peasants who fell on hard times had no lands or valuables to mortgage. They had no way to borrow funds from the Beyn Avrami, the Knights Hospitallers, or the bankers from Nuova Italia, to tide them over until things improved.

It had been a particularly hard couple of years. Even with the lambings, the flocks had shrunk continually, for most of the villagers had preferred to butcher their livestock over winter for desperately needed meat and coin. The people of Ealdor lived too close to starvation for sentimentality, but Merlin still regretted the slaughter of each one of his charges. He spent so much time with the animals that he knew their quirks and personalities. He watched over them from birth to death, saw them grow from shaky-footed lambs to great lumbering beasts. He gave them names, found green meadows for them to feed in, led them to hidden rivers, guided them away from the wolves. He could not help caring for them.

He did not, however, turn up his nose on those rare occasions when Hunith put a bowl of lamb stew in front of him. He only lived because he ate what his mother managed to scrounge up for the table, and he knew that meat was a luxury she dug deep for, not for her own sake, but because she wanted to put some flesh on her son's bones. Still, Merlin grieved that innocent creatures must die so that he could survive.

Merlin numbered the sheep again, using the old language of the shepherds. He did not know what tongue the herdsmen of these lands had originally spoken, some throwback to ancient Brythonic tinged with Saxon, perhaps. He had learnt this fashion of counting from the elderly folk. Merlin noticed that Hunith also resorted to this odd language to count stitches when she sewed complicated patterns. She did not know what the names of the numbers meant, either, but she had learnt them from her own grandmother.

"Yan," Merlin said, "tan, tethera, pethera, pimp. Sethera, lethera, hovera, dovera, dick."

'Dick,' meant ten in the counting language, a fact which never failed to elicit sniggers from the boys who heard the old folk using it. The word for fifteen was 'bumfit,' which was also considered amusing by the village children. Often gangs of young boys would find Nan Guthild, and innocently ask her to teach them the counting tongue. When the old goodwife reached the number ten, and said, "Dick," in her cracked voice, the boys would howl and fling themselves to the ground, wheezing with laughter. Then poor Nan Guthild would continue through to fifteen, saying, "Yan-a-dick, tan-a-dick, tethera-dick, methera-dick, bumfit," which would send the boys into further fits of merriment.

When Merlin counted the twentieth sheep, he scratched a mark in the ground with the butt of his staff. The counting tongue only went up to twenty, or one-score, which was called jiggit. Then it started all over again. After the first score Merlin counted another score, and scratched another line in the soil, and then he counted a further sixteen sheep. That made two score and sixteen, or six-and-fifty head of sheep. Only Snowberry and her lamb were missing.

Merlin whistled sharply. "Jessie!" he said. "Patch! Walk on!"

The two dogs pricked up their ears and began to pace around the sheep. Ewes were usually the most docile and easily herded of animals, but when they had just lambed, they suddenly became fierce as lions. They lost all fear of sharp teeth and prowling shapes, and they threw their bulk around with enough strength to injure the dogs, which they usually cowered from. Fortunately, Jessie was a dam herself, who had whelped three litters, and so the mysterious strength of motherhood acquired by the sheep held no power over her. Her pup, Patch, was large, strong, and quick as the wind, and he had worked with his mother so long that he felt confident enough to handle even the rowdiest rams. Patch would try to herd a bull ox, or one of the giant aurochs from the dawn times, if anyone would let him get near one.

The two hounds began moving around the sheep, driving the flock up against a rise in the corner of the moor. There were no fences in the wilds, but the dogs knew to make use of the natural landscape to pen the animals. When Jessie and Patch were herding, they were like extensions of Merlin, anticipating what he wanted so easily that he rarely had to speak. They shot across the fields like arrows, becoming Merlin's eyes and ears and hands, spreading his reach across the whole land. They knew when to gently nudge the sheep, and when to harry them.

When the flock of sheep were massed against the rise, Merlin told Jessie to sit in front of them and keep guard.

"May Blessed Brigid watch over you," Merlin said to the sheep sternly, invoking the name as he'd heard the elder folk do, and scratching the sign of a Brigid's Cross in the soil with the butt of his staff. He did not know if he was calling upon the old goddess by that name, or the Saint of Cill Dara, and it probably did not matter to the shepherds. They believed in anything that was useful from the Old and New Religion together, for they were not learned folk, to make philosophical distinctions. The point was the sheep had been warned that if they tried to cross this boundary, they would have to contend not only with old Jessie, but with a supernatural figure who ruled over the beasts of the field. The sheep watched Merlin sulkily, but then they realised the swathe of moor they were standing on had clumps of sweet grass in it, and they turned their attention away from him.

"With me, Patch," said Merlin, "find!" Patch bounded ahead of Merlin, his tail wagging with excitement, as he ran from stone to shrub, seeking the trail of Snowberry. Merlin came after the hound more slowly, leaning on his staff.

