Black and grey blackwork tattoo of three stylised female figures in patterned robes on the outer thigh, one holding a sword and one holding a tablet marked LEX.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three stylised figures on a thigh

Blackwork · Thigh · Black and grey · Photo

Three full-length female figures stand side by side across the outer thigh, each in a long robe filled with geometric triangles, dots and circles. The linework is bold and even, with solid black areas and fine dotted detail that gives the robes texture. The design is entirely black and grey and is framed by the thigh, with the subjects' arms, a sword and a tablet marked LEX forming the main points of interest.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marit,

Keep reading

The cook's job is to feed forty men on a ship that never stops rolling, and I have done it since Valparaiso without once being thanked. Last Tuesday, though, the purser brought three women aboard at Rotterdam. Nobody asked me. They came up the gangway in the grey rain carrying a sword, a stone tablet with LEX cut across its face, and a lantern with no flame in it. The captain signed them on as passengers of the law, whatever that means on a grain boat.

They keep to the aft cabin and eat their bread standing up. The tall one with her arms raised spends her mornings counting the rivets in the bulkhead and says the number aloud to the sea. The one in the middle never lowers her blade, though I have seen her rest the point against a crate of onions and polish it with her sleeve. The third reads from the tablet by lamplight, then shuts her eyes as though the words cost her something.

Last night the bosun Haakon stole three tins of the good peaches from the stores and swore he had not. I took the matter to the aft cabin, expecting nothing. The middle woman studied the tablet, then looked at me, and said the tins would be returned by morning. They were, stacked neatly on my galley table with a single dried triangle of salt beside them. Haakon has not spoken to anyone since.

I am writing this because I think they will leave at the next port, and I want someone ashore to know the peaches were not my doing. Keep my old knife for me. Tell Father the ship is fine.

Love, Ingrid

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