Lesson 5 - Writing Exercise

Jenna slipped down the steps into the alleyway that lead into the lower part of Tynan. Staying close to the walls of the buildings lining they alley she hurried along, casting fearful glances over her shoulder at regular intervals. She was wrong to leave the abbey but did not feel safe there after having seen the men talking to the abbess. For the moment, there was only one place she felt safe and it was there she was heading.

The oak door, with its intricate and mysterious carvings, opened with ease beneath her hand. The metal hinges uttered no sound as she opened the door wide enough to permit her entry into the small cottage. Closing the door behind her, she inhaled deeply of the familiar odour of herbs and spices that greeted her as she stepped into the main room. Her clear blue eyes scanned the room, passing over the benches laden with ancient volumes, the scrolls rolled up and secured with red ribbon and piled haphazardly on chairs. She looked for the familiar glimpse of silver hair falling down around a wise old head studying some text or other.

“Tarot?” she called out, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silence of the room. “Tarot? Are you here?” She stepped further into the room, her shoulders slumping as she realised her old friend did not appear to be in residence. A glance to the wall by the door revealed that his cloak and staff were missing.

“Trust you to be out when I am in need of your counsel,” she muttered to herself as she wandered over to his desk. Tarot was the one person who understood her and did not belittle or fear the magic she possessed. In fact, it had been he who had offered to teach her how to control and use this unexpected gift she had been born with. She had spent many an hour in his company, practising spells and learning more about her gift.

Of course, her visits had all but ceased when her father had sent her to the abbey to control her ‘wickedness’ as he called it. Maidens in training were not allowed to leave the abbey until after they had made their final pledges and had their vows blessed by the priest. However, Jenna was not one to allow confinement to stop her from doing what she wanted to do and had soon found a way out of the abbey to visit Tarot.

Today, though, she had used her escape route not for her normal meetings but to seek his counsel over the men who had called at the abbey and the sense of foreboding she had had when she had observed them talking to the abbess. For the first time, she was grateful of the abbey’s strict rules concerning those in training and the restrictions placed upon the trainees lives.

She prowled around the room, her finger tracing over the spine of a book lying on a shelf, turning a page on an open volume or studying a complicated chart of the stars. Tarot held such information in his small home and always seemed to know where to find the answer to any problem she had but he wasn’t here to help her on this one.

She stopped by the strange vessel on the corner of his desk. She had seen in many times before, usually on a shelf out of the way, and had often wondered what it was. A long spout emerged from a wide but not deep body with a long, narrow handle that curved out from the body, arching upwards before ending in a chain attached to a pinnacle on top of the body of the object. It stood on a wide base that narrowed as it reached its underneath.

In the flickering light, from the lanterns by the desk, it appeared to be made of gold and covered with strange etchings and a flowing script that she had never seen before and could not decipher. She wondered why she was puzzled by an object she had seen so many times before when she saw the small flame burning at its spout, something she was certain had never been there before.