This staff had been cut for Merlin by Will. No one Merlin knew could afford the services of a woodworker, but Will was clever with his hands and his eyes. He had taken one look at Merlin and cut him a stout oaken staff, trimming it and shaping it until it was of perfect height for Merlin's gangly frame. Will had also gotten hold of some resins and oils, which he had mixed up to varnish the staff, so that Merlin's palms wouldn't get splinters.

Merlin leaned on the staff when he'd been walking for hours. When the sheep needed to ford rivers, cross thick patches of thorns, or traverse ice, Merlin went ahead, probing with the butt of the staff. He thrust it into the depths, searching for treacherous currents, holes, loose stones, or poisonous creatures. If the young rams got fresh with Merlin, and charged at him, he would rebuff them with the staff, smacking their horns, and they usually settled down. He relied on the staff a great deal, and whenever he leaned on it, he was reminded of Will's support, and how Will was one of the only people in his life who'd been kind to him.

Youth and hound retraced their steps for a quarter of an hour. Darkness was falling rapidly, and the evening sky glowed a deep crimson as the light bled out of it. Merlin remembered the rhyme he had been taught as a lad to predict the coming of storms. Red sky at night, shepherd's delight. Red sky at morning, shepherd's warning. If the saying held true, at least tonight would be calm, although it would still be dangerously cold. A storm would ruin their chances of finding Snowberry, and also panic the flock waiting back in the field, so that not even Jessie and Brigid together could control them. Merlin knew that once Jessie had been given the command to stay, she would not move an inch from that spot come hell or high water, but the sheep were not so loyal or intelligent.

Merlin often wondered what mankind had done to deserve dogs. There was no prejudice in them, and they were friendly to all. Once they had bonded with a particular master, they served his every whim, with no expectation of reward, even at the cost of their own lives. Merlin supposed it was not possible for such devotion to exist in a human being. The gods had withheld such gifts from men and bestowed them on more fitting members of Creation.

Patch caught a scent and barked excitedly. He began to bound away, his tail wagging. Merlin hurried after him, racing surefooted as a goat on the rough ground. He could feel the rocks and herbs poking his feet through the thin, worn soles of his much-mended boots. At times he tapped the ground with his staff, catching his balance as he ran at full tilt.

They passed down a slope, towards a swift river that was rushing with freshly melted water. Merlin struggled to stay upright as he made haste down the incline, trying to keep sight of Patch in the gloom. He could hear the roaring of the river, and over it, the high-pitched bleating of Snowberry.

He came to a stop at the water's edge and fumbled at his belt, pulling out a torch. When he lit it, he saw Snowberry pacing up and down the bank at his side, agitated, bleating again and again. Her lamb had fallen in the river. It was clinging feebly to a boulder which projected from the surface, but it must have been in the waters for some time, for it was soaked, and looked weak and close to giving up.

"How did you get in there?" Merlin said crossly. "Why couldn't you do as you were told, little one?"

He went to the very edge of the water and leaned over, plunging the staff into the river as far as he could reach. Whichever way he moved it, he could not feel the bottom. He withdrew the staff and stepped back, pondering his next move. He didn't have much time, and it would be a challenge to get to the lamb by ordinary means. He was far enough from the village here that he could probably use magic without anyone being the wiser for it. He looked around carefully in every direction.

It was then he noticed Patch. The dog was standing a little way behind Snowberry, looking out into the darkness beyond the circle of light cast by the torch. The ruff of paler fur around his neck was bristling, and his upper lip was drawn back to reveal his long fangs. A low growl came from his chest. Merlin looked beyond Patch, where shadows were moving in the night.

"Forbærne," said Merlin. The torch flame leapt higher, burning fiercely, driving back the darkness.

Two big grey wolves were prowling around them. Merlin, who had seen wolves in the daytime, and had thought of them as nothing more than big dogs, felt a new fear grip him. These animals were transformed at night, revealed to be utterly wild. Their shapes were formed of shadow, which skulked along the ground with a motion that struck primaeval fear into men. As they zig-zagged, they sometimes passed beyond the rays of the torch, and then nothing was seen of them but two points of light glowing from their eyes, like green stars, like the witch-lights which lured unwary travellers into bogs. There was something about the awful silence with which their big forms moved, fading into night, which made men feel like helpless sheep before the hunter.

Merlin turned back to the river and looked at the struggling lamb. On the opposite bank, he saw more dark shapes moving just beyond the torchlight, and a chill settled into his bones. He knew very well that wolves could swim when they wished to, even across swift-running water.

He looked back at Patch. The dog was coiled like a wound spring, waiting for Merlin to give the word.

