Work Text:
July or August, 1396, Gaegyeong.
With eyes lowered and hands folded, as the heat of high summer begins to cook the air inside his hat and causes moisture to well at his temples, