Black and grey realism tattoo of chainmail and plate armour covering the upper arm and shoulder, with a white tree emblem on a dark shield.

Armoured shoulder with white tree emblem

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a riveted plate pauldron over the shoulder, framing a dark shield-shaped panel with a white stylised tree and small white stars. Chainmail links wrap the shoulder and upper arm, with fine shading that gives the metal plates and rivets depth. The work is black and grey with a faint warm tint on some plate edges, and the design fills the upper arm and shoulder.

Realism Upper arm Shoulder Armour Tree Star Shield Rivet Emblem

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Wren, the rivets are in at last, forty-two of them, and Master Tobin says I set the last three crooked, which is a lie, because I measured every one twice with the brass rule you gave me. The captain's pauldron is finished save for the polish. You would laugh at the shield panel. He wanted the ground black as a bog pool and the tree pale as frost, and the stars were punched in by hand with a fine tool so they catch the lamp when he turns.

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The tree took nine evenings. Tobin drew it from the old seal of the Caddoran Crown, which burned at the Ferrow gate the winter the river froze, so nobody in the forge has seen the original. We argued over the branches. I said it should look as though it was reaching for something. Tobin said trees in Caddoran never reached, they only held on. We split the difference and gave it seven limbs and no leaves.

The mail took longest, since every link is closed by hand and the mail-women at Haldane Row charge by the ring. I sent the upper-arm piece down on the ferry wrapped in the good wool, with a pot of tallow for the joints and a note saying the third row from the buckle wants checking. Do not let the carter sit on the box.

The captain came in yesterday, turned the shoulder piece over in his hands for a long while, and asked whether the stars were meant to be counted. I said they were. He said he would count them each morning from the wall, and I believed him, which is more than I can say for most men who order armour. Write soon, and tell Mother the ferry is still running.