Yes, my assumption would be that only Palgren would be likely to recognize us, although perhaps it seems feasible that he took a personal secretary or somebody with him when he was hustled south (the guy writing down the lurid tedium of our interrogations?
). I would not expect a large group of his Selvos underlings to have been relocated with him.
Having said that, I have a certain unease with the tidy notion that Palgren is an isolated wing-nut who got off the reservation and is now on house arrest down in Avertu, overseen by the virtuous. The primary refutation of that scenario is Sir Auram's assignment: take out Palgren
and the local Serolan. And while Sir Auram did not exactly indicate that the second Serolan suffers from the same level of impolitic zealotry as Palgren, he clearly finds the relocation of Palgren to Chendy to be a less-than-ideal solution to the point of ordering the accompanying death of the lady Serolan. My conclusion is that Palgren and the second Serolan (does anybody recall her name? - I seem to have retained remarkably little of the details from Sir Auram's assignment
) are like-minded to some degree, and as such represent an inconvenient subset of Laranians whose beliefs or behaviors are problematic to the crown. (We know that Laranians still nursing residual allegiance to clan Kand also fit this description of inconvenience - I'm not sure if our two Serolans overlap with that group or not). And who relocated Palgren, anyway? Another Laranian, even higher up in the heirarchy, who maybe isn't properly consulting Sir Auram's playbook.
My point being, Palgren is not quite a lunatic rogue, save perhaps in his
idee fixe regarding Morgathian conspiracies. If such were the case, Sir Auram wouldn't waste time worrying about him. It is more likely that Palgren is a problem because he is symptomatic of a larger difficulty: Laranians who flaunt royal decree or otherwise undermine the crown. And our second lady Serolan must also be a bird of a similar feather, hence the assassination order. And I suspect the Laranian superior who conveniently got Palgren out of the way by placing him with another problematic Serolan is
also part of the problem, albeit not part of our assignment.
And furthermore, could part of the game of Sir Auram's assignment be that the assassinations will serve as a shot across the bow of the other trouble-making Laranians (particularly whoever moved Palgren, perhaps)? Why else insist on the crown's need for deniability?
Because the nature of the two targets will naturally make the crown a lead suspect to Laranians in the know.
Therefore, taking these considerations into account, I would argue that Palgren and his host Serolan are likely to be aware of these political factors, at least to some degree, and will be on their guard for trouble from the crown in the wake of Palgren being relocated (which must be an indignity for the man and no trivial move, to be separated from his curacy and stuck in an out-of-the-way abbey). The host Serolan, inevitably, would have a clue that a political hot potato of some sort has been dumped in her lap, and furthermore might have some inkling that her own inclinations make her a choice on somebody's part to serve as Palgren's hideaway location.
Finally, we
told Palgren that we worked for the crown, and for the Inquisitor General to boot. Is it fanciful to think that Palgren, in spite of his zealotry, might have paused during his unceremonious bundling off from Selvos, in the immediate wake of having his prisoners surprisingly snatched out from under his nose by none other than Sir Ellis Hawkwood, and thought: gee, maybe I f*cked up and these guys
do work for Sir Auram? I mean crimminy, if it hasn't occurred to him yet, I suspect his lady host will have gently suggested it by now.
Is it too much to think that they may be watchful for us? That Palgren would have described us in detail to his host? After all, Sir Auram suggested (I think) waiting until winter in the hope of this expected level of vigilance to decrease a bit. Thus, I endorse disguise as an option.
A separate argument could be made regarding the tail end of things. In the wake of successfully slaughtering two Laranian high priests, I would anticipate some local, or broader, sensation to be expected. Avertu is a small place. Should someone put two and two together in the wake of the murders (such and such folks of such and such description arrived in Avertu a few days before the horrid crimes, hmmm...), I for one would rest easier if our appearances muddied the water a tad. And is disguise such an inconvenience when (it seems to me) there is little down-side to taking the trouble to disguise ourselves, and much to be lost in being too cavalier?
A final thought: Sir Auram has not, to my knowlege, placed quite this degree of emphasis on the need of the crown to deny a mission in past instances. Should not Bevan safeguard her future utility to Sir Auram in light of his warning by taking the precaution of disguise in this case?
Feel free to take issue with my assumptions above. In light of the fact that I seem sketchy about what exactly Sir Auram said during the interview with Bevan, I may not be the best guy to be connecting the dots
And some of Ewen's own perspectives on the Laranians certainly creep in here; you may have noticed that he's not their biggest fan. In fact, by Ewen's lights Palgren is just a more extreme version of the typical Laranian prig: a sanctimonious zealot whose chivalrous, self-important posturing is a hypocrisy hiding his underlying unchivalrous ambitions.
And they shafted the Soursis back in the day, by the way. Much better to hang with the Empress of Opulence. Caveat lector, I suppose.