Black and grey pencil drawing of an ornate pocket watch with Roman numerals, acanthus scrollwork and a beaded chain, shown as a tattoo design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pocket watch with scrollwork design

Black and grey · Flash

A detailed drawing of an open pocket watch with Roman numerals on its face and hands set near the centre. Acanthus-style leaves and curling scrolls wrap around the watch, and a loose chain of beads trails from its bow to the lower right. The piece uses fine graphite linework with soft grey shading for depth, all in black and grey on a plain white background.

Pocket watch Clock Roman numeral Scroll Bead Chain

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The king wanted his hours back before the frost came down from the Ostry Pass, and the chamberlain sent me up the tower with three files, a pot of oil and a pie that had already gone cold. Nobody in Varrow had wound the great clock since my master died, so the Roman numerals on its face had gone the colour of old tea, and the hands had stopped at a quarter past nine on a morning nobody could remember.

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I found the trouble in the escapement, though the trouble was not the brass. A string of jet beads had been wound round the lesser works, the way a widow ties ribbon round a locket, and each bead was warm. Beneath them lay a pocket watch no bigger than a plum, its bow curled in acanthus leaves like a fern uncoiling. When I lifted it the case opened by itself, and inside the face read a single hour, the one my master had promised to keep for his daughter.

I did not keep it. I sat on the cold stone with the pie and listened to the tower ticking for the first time in years, and I thought of the king's hours, which were only a sum of other people's waiting. Then I threaded the beads back through the works in the order my master had taught me, and I set the little watch on the sill where the sun could find it.

When the frost came down the pass, the great clock struck nine and then, very politely, struck the quarter after. The king sent for me the next morning. I told him the hour had been returned to its owner, and he did not ask who the owner was, which is how I knew he already knew.