Eventually dawn broke bringing a grey miserly light and a blanket of cloud scuffing against the highest turrets as she climbed to the walls.

It was then that she heard, from a great distance, the faint howling.

‘I told you it was so.’ The Castle Lad appeared from nowhere to stand beside her. His sad, wistful face floated like a mummers mask in the thin light. ‘I followed the sound. I went beyond the castle Lady.’

For a moment her senses reeled. ‘How could that be so?’

‘I do not know, but I did it. I walked through the gate, past that cursed moat where they had me drowned and I walked the fields and meadows, and stood on the brow and looked at the river and over the town.’ He shook his head in wonder. ‘How it has changed, in such ways as you could not believe.’

‘And the hound, the black dog it led you?’

‘It led me very well, listen to his call does it not sound different in tone now?’

She did listen as the sound came again drifting through the still, empty land. She had heard it only once when she had lived; baying beneath her window on the night of her wedding as the rest of the castle, including her grunting, sated husband slumbered. She told no one, because to hear the hound was said to be a bad omen as indeed it had transpired. She had hated the dog while she lived thinking of it as some evil harbinger, now she realized it only sought to warn the unwary and the unwary seldom listened.

And the Castle Lad was right, it did seem different, no longer the mournful baying of a chained whelp but the excited call of a scent hound on the trail of new adventure.

‘I believe he is calling us. Something has changed in our circumstances, we should leave here and find out what that is. I only returned to tell you all.’

But, like a pining songbird perched hesitantly on the rim of it’s open cage, Lady Wintyrelake felt a profound misgiving. Brother Joseph’s words about Satan’s trickery echoed, slyly informing her anxiety. ‘We cannot,’ she heard herself say. ‘We are meant to stay.’

The castle Lad looked at her. ‘Are we, for what purpose?’

‘To atone.’

‘Atone,’ he repeated. ‘For being a commoner who fell in love with one above my station, for being caught as we lay together in adultery?’ He sighed. ‘I waited for her as she aged, comforted myself we would be reunited one day. Rather purgatory together than Heaven without her, I thought but I wait still.’ The Castle Lad shook his head. ‘What kind of sin is it that only one must atone?’

Lady Wintyrelake gazed at him with no answers.

‘Did I not pay the ultimate price with my life? I stayed for her, not to mollify some vengeful God. Now I know she will never come and if I am able to leave here then I shall do so. You must make your own choice.’

She watched as he turned and descended the steps, walking towards the gatehouse at the yards end and slipping beneath its high flagstone arch. He reappeared again in the dun green fields following the black dog’s encouraging call.

How long she stood staring at his retreating figure she did not know. When she turned the grey keep towered over her in stern reprimand. She felt anger and fear and hope and did not know which one to heed, worse she could find neither Tancred nor Joseph.

The day stretched out, the world of the living eddied and flowed about her but did not touch her, an endless parade of faces blurred before her, their eyes unseeing. As evening drew on the Castle emptied and became silent, the lights extinguished. Lady Wintyrelake walked to the gallery and felt a terrible solitude.

Sinking to the floor she began to sob. Was this her fate forevermore to exist in this twilight unlife, now even robbed of the meagre company she once had. What sin or wrongdoing could levy such a price, what cruel deity could demand it? In despair she cried out and cursed God but the night stretched out in silence and he did not rebuke her nor voice his wrath.

Eventually a sound scuffled the still air. She looked up to see stealthy movement at the passages end. Murky figures approached with lights held high, reminding her of the night her husband and his menservants came for her. She felt terror rising within. Moaning she fled along the passages length.

‘We mean you no harm!’

The voice, although seeming familiar did not calm her. She ran on turning at the stairwell but more figures, summoned by the call, leapt and shimmered in the flickering light ascending towards her. She fled to one of the chambers opposite.

‘She’s in there!’ the voice asserted.

She cringed in a corner, hearing the sound of footsteps drawing closer. Figures crowded into the room, low voices whispering urgently. None of them seemed to see her until another entered and gazed straight in her direction.

