The clerk behind the desk was probably the only normal worker left there today. No matter how good your spies were, it was hard to replace completely the experienced workers who knew the routine and keep up a façade. “Name?” the worker said, and leaned heavily on the binds of contract around Daniel.
“My name is private, known only to my lord.” Said Daniel, with his mouth relaxed. Did they think he was stupid? He had fallen in rank, but not intelligence. No one could publicly ask for your given name.
The clerk smirked offhandedly, as if it was just a bit of fun. Then the clerk pushed at the bindings around Daniel. Until Daniel was assigned his work, this worker held some power over him. Daniel felt it pressed into him so strongly and sharply that it was like an embrace of thorns around a limb, there and jagged but painful and tearing as he attempted to pull free.
Daniel had to fight to not grind his teeth. These bindings hurt. He reached out with his senses, just a tiny bit, and found loose magic on the worker. Daniel tried to understand what the purpose of the magic was, before he realized that this clerk was using magic as a girdle. He was using magic to hold in his sizable paunch. Of all the vain, wasteful, and uneducated uses of magic. Why was this clerk using magic to appear thin, when he could convert the excess to magic and be thin and have more magic?
Besides, this wasn’t a bit of harmless fun. Daniel needed to survive. Bored clerks had no business messing around in a life and death matter.
“Not as spry as you used to be, huh?” Daniel said, gently, gently tugging at the girdle spell. Anyone with even a little any training, especially a former Lordling Heiring of a major house, could do the same. He wasn’t revealing too much, was he? Can’t give it away.
Because Daniel needed to keep his secrets.
The smirk faded from the clerk’s face, replaced by shock, and him reaching a hand to cover his stomach, his shirt pressed at the seams already. A slight groaning of a seam about to give way.
Daniel withdrew his power in an instant and let the room murmur in the implications. Couldn’t actually damage the clothes.
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The room was split into different groups of murmurs. A fair number appeared to have no idea what had just transpired. “What happened? Did something magicy happen?”
Others remused at the clerk’s incompetent handling. “Old Giles tried to treat a lion as a kitten and got popped in the nose. Serves him right.”
Still others tittered “I thought it would be more exciting. I skipped eating the good food at the House for that?”
And yet others calculated the implications. “It wasn’t high magic…I suppose Lordling Elswith is truly done for. Disappointing.”
The important people made no sounds.
The most important people he couldn’t tell. They could be hiding in any group, seamlessly blending in. They could pretend to be fools, appear disinterested, feign incompetence. Anything. The true experts Daniel knew he couldn’t catch. So he wasn’t going to try. It would waste his energy.
The clerk gulped audibly. Daniel made eye contact with the three workers behind the desk he felt were important. Despite themselves, all of them seemed to roll their eyes and criticize the hapless worker. One even grinned wolfishly at Daniel, a moment of comradeship leading into the threat of danger.
The clerk swallowed, and spoke quickly. “Apologies, my lordling….” To Daniel’s direction, his face contorted and wild. “I did what I should not dare…”
“This humble servant kindly refutes any apologies.” Daniel said, his voice even and measured. He couldn’t start this morning by racking up debts with those people who were now his betters. Debts like that were best in the dark, quietly gathered, without others knowing. “This humble one is too low in rank to suffer such a large gift, as it would crush him.”
The clerk swallowed again, and smoothed out his face. His eyebrow twitched wildly, and so did the seams of his clothes as the magic girdle resumed its work, but the clerk continued with the procedure. “This office finds it inconvenient to call this servant without a name. What name might be given as Harbor?”
Names were powerful. Very powerful. Daniel was his true name. Elswith had been his Lordling name. Now he needed a new, third name. One that would be walked over, and used to beat him. One that would be established as a servant, thus legitimating his status as a member of court so his accomplishments as Elswith would stand. One that he would use to build power secretly, slip free of his bindings and escape.
The Game stirred then. The Game ethereal and hopeful. The Law of Fae was attending at this moment, ready to record the name as well. Daniel would have a new title to build, a new cup to pour water in.
A branch could be broken off in the storm. It could connect two paths. A branch could also bear new hope and new life.
“Call me Branch.”