The next morning, the headlines in La Voz del Pueblo read:
REGENT WALKS THE SEWERS: A PRINCE IN THE GUTTERS
Below the bold typeface was an etching—a hand-drawn image of Prince Lancelot crouched beside an open sewer drain, sleeves rolled, boots caked in mud. It was not a staged portrait. A local artist, witnessing the event, had captured it from a rooftop using charcoal and instinct.
The image spread across the city faster than any decree.
In the northern quarters, aristocrats sipped tea and muttered that it was unbecoming of a prince. In the tenement rows of Lavapiés and Embajadores, it was pinned to every door. Children pointed and whispered, "He really came." Laborers, who once saw the palace as distant marble, now spoke his name with a newfound sense of ownership.
But symbolism alone wouldn't fix the crisis.
