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WYNNE WAS IN HIS CHAMBER, bent over Nicol’s coat, a needle and thread in his hand. He looked up at Lindsay’s entrance.
“Is your guest leaving?” he asked. “I’m nearly done”
Lindsay sank down on Wynne’s narrow, monkish bed. The wolf stalked restlessly within him, making his words come stiltedly. “Mr. Nicol is... fretful. When the coat is ready, take it to him and show him out. I have already taken my leave of him.”
Wynne raised a brow and turned his attention back to his sewing. “He is anxious to be gone, I take it. Did you frighten him?”
Lindsay laughed without amusement. “Thou art too quick, Wynne.”
“You are thee-and-thou’ing me, sir.”
“I know it.” Lindsay sighed. “Let it be.”
Wynne nodded and stitched on, while Lindsay watched, soothed by the simple domestic rhythm, his beast gradually settling till he felt calm again.
After a few minutes, Wynne set his needle down, shook the coat out and held it at arm’s length, examining it critically. “It will do,” he said at last. “Shall I take it through now?”
Lindsay got to his feet. “Wait a minute or two. I am going to shift and wait outside for him.”
Wynne frowned. “You are going to follow him? As a wolf?”
“Yes. These streets are very dangerous. Would you believe he insisted on seeingmehome safely?” Lindsay chuckled. “The least I can do is reciprocate.”
Wynne smiled in return, though he looked uncertain “Be careful, sir,” he said. “There are so many people around.”
“I’ll be fine,” Lindsay said. “Trust me. I know this place.”
“It’s been a long time since you lived here,” Wynne said quietly.
“Maybe so, but it hasn’t changed so very much.” Lindsay patted Wynne’s shoulder and made for the door. “Wait till you hear me go out,” he said.
In his own chamber, he stripped off his clothes till he was quite naked, then padded noiselessly down the narrow hallway, past the closed door of the sitting room where Nicol waited for his coat and out into the darkness of the stairwell. Moments later, he was slipping out of the building and closing the stout front door quietly behind him.
Moving into the shadows, he dropped to his hands and knees and let his wolf take over. It was already so close to his skin that he didn’t need even so much as a glimpse of moonlight. The wolf rippled to the surface and he yielded to it gracefully. Gratefully. Sniffing the air, he slunk through the narrow close out into the dark night beyond to wait for Drew Nicol.
Nicol emerged from the mouth of the close a handful of minutes later. He didn’t notice the dark-pelted wolf hunkered down in the shadows, but no human would have. It was late now and profoundly dark, a cloudy sky veiling both moon and stars.
Nicol set off at a brisk pace up the High Street and after a few moments, Lindsay followed. He did not need to keep Nicol in sight—the man’s scent was a vibrant, silver thread that he followed with ease.
Two watchmen strolled at the top of the Canongate, where the old Nether Bow gate used to be, but they were looking out for ne’er-do-wells sneaking into the Canongate rather than respectable gentlemen leaving it, and so they spared barely a glance for Nicol.
Nor did they notice the shadowy beast stalking him.
The further up the High Street Nicol went, the darker it became. There were fewer oil lamps and those that there were glowed weakly, their fuel running short now, hours after being lit. Here and there, human figures slumped against walls and huddled in the mouths of closes. Sometimes a downbent head would lift as Nicol passed, or a few murmured words would be exchanged, but no one moved to follow or threaten him.
A thousand scents assailed the swift-moving wolf, but none distracted him from the silver thread he followed. In this form, Lindsay finally knew what that flinty scent of Nicol’s was. He encountered it frequently on his runs as he splashed through riverbeds and scrambled up hillsides. It was the scent of dark stones speckled with the glitter of metal.
Now he followed that bright trail devotedly.
Nicol did not go much further. He strode past St. Giles Cathedral, Parliament Square, a half-dozen more closes. When he reached the Lawnmarket, he slowed, turning finally into Brodie’s Close. The wolf waited a few beats before slinking after him.
At the bottom of the close, there was a mansion house, but Nicol did not venture that far. He entered a tall tenement building on the right hand side, quietly closing the main door behind him.
Lindsay waited, but nothing further happened. No light appeared at any window, nor did any human voice penetrate the darkness.
Nicol’s scent lingered for a while, then died away.
