Sigil I · Risus Sculptus

A jester built from bone rather than cloth stands at the axis — diamond patchwork, belled cap, a carved skull where a face should resolve into something readable. Two crows face each other on crossed knives instead of doves on branches: the same instrument that carved the smile could open a throat just as easily. Behind him, a village goes about its evening, one tree gone leafless and wrong among the healthy ones. At the base, a red cellar door stands ajar — the single seam in the whole engraving that fractures into pixels, as though whatever is behind it is still deciding whether to finish arriving. After the emblem tradition of 1624.