"Stay, boy," said Merlin. It would not do for them to be separated. They would be vulnerable to being attacked one by one, and if man and hound were struggling against the wolves on this bank, the other wolves could pick off Snowberry and her lamb. Merlin would have to cast a spell to frighten the predators off. Out here in the wilds it should be safe enough. He knew that wolves hated fire.

He took a step away from Snowberry, but one of the wolves immediately stepped towards the ewe, as if to drive a wedge between her and Merlin. Merlin changed his mind, and went back to Snowberry's side. The wolf now went the other way, around Merlin's outside edge, but closer, making a tighter circle.

Merlin felt a chill. He was being herded!

He and the dogs had driven sheep enough to recognise what the wolves were doing to them now. Merlin felt a rush of awe and admiration for these wild animals, which had managed to develop the art of herding for themselves, something which men and dogs could only acquire through years of training. He felt regret that men and wolves were on opposing sides of this never ending war, for weren't they magnificent beasts in their own way?

But he would have to drive them away now. He had no choice. He was the shepherd, and he could not allow the wolves to take his flock. He took a step forward and gripped the staff and torch, ready to shape the words of a spell.

All of a sudden, unwanted awareness pressed down upon him, a waking dream. He saw the wolves as if up close in broad daylight. He saw their thin flanks, their stark ribs and desperate eyes. He saw, far away, a warm den filled with small, hungry cubs, depending and trusting on their parents. He saw little furred bodies lying against each other, shivering in the cold winter, mewling and licking each other for comfort. He felt hunger, a familiar feeling in his gut, but this hunger came from the wolf's den.

Indecision filled him.

He was the shepherd. It was his duty to safeguard the sheep. But if he saved Snowberry and her lamb, he would be condemning another mother and her children to die.

What should he do?

The wolves were no concern of his. They were marauding predators, the enemy of the herdsman and farmer. He was a keeper of the sheep, not the wolves.

But before men had come to this land, the dark forests had run on forever, and the wolves had been the lords of hunters. They had feasted on great herds of aurochs, wild boar, wild cattle and mountain sheep. The men of old, Merlin's forebears, had tamed the forests, cut down the trees, herded the game animals into wooden pens, and turned the wolves away with fire and steel.

Merlin was a keeper of the sheep. But didn't Father Swithun always preach that men had been made stewards over all of Creation? That it was their duty to manage the land and sea and sky, and all things wild and tame? And didn't the Old Religion say that men had once run with the beasts through the forests, and that all things in the earth were connected? Could Merlin turn a blind eye to the suffering of the wolves because they were not his responsibility?

He stood frozen, watching the wolves as they watched him, waiting for his choice. There was no right answer. Unto him had been given the power over life and death, not because he was qualified to make the choice, but because Fate had carelessly tossed it into his path. He must choose: wolf or sheep. Neither deserved to live more than the other, but the world was made so that he must kill one and save the other.

He would kill the wolves. He would drive them away, out of sight and out of mind. He would pretend that, maybe, they would kill some other village's sheep, and bring meat back for their cubs. He would save his own flock, not because they were better, but because they were his. And he would repent that he had condemned the wolf to die. And he would do it again, and again, until it became natural to him, and he no longer felt remorse.

He raised the staff, and prepared to speak. Before he could cast the spell, a flame greater than the one he'd conjured lit up the night. He turned.

A strange woman, a shepherdess, had appeared on the bank, as though arisen from the waters of the river itself. She wore a herdman's tunic and breeches, and grasped a crook in her right hand. At her sides were two beasts, a gigantic wolf, and a great ram.

Looking at her more closely, Merlin could not tell if the fey damsel was a shepherdess, or a huntress. For as well as her herdsman's crook, she had a quiver and bow slung on her back, and a huntsman's horn and dagger dangling from her belt. The tame wolf and ram at her sides seemed to speak of her dual nature, for she had tamed the hunter and hunted equally.

She looked at Merlin with compassion, and it seemed to him that she had perceived all the conflicts which had been running through his mind, and pitied him for it. Then, in an instant, she and her pets turned, and transformed themselves into three great deer, which ran off into the night. Immediately, the wolves on both sides of the bank broke away, and chased after the magical beasts.

Merlin stood for a moment, unable to comprehend what he had seen. Who was that woman? Was she St Brigid, the patroness of herdsmen? Was she the Goddess of the Old Religion? Or something else entirely? Whoever she was, she had saved Merlin from making an unbearable choice. Somehow Merlin knew that the three deer would be pulled down by the pack and torn open, that the strange lady would give her flesh and blood to feed the wolves, and yet she herself would not be harmed.

But he also knew that she would not appear to save him, the next time he must choose between two deaths.

He threw the staff down and gestured at the lamb with his free hand. "Befleog me," he said.

