Carmen had gone out Looking for Solomon, and will probably run into him along the trail up to the castle gate. To make it easy, let us presume she meets him just as she has the gate opened.
Oh, there you are. Look, we have a serious situation. There is a faerie who, claiming he has the authority of the bishop, is abducting "misbehaving" children for his own sick games. The same one I ran into a while back, rescuing the lost child of a townswoman from Arans. He is collecting Gifted children now. I just paid the ransom for one girl, but he claims there are others. And she is not from around here. I don't care about outside of our little area. Well, I do care, but there is only so much one can worry about. The people of this town are under our protection and we are obligated to put a stop to this. I would like to hit him with multicast lightning. But the Code forbids that. The next best solution is to pay him to go away. In vis.
I want to call a council meeting to discuss this. ASAP.
What's with the monks? Old friends of your days at the abbey? And these two kids. Who are they?
(I'm assuming this is out of earshot of the monks...)
"I agree, that is very concerning and we should definitely convene a council. I can at least confidently tell you that there are no other Gifted children in Arans that this faerie can kidnap, as these two children here were the only Gifted children in the village. You may recall that I had been considering taking an apprentice, so I created a ritual that would identify all Gifted individuals within a city. These two children were the only I detected.
That one, Gabriel, I intend to take as my apprentice. The other, Lucien, I wished to introduce to you. His turbulences appear to be based around fire, so I thought you or Roberto might be best able to train him,
As for the monks, they were Gabriel's caretakers and wanted to ensure I wasn't kidnapping him for nefarious purposes and wanted to ensure I truly was one of the lord's of the castle."
There is a third, a girl named Clotide who is now sitting in the kitchen getting nourishment. Your spell may have missed her because she was in the faeries magic sack.
Now i am curious, Why in the world is there a sudden concentration of Gifted children in our town?
Solomon raises an eyebrow, "Perhaps, or if she were near the castle at the time of casting she wouldn't have registered as we are outside the boundary of the village. As for the sudden influx of Gifted, I know that Gabriel was passing through with these monks, and Lucien has only recently arrived as well, so it may be more serendipity than anything anything else.
But we shouldn't leave the children and monks waiting as we try to figure these things out."
Eh? Let the kids in. We will shelter and protect them. What do the monks need? A donation or something? Give them a sack of gold coins. Sixteen florins[sup]1[/sup]. That's worth about a pawn of vis. Give them food and wine also.
What? Do they want an audience? Do you think that is wise? I am a tiny blonde woman who looks to be about thirty and I have the Blatant Gift. You are a pontifex now. Just tell them you are in charge. Or at least get them to accept shelter from your Parma so I don't freak them out. I don't feel like being called a little blonde witch whore today. That's my mother, not me.
[sup]1[/sup] Gold coins were in use in this era and part of the world. The Maravedi is in used in both Castile and Aragon-Catalonia, and evolved from the Arabic Gold Dinar. Barcelona minted a different gold coin, I think, but I cannot find information on it.
I chose the word Florin, because more people are familiar with it, and this coin continues on after the other two fade away (the Maravedi becomes a silver coin and a unit of account for gold, confusing). Florins started late last century I think, and are used in international trade. I estimate it has a value of 3/4 a pound. It fits my math scheme. 4 gold coins equals 3 pounds, which equals 1 quarter-pawn of Vim. 16 coins equals 12 pounds, or one full pawn of Vim.
The monks are impressed by the castle and comforted by the fact that Solomon is accepted as an authority there. Solomon's take on them is that they're happy to get rid of Gabriel (no doubt because of his Gift), but good Christian virtue required them to double check that everything Solomon said was legitimate before leaving the boy with him.
They don't ask for any formal audience with the person in charge, but are more than happy to accept any donation.
Solomon will have one of the grogs take Gabriel and Lucian to guest quarters for now. He'll offer the monks food and wine as well as the donation and a place to sleep for the night should they wish.
It's relatively early in the day, so the monks will decline the offer for a place to sleep. They will, however, gladly accept the donation and the food and wine before they depart.
Gabriel and Lucien are taken by Maria, a quite pretty 18 year old girl who also happens to be Unaffected by the Gift, to the guest quarters in Solomon's tower. Once they've had time to put their few belongings away, Maria asks them, "Are you boys hungry? I'm sure we could get you some food."
"Yes, please," Gabriel replies. Like any boy his age, he has an apparently unending capacity for food.
Lucien nods with overt enthusiasm too, clearly hungry. Food gives his fidgety hands a purpose. "Thank you."
If the opportunity comes up, "do you mind a question? Is Brother Solomon the eldest of the magicians?"
We need to resolve the loose ends of this tale. Figure out who becomes who's apprentice, and hold a council meeting to discuss how we should deal with TMIBWASOHB.
Maria stops and thinks for a moment, "Yes, I believe he is. Although he is not the most senior...if that makes sense. It's a bit confusing, but he's one of the three most powerful magi here." With that she heads off to the kitchen to get them some food.
I believe that technically since Carmen "found" one apprentice and Solomon found the other two, they get the right to decide what to do with them, assuming they don't hold on to them so long that someone steals them away. The fact they are also Pontifici really helps simplify that issue...
We still need to council about the situation at hand. Come to an agreement to pay the MIBWASOHB off or take other more aggressive precautions.
Carmen doesn't really want an apprentice, but she feels a sort of empathy and responsibility for Clotide. So Carmen will take her as an apprentice. Solomon sought out Gabe purposefully and found Lucien. So technically they are both his and he gets to decide whom to hand one off to if he so chooses.
Roberto is willing to take on Lucien 
He will be ready sometime in 1240 or 41. I need to check, and I can retcon the order of things to try and quicken the pace.
Carmen can't take Clotide as an apprentice because of all of her supernatural virtues. Solomon is the only one who can open her arts or Gabriel's.
Carmen paid ransom for the chid and is unaware of any supernatural virtues. She will never have a daughter of her own, having started longevity so young, and sees a way to fill a void. We can (and should) play it out. Change her mind about it if you can.
I'm of a mind to scrap the Apprentice Lucien as a player character. Clearly Marko wants the girl Clotide for Carmen, and I'd far prefer a Magus level character.
The apprentice level character was a way to get into play gracefully and quickly, which has failed. The thread has been open since July 2015 and is not ending as planned when it was started.
Such is life.
If Lucien is still hanging around when Vocis completes the upcoming gauntlet in 1240ish I'll ponder rewriting Lucien and maybe have Vocis roll into another apprenticeship straight away. Or if Roberto wants the apprentice then go that route too. All good.
I dont always think ceary or conistently. Carmens thoughts are stricty in character without metagame consieration. And i sorta set it up for Solomon to talk sense to her. Otoh, Roberto is ready for an apprentice as of 1242.
As for long running threads, that has become a chronic issue. The Visitor started up almost two years ago with the intent of lasting only a few weeks while I sorted out a situation at home.
My having "situations" to sort out is also chronic.