I concealed my relief when she retrieved her cloak and put it on. I didn’t say anything to nettle her pride as we left the study and went out onto the grounds. I did shorten my stride as we walked out to the pastures and the sheds. She still had to trot to keep up with me.
Lin was waiting for me. He showed me three sheep that he’d isolated from the flock after they’d developed a rash that had them rubbing themselves raw on trees and fence posts. I knew little of sheep, but Lin had been tending them since he was a youth, and his hair was now as gray as most of his woolly charges. So I listened, and nodded, and asked him to keep me informed if any more of the ewes became infected. As we spoke, his eyes wandered from me to my small charge and then back again. Bee, perhaps still smarting from being corrected, stood small and stiff and silent throughout our conversation. Lin’s dog Daisy wandered over to inspect her. When Bee stepped back at her approach, she wagged her tail appreciatively and her tongue lolled with dog laughter. So easy to herd. I chose to ignore them as Daisy backed my daughter into a corner and then prodded her with a nose, her tail wagging all the while. Lin glanced at them apprehensively, but I walked over to a ewe and asked him how old she was. Distracted, he came to me. I asked if mites might be causing the irritation, making Lin furrow his brow and go down to part the sheep’s wool and look for insects.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Bee reach out to fondle one of the dog’s silky little ears. Daisy sat down and leaned against her. Bee buried her chilled hands into the herd dog’s thick golden ruff and I saw suddenly that she and the dog were easy and familiar with each other. Her earlier backing away from the dog had not been apprehension, but an invitation to their game. I listened to Lin recount the ewe’s earlier symptoms with only half my attention.
When Lin was satisfied that I’d heard his worries and had confidence in what he was doing, our meeting was over. I’d never enjoyed sheep, and had little to do with their care when I was growing up at Buckkeep Castle, so I did with Lin what Burrich had done with the hawk tenders at Buckkeep. I’d found a good man who knew more about the woolly knot-heads than I’d ever care to learn and entrusted Nettle’s flocks to him. But hearing him out did take a time and I felt my morning fleeing.
When I turned around to look for Bee, she was not there. Daisy was sitting calmly. My reaction was instinctive. I reached out to both dog and man as I asked, “Where is she? Where did my daughter go?”
“Kittens,” they responded as one. If Lin was Witted and Daisy his beast-partner, he had never told me, and now was not a time to ask. He would not be the first unWitted man I’d met who behaved as if he and his partner could speak to each other. But my concern now was not with them but Bee.