idle varré thoughts on the theory that he might've killed our maiden
it's suspicious that he knows immediately that we're maidenless but perhaps it's something you can just sense about a tarnished? and many people have said that all the tarnished we see at the roundtable hold seemingly don't have a maiden. there's also the possibility that he witnessed whoever DID kill our (implied) maiden.
i had a thought that maybe he killed our maiden to make us more alone and susceptible to wanting to join the mohgwyn dynasty but he doesn't hit us with anything involving that right out of the gate and seems only lays it down heavy when we first express our own suspicion of the roundtable hold, and in that dialogue option if we say "they were maginificent!" varre backs off without pushing us even a little which i think is interesting. also he doesn't really seem to actually care that we don't have a maiden, just that it would've been more convenient if we did have one (when the task to soak the cloth in a maiden's blood comes about). actually he doesn't even really seem to care about that inconvenience either. so i can't think of any downside for him to kill our maiden and i actually think us lacking a maiden prevents us from the moral dilemma of whether or not to sacrifice her and in turn does make it easier for us to decide to join