Chapter 9“We shall speak,” I said carefully, “of nobility. How strange it is that a man earns the gratitude of his king, is granted lands and a title—and that his son inherits these things, and is called noble, having done nothing of himself to earn the description.”
“I feel most keenly,” Braith said, “the injustice of such a situation.”
I itched to ask if dragons had similar customs, but that was not relevant. If I was to glean anything useful, I must take care to focus my questions. “You feel, then, that high birth is no true guarantee of gentility?”
“I have seen with my own eyes,” he said, “that the son of a nobleman may have no more honor than a pig in its stye, for all that he may call upon the honor of others.”
“I see,” I murmured, bending to follow a slop of mud down Firefoot’s
