Black ink drawing of a flowing swirl tattoo design with a small cat silhouette curled at its base, shown as a flash sheet design.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Swirling scroll with cat silhouette

Black and grey · Flash

A black ink line drawing of an abstract swirling scroll, with thick and thin strokes that curl into a loop at the bottom. A small cat silhouette sits within the lower curve, and the design is drawn with solid black areas and a few grey shaded edges on a plain white background.

Swirl Scroll Cat Silhouette Design

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ink had gone thick in the cold, so I was holding the horn pot against my palm to warm it when Tib came in under the scriptorium door, the way she always did, as if the building had been put up for her convenience. Brother Hild had left the window shutter open again and the wind kept lifting the loose vellum off the desk. I was half way through the great initial for the Psalter, a long stroke that climbs the margin, turns over on itself, and drops into a loop at the foot. Prior Gerald had ordered the margins kept plain for the bishop's visit in the spring, so I drew that loop as small as I dared and left it empty.

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Tib jumped onto the desk, walked three times round the pot, and settled into the curl of the letter as though I had drawn it for her. I could not work around her without spoiling the line, so I shaded her with the finest brush I owned, black where her back met the stroke and grey where the light from the window fell across her ears. It took the whole of Sext. When I looked up, the ink had dried and she was asleep.

The prior came at Vespers with his lamp and lifted the page to the light for a long time. "The bishop will ask what that is," he said. "A tail, Father," I said, "of the letter." He grunted and let the page fall back onto the desk, then took the cat's dish out of the scriptorium with him, which I took to mean he had decided nothing.

In the morning the psalter was closed and set on the lectern for the bishop, and the cat was still curled where she had been, as if the ink had made room for her.