Aldimar had by then grown into a man both young and inexperienced but lettered and shrewd enough to run a family. All he dreaded was Roel's revenge, but the old bear snarled once or thrice then took happily to spending all his waking hours (than just half of them or so) at wenching, drinking, and falling drunkenly out of saddles as he rode from one Uskevren hunting lodge to another.

In the fullness of time, Aldimar took a wife, Balantra Toemalar, a stunningly beautiful, soft-spoken lass from a Saerlunan family of old and respected lineage but declining wealth. They had two sons, Perivel and Thamalon, before a third birthing killed her and what would have been a daughter. Thamalon remembered best her crooning songs, dark starshot eyes, and the long tumbling wildness of her hair.

The elder son, Perivel, was his father's favorite. He was a handsome, strapping youth every bit the horseman his Great-uncle Roel was, but with wits as sharp as Aldimar's own. In his brother's shadow, Thamalon became the quiet, studious watcher… and, after Nelember's teaching on the heels of his wild days, the family coin-counter. He had a horror of empty chests.

Under Aldimar, the Uskevren clan soared to new prosperity, outstripping even its former greatness. Aldimar took a second wife, and grew steadily more gaunt and short-tempered even as his influence made him the uncrowned ruler of Selgaunt. Perivel seriously contemplated conquering Battledale. This contentious realm northeast of Sembia proper was to be Perivel's own province, what he hoped would be the "breadbasket to the realm," as well as his own source of endless riches.

Then it all came crashing down. A dying pirate revealed Aldimar's dark secret. Behind all the lawful land deals and loans to shopkeepers and cart-merchants, the Uskevren wealth was based on piracy. Through Aldimar and the family fleet, the Uskevren bought ships for pirates, fenced their stolen goods, and in return prospered from smuggling and from pirate gold.