Script quote tattoo on thigh

The inkmaker in Sallowmere has finally sent the walnut-gall black you asked for, though he charged me twice its worth and swore it was the last of his good stock. I have set the jar on the shelf above the desk, out of the window's light. You will scold me for hoarding it, I know. But the chancellor wants the old maxim cut across the lintel of the new archive, and I would rather no hand but yours touched the capitals.

When I showed him the first draft, he read the lines aloud twice, then asked whether the line about truth ought to come before the line about the self, as if the order were a matter of taste. I told him that Lord Ancel had got only one thing right in his whole long speech about the harvest tithe, and that was the order of those words. He did not laugh, but he let me keep the pen, and he paid for the gilt without complaint.

The cutter in the lower yard has promised to start Monday. He is a sour man who mutters at stone, so I have stood over him with a candle to be sure the serifs are not too heavy. Yesterday I caught him shaping the S in "self" with a little hook at the foot, the way you used to make them in the margins of your sums. I let it stand. Some things should carry a little of the hand that began them.

Come home at the thaw if the roads allow. Bring the good ink-knife and the thin brushes, and tell me what the river towns are saying about the new bridge. I have kept a stool beside the desk for you, and the jar is waiting, lid loosened so the black does not thicken.

Your loving uncle, Oswin