Went up on the wall to look. Saw pawns standing around. Tried conversation but all they say is they " can' t join my covenant at this time". Don't have a clue what that is about.

That means that you need your Main Pawn as a middle ma...pawn if you want to hire this Pawn.
This also happend somtimes when the Main Pawn is simply not around when you talk to other Pawns.

I can only ponder if this is intentional or not.

My main pawn was MIA. Why all the pawns hang out on the upper deck after the event? No other place to go I'd guess.

well there is a lot less room about with the whole section of the city gone. Yea I found them up there while hunting for rubble, the rooftops are accessable by the top of the castle fortification wall so they can get onto the rooftops. I just remember looking around and going "who the heck is that just sitting way up there on the roof" and went up to look.

Oh, just some dumb pawns.