Some additional thoughts on Inire:
Here is a puzzle I haven't been able to crack. Does any other Urthling get the idea that there is some kind of connection between Father Inire and the late artist Fechin? I get the feeling some kind of message is in here.
Consider:
Rundesind's fondest childhood memory is of sitting for Fechin. As an adult Curator, he works for Father Inire and seems to forever search for that portrait of himself.
Casdoe's daddy remembers his childhood friend Fechin as physically resembling a reddish, spindly monkey, which of course has been a description attached to Inire.
I don't for one moment think that Fechin was an alias of Inire, but there seems to be something encoded by author's-artifact into this narrative. I'm just too dense to decode it.
An Inire sighting:
This is a rather painfully obvious one, but I spent a long time trying to find it again. As Severian journeys alone from the House Absolute, the day before he rejoined Dorcas and the players, Wolfe is careful to describe a monkey "who might have been a wizened, red-bearded man in fur" watching Sev from a treetop. As Sev has already been identified as the chosen one by this point, it only makes perfect sense that Inire would keep an eye on him.