‘I promise we mean you no harm.’

He was a short, thickset man; his round, bald pate glowed in the smeary yellow light. His broad features and sparkling eyes hinted at humour although he was now sombre. The others stared over in the direction he spoke with blank, confused expressions as though looking through glass.

She looked at him warily, then recognition came to her. ‘You were the one in the gallery, the liveried newcomer.’

He nodded. ‘Peter,’ he replied by way of introduction. ‘I’ve seen you and the others from time to time as I worked. That’s how I learnt of your predicament.’

One of his companions, an elderly woman, leant over and whispered. ‘Is it her?’

He nodded briskly. ‘I see things most people don’t,’ he continued, addressing Lady Wintyrelake directly. ‘I’m not supposed to be doing this. I could lose my job but you need my help.’

‘Doing what, what do you know of me?’ she snapped.

‘I’ve read about you,’ he began. ‘Lady Arabella, betrothed to the 9^th Earl of Wintyrelake at fifteen, condemned to a life of misery yet still retaining enough humanity and courage to hide a fugitive Catholic priest. You’re husband murdered you in a fit of rage when it was discovered.’

‘It was my sin?’ she spoke quietly. ‘That I followed the papist way. In truth I had no great passion for either Pope or protestant, just wished to help a fellow human being in a wretched state.’

‘If that were a sin the world would be filled with phantoms Lady.’ His gentle eyes were wise and comforting. ’It was far from it.’

‘But he called me worthless, a God forsaken slattern every day of our marriage, while he whored and cheated and abused me endlessly.’ Lady Wintyrelake shook her head sadly. ‘Yet I fetch up here.’

‘You were filled with needless guilt and you took it with you when you died,’ the bald man answered. ‘Just as the Earl in the dungeons believed himself a traitor for siding with the defeated of two equally worthless kings, the lad waited for a lost love who never came and the monk was chained by disgrace. You all had something holding you back. It’s that which condemned you not some punishing God.’

‘And nothing more?’ she whispered.

‘This is not purgatory,’ he continued. ‘Never was. You were free to leave whenever you wanted.’ He  sighed wonderingly. ‘People’s ideas about God, Heaven, Hell…and Purgatory,’ he added succinctly, ‘have caused nothing but trouble over the years. For the living and the dead.’

The elderly woman, turned to the others and gestured, they bowed their heads and began murmuring gently, what might have been prayers or entreaties.

‘The monk was especially difficult to persuade but we managed in the end,’ the man added. ‘But you have been the hardest to find.’

‘What if you are the Devil,’ Lady Wintyrelake murmured doubtfully; thinking of Brother Joseph’s words but he merely laughed gently.

‘I’ve had my moments but believe me, at this present time, I’m here in your best interests.’

She tried to cling to her doubts but they slowly dissipated along with the fear and guilt as though a leaden cloak she’d long been used to was gently lifted. Only when free of it did she realise what a burden it had been. Comprehension rose like a dawn in her eyes as she continued to regard him.

‘The others are waiting Lady,’ he offered. ‘Beyond the walls.’ He extended a hand towards the doorway. ‘Will you come?’

Outside the sky was lightening. They accompanied her to the gatehouse, its entrance gaping open as a rising sun chased the last cloudy wraiths from the sky. She spied the figures of Tancred, the Lad and Joseph stood in the meadows waiting. They looked transformed, even Tancred’s broken body restored. The dog sat by, tongue lolling happily.

She hesitated, turning to the man. ‘I used to look out over the walls to the lights of the town beyond. I often wondered what it was like there after all this time.’

‘Go and look if you wish,’ he smiled. ‘Then go on to wherever you want to be.’

Lady Wintyrelake returned the smile. ‘Yes I think I will.’ From outside the smell of dew and meadow sweet mingled as the sun grew brighter. The black dog barked encouragement.

She turned and stepped through the gates.