IMO this snippet shows that Charis was not involved in the War of the Archangels so nobody in Charis would have had first hand knowledge of the actions of the Seijins.
So St Zherneau would only have rumors and the official records of what happened.
IMO they would be unlikely to record rumors of what happened on the mainland as they'd have no way of knowing what rumors had a basis of truth and what rumors did not.
As for the plausibility of Aivah's assassins being "unknown" to the Inquisition, IMO it's not as implausible as you may think.
First, *if* there's another secret organization that Aivah founded or became part of, like the Brethren of Saint Zherneau, it would have kept a low profile except perhaps for intelligence gathering.
Second, there have been hints that intelligence gathering is very common on Safehold and has been for centuries.
Aivah's intelligence gathering organization would use methods that have worked for centuries and would be just one of many such organizations.
If the Inquisition got hints of her operations, there could be nothing to tell it that this organization is anyway different than the other intelligence gathering operations on Safehold.
Oh, it is very possible that many of her spies have no idea of who they are reporting to.
As for her assassins, her assassination operations appear to be very recent perhaps only starting after Clyntahn's purge of the Circle.
Her assassins likely aren't part of her intelligence gathering organizations although obviously they make use of information from her spies.
Back-tracking a bit here, spying on Vicars and other clergy is likely very common on Safehold especially for blackmail reasons.
While we haven't gotten complete details on how the assassins "trapped" their victims, it is likely their methods are similar to those used to "entrap" victims for blackmail purposes.
Intelligence operations and entrapment operations are likely common in Zion just as they'd be in "places of power" on Earth.
Rayno would have trouble finding traces of Aivah's assassination organizations because of the "noise" from other organizations in Zion.
Until her assassins strike there's little difference from her people and the other people spying in Zion.
Of course, Your Mileage May Vary.
alj_sf wrote:So that clears a lot of speculation and open quite a few new ones.
- She is probably part of an order (nunnery ?) founded by Seijin Kody who was on the losing side of the fallen wars.
- She imply that the order is in possession of documents not telling the official church history.
- Her interest in the actions of historical Seijins seems to tell us that the non official history is much more complex than the official one, especially about the role of Seijins. The cartboard figures of the official ones suggest rewritten stories. Which begs one question : Why St Zerneaux accounts which are not under church eye dont show same discrepancies ?
- She had the means to spy on Charis from Zion which means quite an organisation. Same org has also the institutional skills to carry perfectly done assassinations leaving no clues, yet the church know nothing about it and dont even suspect its existence ?
I know the last bit is a pet point of mine, but that solely breaks plausability for me.
