She walked the battlements on a fine evening with the dusk creeping from the west and pale silk trailing whispers on the cold flagstones behind her. Lady Wintyrelakes’s unbound hair caught in the dying light as she turned to look out upon the grazing meadows and the blurred huddle of the distant town by the lapping curve of the river. She walked many parts of the castle but this was a favourite spot. It afforded her a glimpse of the world beyond these austere grey walls and gave her some small comfort.

She stood contemplating, for how long she did not know. When she came to herself again the rising moon tangled in the branches of the willows along the meadows edge and the water in the moat had turned to pitch. She lost track of time so easily, it was part of her condition.

The sound of a soft step made her turn.

The Castle Lad stood framed in a billow of evening cloud. In profile his face betrayed no trace of its usual melancholy. A breeze ruffled his tunic and tousled blonde strands across his cheek.

‘Have you noticed anything strange?’ he asked, surprising her as conversation was rare.

‘Strange,’ she echoed. ‘In what way?’

‘The castle,’ his peasant burr barely topped the soft sigh of the breeze. ‘It’s different.’

He turned, his bruised grey eyes regarded her.

I saw Brother Joseph in the gallery. He seemed as surprised to be there as I was to see him.’ The Castle lad sniffed. ‘It’s the first time I’ve known it, and the black dog was howling last night but it seemed far away, distant. Did you hear?’

Lady Wintyrelake shook her head. ‘No I heard nothing, nor saw anything untoward.’

‘Perhaps I am more maddened with grief than I think,’ he offered.

She frowned and opened her mouth to speak but he drifted away before she could do so. She watched him disappear into the night, puzzled by his words.

In the far distance the lights of town shimmered, strung like lanterns along the black horizon.

The next day she found herself in the gallery, the morning sun poured through leaded windows and doused the sightseers in milky light. They trailed past exquisitely carved panelling and nodded before ornately framed portraits studded like gold portals along the wall.

She watched for a time, idly listening to the guide as he led them along, his words customary but his face unfamiliar.

‘The Wintyrelake’s owned this castle for several generations. Parts of the building date back to the Norman Conquest, but the east wing, where we are now, and the west were later Tudor additions. Unfortunately some of the Wintyrelake clan were not the nicest of people, and the dungeons below the castle had a fair bit of use in there time. Just as well none live here now,’ he finished ruefully.

There was a low chuckle from the sightseers. She smiled then noticed the infant scooped in its mother’s arms looking away from the others and directly at her. Her smile widened and she waggled her fingers in greeting. The toddler beamed and its eyes sparkled, raising a chubby hand.

The mother followed its gaze inquisitively but Lady Wintyrelake turned and flitted downstairs into the dining hall. She drifted past the huge feasting table stretched like a great oaken road and crossed the echoing space to a small arched recess tucked away in a corner. Ascending the back stairs she entered the narrow, windowless corridor of the old servant’s quarter.

She stopped at the sight of the hunched form detaching itself from the shadowed corners where the light from the high set lamps failed to reach.

Tancred turned, his twisted body shuffled about to face her, he raised shaky hands palm upwards in soft wonder.

‘Lady, how did I come to be here?’

She stared, barely believing. ‘Lord Tancred!’

He looked around, the livid eyes and pale, gaunt face familiar yet so alien to these particular surroundings. ‘What has happened?’He whispered.

‘Can you remember nothing?’ She urged, recovering from her shock.

His face clouded, as though trying to recall. ‘I was walking from my cell, I intended to repair to the gatehouse, and sit for a time to watch at the window,’ he looked up at her, ‘as I often do’

She nodded.

‘The next thing I remember was finding my self here.’

‘My Lord this is a puzzle?’

But Tancred did not hear, his eyes flitted about the walls and floors. The lights fascinated him, reminding her of a time when she had watched from the shadows as the first lamps had blossomed like little suns in the sputtering gloom. To him it was all new. He sunk awkwardly on swollen knees to the thick rugs underfoot and ranged broken hands across the soft expanse.

‘I’ve known only hard stone and dank grey shadows for so long he whispered,’ looking up tearfully.

She reached out a hand and stroked his ragged cheek.

‘This is a miracle,’ he sobbed. ‘But an underserved one, I am a traitor, worthy of nothing more than incarceration.’

‘My Lord, that is not so,’ she soothed him gently. ‘Try to recall, has there been anything of note or uncommon occurrence these days past.’

