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Grasping at this rather grim bit of hope, you walk yourself over to the nearest of the remaining clerks before either your nerve can fail or they can leave. You let yourself to look about a fifth as nervous as you actually feel, considering how it will play into your chosen deception .. though now you find yourself worrying if you are allowing yourself to look <span class="mu-i">too</span> nervous. Partially to prevent yourself from spiraling into panic and partially to take control of the conversation, as soon as you have closed enough of the distance between yourself and the nearest of the clerks that you will not need to shout at him to be heard over the ambient sounds of the room and the tolling of the eighteenth hour, you start in, deliberately allowing your nerves to affect your speech as well, to sell yourself as a maid burdened with an atypical responsibility -
"H-hail, and well-met to - uh, this day. I ... I was told to come, right at the end of the day - as not to disturb anyone, but ... I'm terribly sorry."
Apologizing like that is a risk, as it tacitly gives the clerk an opportunity to disengage, but you are really keen on selling yourself as a thoroughly uncomfortable maid who would be tripping over themselves to apologize - not to mention, an apology is warranted in your estimation. But you do make a point to not let this clerk get a word in by pressing on almost immediately, into the meat of your deception.
"To be honest on the whole, sir, I'm not sure how appropriate it is, me being asked to come here on behalf of my employers... but ... you must understand, I cannot gainsay them. I ... I work as a chambermaid in the Right Honorable Chain-Maker's Guildhouse, at the intersection of the Upper and Anchor. In Stickport, sir."
You don't want to tie yourself to Nasturtium or Aldoin, or Dremen - especially Dremen, as they don't live in the Mount, and therefore there will be no Family Patent on file. But at the same time, considering the depth and breadth of information that these clerks have access to - not just the contents of this building but in all of the Port Authorities clerk-houses, offices and archives throughout the Mount, you have to figure that this is the worst possible place to just start making up names of a fictitious Master, as you would run into the same pitfall as you would if you had presented yourself as a maid of the Dremen family. However ... by belonging to an enterprise that you know exists and has chambermaids in its employ, you are able to <span class="mu-i">almost</span> have your cake and eat it too. The one downside of this deception is that enterprises and guildhalls do not have Family Patents, so you are going to have to get tricky to swing the conversation around here. Before you can even start to work on that though, you need to finish establishing your reason to be here.
