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

Rogue Mages

I was intending to talk about the Brotherhood and rogue mages as they relate to Yennefer, but examining this episode I was left with the impression Yennefer isn't aware of most of it, so I've decided to split this off as well.

Hemet: "Lucky for you, you found your way to an intolerant kingdom. For quick coin, head to the nearest town in any direction. Your skills will be rewarded."
Yennefer: "If it's as you say, then why aren't you out there taking advantage? As you're so inclined."
Hemet: "Because my customers...come to me."

So, this is our first look at a non-Brotherhood mage. His business practices are suspect, you may suspect already he's stringing Yennefer along and that'll be confirmed by next episode, and we know he's working for other rogue mages and similar clientele so he can stay out of sight personally. After Yennefer follows his advice about getting some quick coin, Tissaia shows up to say the Brotherhood is pissed and coming for her. That's the reason he's not out there.

Tissaia: "You remained hidden for a while, but now, you're making noise. You're looking for something. You're wasting your time. The so-called mages you're enlisting will not help you with your problem. And if you're not careful, you will become just like them... irrelevant. You are pure chaos right now. You want a cure, and it's making you sloppy. The Brotherhood left you to your own devices once you abandoned Aedirn. But this behavior, flaunted in direct conflict with their agenda, will not be tolerated. They will come after you."

As I said, there's been a gap of sixteen years. Yennefer was left alone for that period but Tissaia is claiming that was only because she wasn't doing anything.

Here's an important question: which behavior won't be tolerated?

Yennefer is not paying taxes on the boner smoke and magic!esctacy orgies she's selling to get money to grow new ovaries. How exactly that's in direct conflict with anyone's agenda is unclear. Possibly the issue is that she's doing magic in a kingdom where you're supposed to pay a tax and this is reflecting badly on the Brotherhood - perhaps they have an agreement with such kings? But also at this point Yennefer is living with the mayor, so the legality of the situation is probably getting covered up for her. Also, if that were the problem, Tissaia could point out that Yennefer could just pay the damn tax like a responsible citizen.

Tissaia is emphasizing the problem is Yennefer's desire to fix herself is "making you sloppy" which sure sounds like it's less about exactly what she's doing than how publicly she's doing it. I think this suggests that even if Yennefer had been in a more magic friendly kingdom, or paying all the taxes, or whatever else, the real issue is being publicly visible without being a Brotherhood member.

There's the separate question of if there's other things Yennefer would have to agree to in order to be actually reinstated. Yennefer will say later that the uterus thing is a deliberate part of the Brotherhood's agenda, and while given how bitter she is it's hard to say if she's right about their motivation, it seems very likely that spending your time trying to undo something the Brotherhood did to you is not going to be looked at favorably. This may be why Tissaia's complaints are so broad, they've covering both what the Brotherhood will actually go after Yennefer because of and what Yennefer won't be allowed to continue doing if she goes back to Aretuza and working for the Brotherhood.

Further complicating matters is that Tissaia has proven herself an unreliable source of information. Given she's showing up now, we know that she doesn't want the Brotherhood hunting Yennefer, which means that when she claims "the Brotherhood" left Yennefer be this long, it may be because Tissaia's been arguing this whole time to leave Yennefer be and the recent events have led to her being overruled. Tissaia has trouble telling the truth and we saw her lie when she and the Brotherhood disagreed before. In this case it's not even a bad idea to do so - it's reasonable to guess Yennefer's going to be more willing to return if Tissaia claims the Brotherhood was fine with Yennefer and is only just getting fed up than if they've been one vote short of killing her this whole time. And Tissaia hates admitting any sort of emotion and is doing her best not to admit she's trying to help Yennefer here, so she has a personal motive to keep anything she's done for Yennefer a secret.