Pherenike - Chapter 68

Peleus Vassilios was a man whose age was difficult to discern. Approaching fifty, the general’s physique seemed frozen in time two decades earlier, still robust and unwavering. His face, handsome yet as cold as a well-honed blade, showed no sign of laxity.

Thus, he still appeared youthful, enough for the freeborn maidens of Lykke to continue dreaming about him.

Yet, the slight traces left by time only added to his imposing presence. After all, he was a man who seemed not to lack anything due to his age.

Pherenike’s platinum hair and hyacinth-like eyes all came from him. Her deceased mother left nothing behind. Although they didn’t look much alike, Peleus said Pherenike resembled her mother, with a hint of regret.

Even in his youth, his face lacked any pretty features. In fact, when with Deucalion, they seemed more like father and son and they were truly acting more like it too.

However, his daughter was not close to him.

“I’ve already seen the child on my way here” the general said bluntly to his daughter, like reporting a progress. Then added as if realizing something, “Should I speak more formally to you?”

“It’s fine.”

She replied, slowly sitting up from where she lay. Peleus took his seat in the chair placed in front of her.

“You’ve had it tough.”

“I didn’t expect you’d come all this way just to offer a formal greeting to your daughter.”

A slight smile curved the corner of his blunt mouth.

“I’m late, that’s all.”

It wasn’t exactly an early visit, but it’s not like she had been eagerly waiting for her father. She hadn’t even thought of him coming until she heard the news.

“….Ino, bring some wine for my father.”

Ino nodded quietly and gracefully led the other maids out. Peleus’s scrutinizing gaze slowly swept over his daughter’s gaunt face, thin neck, and slender shoulders.

Silence followed. Peleus sighed, got up from his chair, and walked over to the open window.

Was there anyone in Lykke as complex as Peleus Vassilios?

His family had been traditional bannermen for the Thasos family, and his daughter had become the wife of the enemy. Naturally, Actor’s people thought of the former, while Deucalion’s considered the latter.

It would have been refreshing for both sides to simply cast him out. However, the real issue was that Peleus had become too significant a figure to be dismissed lightly.

The general had grown under the shadow of the Lord of Thasos when the Vassilios family briefly faltered. He never hid the fact that he owed a lifelong debt to him.

But that was all. Peleus Vassilios only ever behaved as if he had a personal debt to Lord Thasos, without ever fully committing his family’s fate to the Thasos banner or their ambitions, at least not outwardly.

Since his first campaign at fifteen, he spent his life in Evdokia’s wars, big and small.

Lykke had a habit of binding its soldiers like criminals and scrutinizing responsibility after even a single defeat, despite numerous victories. This city, opulent and shameless, along with its bickering senate and council, agreed on this point.

Peleus aimed to distance his family and lineage from the blame for military outcomes while ensuring they also remained unaffected by the wars he waged.

Pherenike’s father was always a straightforward man, treating everything directly. Thus, he drew a line between himself and his daughter, who became the Prince Regent’s wife. Since Pherenike became queen, he hardly visited Lykke or its nearby cities. This remained unchanged even after his son-in-law partially stripped him of military command.

Who could fault him for his actions given such a record?

King Epicydes, who despised his wife and the Thasos family for a lifetime, couldn’t deny Vassilios’s grand achievements. He was the kingdom’s protector; he couldn’t be pushed into one faction. The Lykke nobility couldn’t decide the general’s fate with a mere show of hands in their leisurely gatherings.

Ironically, King Epicydes pulled Vassilios out of several conspiracies, knowing well he was Lord Thasos’s prized asset. He could never fully make him his own ally but acknowledged him as his glory.

King Epicydes even kidnapped Vassilios’s daughter from the son he hated the most to hand her to the son he loved the most.

Having given her away once, his son eventually claimed her back as his own. Would the deceased king find satisfaction in today’s scene, oblivious to his son’s wife harboring a knife in her bosom?

Considering Deucalion is still alive, the thought of the king’s ghost contorted in dismay brought a slight smile. The Vassilios family has successfully entered a near-isolated state of neutrality.

The king appointed his father-in-law as the governor of the peaceful and prosperous Marsala region. In addition, it was far from Lykke and any battlefield.

Some saw this as a grand gesture of respect towards the father-in-law, while others viewed it as exile.