Perhaps not all who were currently within the city's walls, but the natural-born citizens? They were just as maddeningly insistent as the gate-wardens and just ask lacking in any form of drive whatsoever. It was a wonder the city even managed to properly function. Nowhere else would there have been such a drastic period of inactivity in the months (it was months wasn't it?) after the death of the former mayor.

It smacked of inattention and best and incompetence at worst, and he was ill prepared to tolerate such things.

Thus he had done what little he could, and put as much distance between himself and the head of operations for such things as he could. That it meant he was at a gate and thus fair pickings for questions he had no real interest in answering was unfortunate, but he'd dealt with worse before. He could deal with it now, if he was forced to.