I confess that usurers have a name as being distinctly dour and miserable folk. This is something of a canard, I’ve known several who have a sense of humour. They have been known to chuckle dryly at a fumbled attempt to hide something embarrassing in a set of accounts. Similarly the legend that usurers are prone to spontaneous combustion should they venture out into direct sunlight are just that, a legend. Admittedly given the gloom that seems to hang around Port Naain for much of the year it is easy enough to see how the legend might arise.

But strangely enough in other cities, usurers are cut from different cloth. The usurers of Avitas are more adventurous. Indeed some are possessed of a positively raffish manner.

It is Cheal Latour whose tale I feel is worthy of recounting. The commendable son of widely respected forebears, he entered the family firm…