The Thief's Tale by Jonathan Moeller Page A

polish silver to how to prepare a perfect feast for a visiting Dux. He learned how to haggle with merchants for supplies, since merchants were dishonest cheaters who would ever try to fleece Sir Alan of his money, and how to gauge the proper price for goods. 
    And yet…
    Hilder taught him to read in Latin, and sometimes Jager sneaked into the chapel’s library, reading the chronicles of the High King and the realm of Andomhaim, of battles against the dark elves and the pagan orcs and the urdmordar. Sometimes he dreamed of fighting in those battles, of following the Dragon Knight against the Frostborn and the dark horrors of the north. Yet Jager knew Sir Alan had nightmares, screaming about the High King’s campaign against the dark elven prince of Nightmane Forest five years past, and Jager suspected a war might not be as glorious as his imagination claimed. 
    Still, he dreamed about the places he read about in the books, the High King’s citadel of Tarlion, the great cities of Cintarra and Coldinium, the strong castras of Durandis and the broad, manetaur-hunted plains of Caertigris. He wondered what it would be like to pack a bag and see those places with his own eyes, to walk the roads of the High King’s realm with his own feet. 
    But that was a foolish daydream. He was a halfling of Caudea, and he would follow in his father’s footsteps and serve the Tallmanes, just as Hilder’s father had done before him, and his father and his father for seven centuries. 
    Yet sometimes his restlessness surfaced, such as when he raced his older sister Dagma up and down the walls of the Tallmanes’ domus.
    Humans were stronger than halflings, but halflings were more agile and quick. A halfling woman of a century could bend over and touch her toes, or bend backwards and touch her heels, a feat that most humans in their prime found impossible. Because of that, many domi of Andomhaim had been built with handholds along the walls, allowing halfling servants to come and go unseen by their human masters. In bad weather the halflings kept to the inner hallways, but when the sun shone they scaled the walls with ease.
    Jager could climb faster than any other halfling in Caudea. Dagma claimed otherwise, but Jager meant to prove her wrong. 
    “Go!” shouted Dagma. She was three years Jager’s senior, just shy of her twentieth birthday, with wide amber-colored eyes and blond hair that hung loose to her shoulders. Most halflings, men and women alike, had curly hair, but Dagma’s was unfailingly straight. When taunted with it, she replied that God had promised to make straight the crooked ways, which was just proof that God loved her more. 
    She was charming enough to pull off the argument.
    Jager raced for the wall of the domus. The Tallmanes’ domus had been built two centuries ago, after the Frostborn had been driven from Caerdracon, and it had three stories of rooms surrounding a broad atrium, the tilted roof covered in tiles of fired red clay. Today the domus was deserted save for the servants. Sir Alan had gone to the village to hear disputes, and all his sons were away, serving as squires in the courts of other nobles. Traditionally Hilder permitted the servants to enjoy a few liberties when the family was away, and today was no different. 
    Jager reached the wall a heartbeat before Dagma and scrambled up. There were handholds and footholds in the white stone of the wall, too small for grown humans but large enough for an adult halfling. Dagma whooped and started to climb, but Jager was already several feet off the ground. He passed the windows to Sir Alan’s dining room, the windows of the library on the second floor, and then the guest rooms on the third. 
    He grabbed the gutter at the edge of the roof and heaved himself up, and a moment later Dagma followed suit.
    “I win,” Jager announced, striking a dramatic pose.
    Dagma laughed and brushed blond hair out of her face. “When did you get so fast, boy? Last I