He hadn’t understood that there was more to leadership than good ideas and honest intentions. Far more.
“I know you are a good man,” Sazed said. “You work very hard to hide it. You make a great show of being callous and selfish. Yet, to those watching what you do and not just what you say, you become far more transparent.”
From what Spook had heard, the Citizen had declared that ornamental gardens were of the nobility. He claimed that such places had only been possible through the sweat of skaa slaves—just another way the nobility had achieved high levels of luxury by creating equally high levels of work for their servants. When the people of Urteau had whitewashed the city’s murals and shattered its stained-glass windows, they had also torn up all the ornamental gardens.
“I understand, good woman,” the Citizen was saying as he held an elderly woman’s hands. “But your grandson is needed where he is, working the fields. Without him and his kind, we would not be able to eat! A nation ruled by skaa also has to be one worked by skaa.” “But … can’t he come back, even for a bit?” the woman asked. “In time, good woman,” the Citizen said. “In time.” His crimson uniform made him the only splash of color on the street, and Spook found himself staring. He tore his eyes away and continued to maneuver, for the Citizen was not his goal.
“He’s a calm man, and an honorable one. However, he has an unfailing belief in the Lord Ruler and his organization.”
“If we want to take this city, we need to undermine him, then remove him. We prove that his entire system is faulty—that his government is, in essence,
If we manage that, we won’t just stop him, we’ll stop everyone who has worked with him and supported him. That is the only way we’re going to take Urteau short of marching an army in here and seizing it by force.”
Part informant, part beggar lord, the unfulfilled musician had become a sort of a mayor of the Harrows. Men like that had to be where people could find—and pay—them.
Elend’s banner—the spear and the scroll—flew at the front of the city, but could someone else have taken Elend’s sign as their own? And what of the koloss army that had threatened to destroy Luthadel a year ago?