Why do we think the consult was eliminating mandate spies right on the cusp of the Holy war? What's the motive in moving against them for the consult at this time? The consult doesn't try to kill aka they just monitor his movements.
Who can fathom the consult... But more importantly, if not the Consult, then there is a Mandate defector, which makes far less sense. Who else could hunt and kill all of the Mandate's informants?
You're just baiting me with that question.
Regardless who it was, eliminating mandate spies systematically just before the war began caused the result of the Mandate going full turtle for years and they did not participate in the affairs of the realm for the entire war. It scared them so bad the mandate improbably only had one agent monitoring the war and did not even attempt to replace their agent whilst he was incommunicado for exceedingly long stretches.
Who does that advantage and was such an... efficient... outcome intentional or coincidental?
I think you kind of answered your own question though.
To me, it would seem that the Consult was very passive from the time the Mandate "lost contact" with them up to when Moe started to unveil the skin-spies. Once that happened, they were drawn into Moe's TTT by the fact that they believed they needed the Cishuarim eliminated, because the simple infiltration couldn't be relied upon if they would detect the skin-spies. This meant that being passive was not going to cut it, which is why Aurang, probably, wheels out the synthese and takes wing to the Three Seas to oversee the whole operation at this point. There is also the fact that I think Aurang is very suspicious of how the skin-spies are being caught, which is why he is so interested in learning what's changed now.
Considering this, it makes sense, at least to me, that the Consult switching from passive to active means they'd be interested in cutting off any eyes (or ears) the Mandate would have on them, or more importantly, on those they are looking to manipulate. The last thing I think they want is the Mandate catching wind of what they are after in the long run of this Holy War. Even less so would they want an outright confrontation with a Mandate sorcerer. We know that Akka's power level is pretty high, in reality, so trying to kill him directly would see like a bad idea. Not only that, because a Chorae could be arranged, the reality is Akka as an agent is valuable to the Consult. Since the Consult has ears in the Quarum, Akka is actually unwittingly an agent for the Consult.
In the end though, like you pointed out, the Mandate holes up and the Consult couldn't really have asked for more. I think that Aurang knows full well how to manipulate the Mandate at least somewhat. If we're right, and I think there is a decent about of circumstantial evidence that we might be, the Simas-agent has been in place for a pretty long time. The Consult (or at least Aurang) knows pretty well what they are thinking. While picking off the agents worked splendidly, and no doubt beyond what Aurang had planned, I don't think it was wholly
accidental.
On the chapter 3:
How the God could be equated with the absence of hesitation was something Achamian had never understood. After all, what was the God but the mystery that burdened them all? What was hesitation but a dwelling-within this mystery?
He could turn this ship into a shining inferno, then walk unscathed across the surface of the water, and yet he could never be . . . certain.
This struck me as ringing true of Omnirom's point that the Mark is measure of "the inherent falseness of the assumption" or at least, the
perceived falseness, due to the lack of certainty. Is this part of what differentiates the Psukhe? The Cishuaurim definitely seem certain.
The Chronicle of the Tusk was the most ancient and therefore the most thunderous voice of the past, so ancient that it was itself without any clear history—“innocent,” as the great Ceneian commentator Gaeterius had written.
Oh, Gaeterius, you silly, silly man. If you only knew...
An iron hand clamped about the nape of his neck and yanked him forward, lifting his ear to Sarcellus’s lips.
“How I’ve longed to do that, pig,” the man whispered.
This seems to speak to me that Sarcellus has already been replaced. We know the skin-spies can see Seswatha in Akka and this goes right to that. Another point that the Consult already knows about Akka and his mission and plan to use him.