“They just need a little compassion shown them. I always find that’s worth more than coin.”

“Do you really think a few sweets and a stirring tale of brave hearts will change their plight?” Malden demanded. “They’re among the very few people in this city with less of a chance at life than I have. They’ll never be anything but beggars. Or thieves if they’re lucky. All because their parents died before their time. Tell me where the justice is, there. Tell me why they shouldn’t become savages, if that helps them survive.”

Croy looked confused for a moment. Then he nodded as if he’d thought up the perfect answer. “There’s nothing ignoble about begging,” he pointed out, “if that’s the station the Lady assigns to you.”

“The Lady—” Malden caught himself before he could tell Croy exactly what the Lady could go and do. Knowing Croy, he’d probably take that as blasphemy and burn him at the next convenient stake. “Tell me, Croy,” he said instead. “Did the Lady choose me for a thief?”

The look of confusion passed over Croy’s face again. “Well, no. Since thievery’s a sin in Her eyes. Instead, you should have chosen to enter an honest trade.”

“Had I known it was so easy, I would have become a goldsmith,” Malden sneered. “You think I didn’t try?”

“Not hard enough, apparently.”

Malden’s blood rushed into his face. How dare this hoddypeak of a knight say such a thing to him. What could Croy possibly know of what had driven him to a life of crime? How dare Croy judge him?

But of course, he knew the answer. In Croy’s world the poor were simple, honest folk, too crude in their sensibilities to know anything but how to toil and farm. Knights and lords were there to care for them like kindly parents. To make decisions for them since they were incapable of doing so for themselves.

In Malden’s world—the world he’d been seeing ever since Cutbill opened his eyes—people like himself were prisoners, caught inside bars of poverty. And people like Croy were the gaolers who made sure they never got out. The Lady, the goddess Croy worshipped so fervently, was the warden who assigned each inmate to his given cell—and made sure they could never, ever escape.

He wanted to slap the knight across the face, or perhaps just call him names. That, of course, could have been dangerous. Yet he couldn’t just let his anger go. Croy had been quietly disapproving of his life ever since they had met. It was time to show Croy what the real world was like. “Come. I wish to show you something.”