Tancred reigned in his emotions and thought. ‘Yes,’ he answered eventually. ‘The man, one of the liveried ones, he brought others to the dungeons.’

‘That is his employment he shows the people around…’

‘No these were different,’ he cut in. ‘It was night, they carried lanterns and spoke of me, I believe they saw me or, at the least, sensed me. They committed some strange ritual. I ran from the room and hid in the gatehouse.’

‘Who was it…the liveried one you speak of?’

‘An unfamiliar face my Lady, I believe him to be new.’

That evening she climbed to the battlements again. Staring at the meadows and fields spreading like Elysium in the moons silver light.

First Brother Joseph, now Lord Tancred.

She herself had the liberty to go anywhere within the castle, and so it seemed did the Castle Lad but Brother Joseph and Lord Tancred had always been restricted to their immediate surroundings, the black dog too only ever bayed up at the walls within the castle’s immediate vicinity. She had no clue as to the mechanics that afforded each their allotted range, it had ever been thus but now it seemed set for change. Lady Wintyrelake anxiously resolved to seek answers.

She made her way to the chapel. Its interior was dark, the smell of old incense clung to the stone and wood.

‘Brother Joseph,’ she called, but the echo faded to silence. She walked up the aisle and stood before the altar, gazing up at the figure upon the cross, the face etched with pain yet with eyes of such compassion and forgiveness.

‘When will I be forgiven?’ she whispered plaintively.

‘There is no forgiveness Madam,’ a trembling voice answered.

She spun around. Brother Joseph crouched by the front pew, his face crumpled and anguished.

She went to him, kneeling and placing a hand on his shoulder. ‘Brother what is wrong, why do you say this?’

‘The devil and his minions have come to Wintyrelake. They have tainted the place with their foul stench, even here in my beloved chapel. We are bound for hell,’ he finished, sobbing.

‘But this is not in hell, this is purgatory, remember?’

After her murder she had wandered in confusion, eventually fleeing to the chapel in blind hope of God’s guidance. Here she had found Brother Joseph, a whispered legend from the time of the Great Reforms made real and coming towards her. Here he had told her of their predicament.

From then on Lady Wintyrelake had walked the castle.

‘Who were these minions?’ she pressed as he continued to sway and moan.

He strangled back a sob. ‘Men and women who came in the night with rituals and cant.’

‘Was there one from the castle amongst them…the liveried ones we often see about?’

He nodded, ‘yes there was one such.’ Pausing for a moment he grasped her hand tightly. It was rough, calloused from the years he had spent, chopping, hewing and carving the beautiful figures now dotted on plinths about the chapel, the Virgin, St Joseph, his namesake, and Christ with his sad gentle eyes racked upon the crucifix. Brother Joseph had loved the chapel in life.

‘Can’t you feel the difference,’ he asked feverishly. ‘It is God’s displeasure.’

‘But you have done nothing wrong Brother.’

‘As I did no wrong when I fled at sight of King Henry’s men,’ he asked rhetorically. ‘Even though they caught me and hung me still; and see the punishment wrought by God for that disloyalty. How much worse it will be that I stood by and saw Satan’s men at arms defile his house.’

‘But how could you stop them,’ she protested. ‘They are mortal and you are spirit and how could I, or Tancred or the Lad be held accountable also?’

‘I do not know!’ Brother Joseph cried in despair, curling into a rocking ball. ‘I no longer understand the ways of God.

‘You were in the Gallery Brother?’

‘Yes,’ he whispered in shame. ‘I used to walk with the young Lord there and discourse on matters of the world; his was such a bright enquiring mind. I enjoyed those times, they stayed with me.’ Brother Joseph gave another piteous sob. ‘And then I found myself there, tricked by the Devil into temptation, relinquishing my duty to watch over Gods house until I have atoned.’

That is no sin on you’re part surely. Come with me, we will solve this mystery and allay your fears.’

But Brother Joseph refused to move, fearful of Heavenly outrage; and despite herself his words brought her disquiet too, summoned visions of hellfire to lick yellow tongues at her hopes of redemption.

She fled from the chapel stalking uneasily along corridors and passages, listening to the building whisper its secrets and settle into night. She longed to try and reason this out but both Tancred and Brother Joseph were too sunk in their respective torments to converse objectively, the Castle Lad was nowhere to be seen. She ranged fretting and hovering in the parchment gloom, her mind a fever.