Excerpt of A Glimmer of Guile by Mary Patterson Thornburg

"Discharge you?" Harken gave a girlish laugh. "Oh, heavens, no, Vivia. You've misunderstood. I have no intention of releasing you. I've had you brought here to give you a special assignment, in fact. And yes, you will need to pack a few things, but only enough for a day or two. After that, you'll be traveling in disguise. One of us must go to Maal-- Maltuk's kingdom, you know--and I'm afraid it will be an arduous journey. Too exhausting for me to undertake, I think, at my age. And since this will probably require the Great Shift, you'll understand I have no one else to turn to, despite my concerns about your character, my dear."

I was speechless. Harken looked pleased; she'd finally managed to faze me. "Someone has kidnapped King Horok's son, Tedor." She looked smug. "This I was told yesterday when Horok asked me to visit him at Heart Hall. The boy's been missing for several days. I am assigning you to find and return him."

Me? There were women at Ladygate for whom Harken did favors, and I wasn't one of them. So that was not what this was. Could it be the opposite? A punishment, or a way to get rid of me without actually dismissing me? It was Taso Raym who'd brought me, after all, and Raym was someone Harken wouldn't want to offend. But Maltuk's kingdom did not have a reputation as a pleasant place. "Has there been a request for ransom?"

Harken shook her head.

"Then how do we know he didn't leave of his own free will?" Harken gave me a long look. "That had occurred to me," she agreed. "And there's no evidence of a struggle, which one might suppose Tedor would have offered an out-and-out kidnapper. On the other hand, there were things left behind that he'd surely have taken if this were something planned. My thinking is that Tedor left under his own power, but not of his own will. Almost surely by enchantment."

"And you want me to go to Maal. What makes you think he's there?" I pushed one of Harken's chairs around to face her and sat down in it. She didn't object. Her eyes narrowed, however, at my question, and she said nothing for a moment.

I went on. "Maal would mean Maltuk, the Red Prince. And that would mean the Red Prince's witch, of course. The Lady Orath. There were signs of enchantment?"

Harken blinked, surprised, I guessed, that I'd said the name out loud. Orath. The Red Prince's witch.