Black compass rose tattoo with N, E, S and W letters and a fleur-de-lis on the upper back of a woman wearing a striped top.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Compass rose tattoo on upper back

Traditional · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman's upper back shows a black compass rose with a sunburst centre, labelled N, E, S and W, with a fleur-de-lis at the north point and a feather-like pointer extending to the south. The linework is bold and solid with shaded areas on the rose, and the design is centred on the spine. The image is in full colour with only black ink and skin tones, and the subject is shown from behind against a plain indoor background.

Traditional Back Compass Compass rose Fleur-de-lis Feather North East South West

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The wind had got under the tarpaulin again, so I pinned the chart down with my knife and two of Aunt Maud's fishing weights, and went back to the rose. The sergeant said a map of Carrick Keep should be all walls and soundings, not decoration, but the old survey had a wind rose in its corner, and I was not going to hand the Admiralty a sheet without one.

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I inked the north point first, because the fleur-de-lis was the only part that needed a steady hand. Lord Harrow's clerk had insisted on it, claiming north was where the king's writ still ran, though no king had seen this coast in forty years. The keep above us had lost its roof to a winter gale, so the rain fell straight through the great hall and pooled where the dais had been. I drew the rays outward from the centre while gulls argued along the broken battlements.

The south point gave me trouble. A gull's flight feather had dried to the nib of my pen, and I was too stubborn to fetch the brass one. On the last page of the logbook I found a note in my grandfather's hand: point south with the feather, the sea will tell you the rest. So I trimmed the quill to a point, dipped it, and drew the long pointer down towards the water, where the tide was pulling back past the sunken gate.

When the chart was dry I rolled it, carried it down the stair past the drowned kitchens, and laid it on the harbour wall. The ink held. For the first time in the whole survey, every line agreed with the sea, and I could leave the castle to the gulls.