William woke before the sun as he always did. He got dressed quietly, ate a little in the cold kitchen as he lit a fire for his mother who would be up and busy in another half hour. He let out the chickens and gathered the eggs. The pre-dawn light did not warm the frigid air.

A few minutes later he was walking quickly through the canals and laneways to the Magistrates office, entering a little side door that you had to know was there or you’d walk right by it. He made his way to his clerks desk and pulled up a few little tasks that needed tending to, letters to important lawyers in the city, requests to libraries and records for information, all brief but needed doing. As he put the outgoing letters on the secretary’s desk and picked up the manager’s notes as the town bell tolled that it was now seven in the morning.

The office filled through the day with the three other clerks, the manager and secretary, and the magistrate himself. None of them noticed William or said a word to him. When he delivered papers to the magistrate’s office at lunchtime, the conversation did not change tempo, the lawyers debating points in minutia didn’t notice the slight man who entered despite him being in front of him. Just as it should be, he thought, a good servant is not to be noticed unless something has gone wrong.

Things went wrong with the other clerks, one had been dismissed a few months back after spilling ink over the magistrate’s papers, another before that kept making mistakes and saw the door. William did not make mistakes, did not get noticed at inopportune moments, rarely got acknowledged for anything good but that was as it should be.

That afternoon, William was delivering papers to the courthouse next to the office. The magistrate was presiding over a complex issue between two lords that had dragged on for months and involved depositions and questionings and investigations and arcane legal points going back many centuries. Rumour had it that the if the magistrate could successfully navigate this case to a satisfactory conclusion, he would be promoted to King’s court, arguably the most powerful position in the land.

The Great Library had delivered copies of some ancient texts that were needed, so William walked quietly into the grand imposing court through a side door and was just about place them just so on his desk when there was a loud noise, the ground shook and three being appeared around him out of nowhere.

William froze as all eyes turned to him. The whole room looked at the three goddesses that appeared, radiant and beautiful, and the weedy little clerk they elegantly knelt in front of. He was scared to move, to even breathe. He didn’t understand what was happening but he recognised the look of fury on the magistrate’s face, the outrage on the faces of the lords and their lawyers and advisors.

‘WE ATTEND.’ The ethereal beings spoke as one. ‘WE ATTEND. WE ATTEND. THE LAWGIVER HAS FALLEN. BY THE OLD LORES FROM BEFORE TIME WE RECOGNISE THE NEW LAWGIVER, HE WHO PRESIDES OVER THOSE WHO PRESIDE, HE WHO DECLARES OVER THEY WHO DECLARE, HE WHOSE WORD IS LAW, HE WHO DISPENSES JUSTICE TO THOSE WHO SEEK IT, HE WHO DEFENDS THOSE WHO ARE NOT DEFENDED, HE WHO JUDGES THOSE WHO WOULD JUDGE. WE ATTEND. WE ATTEND. WE ATTEND.’

Each held out an object, offering it to him. A quill of the most vivid plumage and a ledger inlaid with filigree gold patterns. A gavel and stone, ancient looking. And the third a balance scale of silver. As he reached out to touch them, energy surged through his body and to his hand, sparking across the gap as a thousand shoots of lightning. And knowledge followed, great and old and arcane. Suddenly, the wise and powerful magistrate seemed feeble and stupid.