Free The Adorned by John Tristan Page A

drew some lines upon my skin with it—curves and right angles, a bare touch of grey. It was as if a bony finger, or a dull tooth, were being raked across me. “Right,” he muttered to himself, “right.”
    I remained still as he made more sketches upon his pad, shuffling the papers until some ten or more were filled with quick-drawn lines. “Lift your head,” he said. He traced the line of my jaw, the curve of my neck—first with the dull end of his pencil, then with the calloused tip of his finger. I kept my head high, and he accorded the same treatment to my shoulders. When he was done, he rapped them with the pencil, quite hard. “How do you bleed?”
    I was speechless for a moment. Then I asked, “What do you mean?”
    “Each man bleeds different. How long does it take you to clot, after a wound?”
    “I do not know,” I answered, honestly. I had never bothered to track the time I took to heal.
    “We’ll find out then,” he said, and he retrieved a small lacquered box from the table.
    “Find out?” I went cold. He could not mean what I thought he did.
    “Find out,” he repeated, and he snapped open the lacquered case. Inside, there lay a sharp and gleaming little blade. “Hold still.”
    “Sir...” I said weakly, and he paused the blade, an inch from the soft flesh of my shoulder.
    “You’ll feel worse pain from my needles.” It sounded as if he’d meant to reassure. “I am sorry, but before you are tattooed, I need to see how you bleed.”
    He was right, and I nodded, but I could not stop myself from shaking. He held me still, as he sliced three short, thin lines into my skin. In a moment, it was over; it had hurt less than his hand on me.
    I turned my head to watch the blood slowly trickle down my arm, the three trails snaking and winding around each other, first warm, then cooling and turning thick and viscous. After a minute or so, Tallisk seemed satisfied. He took from the same lacquered box a strip of white cotton, and mopped up the red drops. A dull pink streak was left, spanning from my shoulder to just above my elbow.
    “You bleed well,” he said, and touched a gentle hand to the wound. “There will be no problem there.”
    I nodded, feeling slightly queasy.
    “I won’t touch needle to your flesh before you gain some courage, though. I can’t have you flinching.”
    I wanted to feel offended by his words, to defend my courage, but the sinking feeling in my belly robbed any honest effort to do so. I could not help it: the thought of pain frightened me. I said nothing; I stood still, and despite the warmth of the sun on my skin I felt cold.
    “I will need time, in any case, to think on your design,” he continued. “I will arrange that you watch me work on Isadel.”
    I sucked in a breath. I had been hoping to sport my first ink before nightfall, but whatever disappointment I felt at that vanished at knowing he would let me watch him work. Trying to suppress my excitement, I nodded to him. “May I get dressed?”
    He made a careless gesture toward my clothes. “Go ahead.”
    As I dressed, I glanced over at the sketches that Tallisk had made. They were of me, there was no gainsaying it. His simple bold lines had captured the outlines of my back, my shoulders, my legs, the pooled shadows between my thighs. The sketches of me were still bare, a blank canvas. I wondered if he had sketches such as this of Isadel. He must have. Had there been more than her? Tallisk was in his middle years, and he would have been apprenticed at twelve or younger if what I knew of tattooists’ ways was correct. It was a long term of study, but he must have had quite a few years of mastership before Isadel had come to him.
    “You will need to start a regiment of baths,” Tallisk said.
    “I’m sorry?”
    “Your skin is not in ideal shape yet. There’s some hint of blemish here.” He touched my cheekbones lightly.
    I swallowed. “You wish to tattoo my face?”
    He chuckled low. “No. But it ruins