"Why wouldn't you travel by main roads?"

Episode 2, Four Marks - Istredd

"From wherever you were to here. The Tower of the Gull. Aretuza."

When we meet Istredd, he tells us his current location. We'll learn later that Istredd goes to Ban Ard, which is nowhere near Aretuza. What's he doing down here? Well, apparently something he shouldn't be, because while he's initially quiet and reassuring toward Yennefer, he (and only he) hears a female voice say, "We're not supposed to be out here," and suddenly he gets anxious.

Was he meeting another student? Was he officially allowed into some areas, but he's stepped out of bounds? We know he can portal in without being tracked, but he doesn't seem to be doing the best job of actually hiding while he's there unless he's in a place no one normally goes.

He tells Yennefer, "If you could conjure that portal out of thin air, she'll be coming for you." ... "It's a a different kind of portal. One that can't be tracked. See, the one you made has put a target on your back, but this will take you home. Look, you can trust me."

Now, as we saw with Yennefer, this absolutely did not do anything to stop Tissaia. And it's not clear if he actually thought it would. Istredd said that her portal could be tracked so he'd send her back by a safe portal, but he sent her back to where she made the original, noticeable portal. Did he know? Did he think it was possible they missed it, or was he just trying to get her out of a place where he himself wasn't supposed to be before anyone else noticed?

Interestingly, he didn't lie either way. His actual statements are:

Tissaia's going to come for Yennefer because she made a portal.
His portal is different and can't be tracked.
Yennefer has a target on her back from doing her portal.
He's sending her home.

It's only by implication that there's any connection between "she's coming for you" and "quick, into the untraceable portal", though that's certainly how Yennefer takes it.

Also in question is why he, a magic student, would want Yennefer to avoid the same fate. It seems plausible that he didn't and he was just desperate to get her away from the area, but I think it's even more interesting if he did given that says something about his own situation, what he knows about Aretuza, or both. Does Ban Ard also sacrifice a portion of their students, or is that only a concern for the female mages? Or is Stregobor even worse than Tissaia and Istredd is extrapolating from personal experiences?

We know he seems glad to see her again, which brings us to the next question, what's up with that? It would seem we get an answer near the end of the episode when we're told he's there to get dirt on Tissaia's students, but...

Stregobor: "You've been working on her for months. You must be able to give me something. Make Ban Ard proud."
Istredd: "Sh-she's part elf."

So we're told that all this was to spy on her, or at least, that's the justification he gave Stregobor for his continued interactions with her. And yet unlike Yennefer's earnest hopefulness to Tissaia when she betrays him, he can't even sound calm when telling Stregobor this. He also, as far as we can see, tripped into this piece of information. Yes, it came because he was kind to her, but it also came because it just so happened that she was asking about a spell that was particularly tied to the elves so he gave her his speech about how great elves are, then happened to master it in a way that made it clear something weird was up, and also this all happened when she was lying to get something from him which presumably made Yennefer want to be honest about something. Contrast that to Yennefer, who is told to get something from him by Tissaia and immediately does so.

It's not just that Istredd is uncomfortable with this, it's that it seems to have been accidental he accomplished anything at all. And while it seems like there was someone female down there with him the first time, we don't see them again - if he had a relationship with someone else before Yennefer he seems to have broken it off.

It's possible Stregobor has told Istredd to be a nonthreatening honeypot, but that requires Stregobor to be able to think in those terms. We saw how good he is at understanding other people in the first episode, where he can't out a single line without Geralt hating him more and he's surrounded himself with magic realdolls because that's his idea of delightful company. You know, guys who have realdolls usually want them to wear clothing? Stregobor is a creep by every possible standard is my point here. I don't think he has the first clue about how to interact with women, let alone seduce them.

The more likely option is that this is Istredd's basic personality, or at least grew out of it as it's exaggerated to the point it seems unlikely to be normal. I'm speculating a lot about what Istredd is doing when he's not around Yennefer because he doesn't talk to her about it, which is not a healthy sign. He's seen fussing over the bones but it's only when put on the spot that he talks about what they are, even though that's obviously his passion - "Rewriting history with the stories we tell, the songs we sing about our own triumphs, it's what we do. But I want to honor them." And this is also when he explains the spell he does isn't known by the Brotherhood at all, implying he discovered it himself with whatever research he's been doing on elves. Yet he never mentions it of his own accord in the months he's known Yennefer.

Put together, I don't know how Ban Ard is overall but I think we can guess it's pretty bad under Stregobor. Istredd is spending as much time as he can poking around the foundations of the girls' school instead of at his own, thinking about the past instead of the present and idealizing the elven mages in comparison to the human ones he's actually a part of, and does this even when it means he's expected to be spying on Tissaia's students which he's clearly uncomfortable with (and shows it by being terrible at it). He shows no sign of the guardedness Tissaia seems to be trying to beat into her charges, which suggests it either didn't take and he's considered a failure or Stregobor is more interested in beating appeasement into the kids he's got. He latches onto Yennefer because she's vulnerable and he wants to protect her, and although he doesn't seem to be showing much weakness on his side, just the way he seems to get Yennefer, whose behavior is pretty much entirely trauma, is pretty suspect.

Overall, Istredd is displaying signs of abuse, he's displaying familiarity with its manifestations in others, he at least claims Yennefer should try to avoid being found, and he himself seems to be trying to avoid being at his own school as much as he can. And given their graduations will happen at the same time, I'm pretty sure all this is true when he's also just fourteen years old.