if they just say can i have the oath, i almost totally ignore them, I tell them to speak with respect to an Elite or something like that... but seriously at rank 11 it is hard to get 10 gold easily, espically when you need to make sure and have a return potion or two, and maybe some flights
I would say make them work for it, or even maybe make them pay you back later or something... just never really had a huge ammount of problems with gold as a bard so i guess its a bit differnt for me, but hell I get low all the time and have to go donate 100 gold to get back up to snuff, centurions and oaths and promotions get expensive as hell after awhile