The little beast was lifted from the river, and floated into Merlin's arms. Snowberry ran over and began licking the lamb feverishly. Its body was deathly cold, and it moved feebly. Merlin shrugged off his worn, thin mantle, and wrapped the cloth around the small creature. He held it in his arms, hugging it against his chest, rubbing its limbs, trying to massage warmth into it.

"We've had a big day because of you, little one," he said reproachfully. "From now on I shall call you Moses, because I pulled you out of the river."

The little lamb bleated weakly, apparently unconcerned about living up to such a lofty cognomen.

And then it was past time to head back to Ealdor.

Every bone and muscle in Merlin's body ached as he finally approached home. He noticed with an inward groan that a light still shone from the window.

His mother hardly ever seemed to sleep, and she would often sit up late before the fire, mending, spinning, weaving or doing other chores. No matter how late Merlin came home she would be there to interrogate him about how he spent the day, ask him if he'd earned any money, and find something to criticise in his behaviour. Lately they never seemed to speak normally. Everything Hunith did infuriated Merlin, and he found himself raising his voice at her all the time. He felt suffocated at home, and dreamed of one day being able to move away from this wretched village and find his own space.

He slid his muddy boots off at the back door, to pre-empt at least one argument, and hobbled in on his sore and tender feet. As he passed through the threshold, he saw that Hunith wasn't alone. One of the old goodwives of the village, Gran Ethel, was sitting by his mother.

"You're late," Hunith observed, unnecessarily, as if Merlin didn't know, as if he'd lost a lamb on purpose.

Merlin grunted.

"Did you get any coin today?"

"You know I get paid on Friday."

"Do you want to say something to Gran Ethel? Or will you let her think I raised you without manners?"

"Good evening to you, Gran Ethel," said Merlin, every word sounding as though it were extracted by torture.

Gran Ethel nodded to him, her sharp eyes yellowish in the firelight.

"There's some cold beer and horsebread for you on the table."

"I'm not hungry."

"You have to eat, Merlin. To keep your strength up."

"I'm not hungry!" he snapped, turning to go to the corner where he slept.

"Merlin! I had a visit from George today."

"Did you?"

"He says his son's arm is mangled, that you set your dogs on him."

"If Hyb wants to brawl with me, and Patch takes issue with it, that's not my problem."

"You didn't turn up to help Old Man Arnleif the other day. He generously offered to pay you for some help."

"I didn't like working for him. Didn't like the way he spoke to me. He was rude."

"No one likes working, Merlin! We have to do what we have to do to survive!"

"I bring in money from herding," said Merlin sullenly.

"Herding," said Hunith, "is not going to feed you your whole life, Merlin! No man is an island, and you won't survive spending all your time with the beasts! You need to learn how to be around people! I won't be here to look after you forever. How are you going to support yourself?"

Merlin looked down at his tattered tunic. "Maybe," he said bitterly, "if I'd had a father, things wouldn't be so tight, and you wouldn't have to worry about looking after me yourself. But since you chose a man that ran away from you… not that I can blame him..."

Merlin looked at his mother's face, and saw the fury burning in her blue eyes. Then the fire went out of her, and she sagged, crushed. He could almost read her thoughts. She had spent a decade and a half feeding and clothing and rearing a son, all so that in the end her own flesh and blood could hate her and wound her so. He felt, as always, that curious mixture of shame and triumph, that he had the power to cut his mother so deeply.

But after all, he thought, justifying his actions to himself, wasn't it her fault that he'd only grown up with one parent? Wouldn't his life have been just a tiny bit easier if he hadn't grown up being called bastard and whoreson?

"I don't know what I've done that you're so angry with me," Hunith said eventually. "I just wish… I could be sure you were secure in the future. If you weren't so different..."

Gran Ethel cut in. "Ah now, Hunith. Don't be so fixed on what your son isn't that you can't see him for what he is."

"And what is he?" said Hunith. "Because he hates me that he doesn't have a father. And everyone says I ruined my son, that he doesn't belong anywhere because of me. I couldn't bring him up right on my own. Do you believe that? That I made him what he is?"

"What your son is," said Gran Ethel, her eyes searching Merlin's face, "no power on Earth could have made him."

"For all the good it does him," said Hunith. "Almost a man grown, and he can't turn his hand to anything, except running after sheep in the woods!"

"Don't be so hard on the boy, Hunith," said Gran Ethel, picking up her sewing. "Don't let other people's narrow minds cloud your view of him. Look a little deeper. Anyone can see that Destiny has something in store for him. Your son is now a herder of beasts, but Fate will make him a shepherd of men…"

The silver needle in Gran Ethel's fingers flashed in the firelight. It dipped and rose, picking out mysterious patterns, shapes which had been hidden in blank cloth, but were now brought to the surface, revealed by her Art. She was good at seeing the weave behind the fabric, was Gran Ethel, and her sharp yellowish eyes, which saw the design of the Maker, never left Merlin's face.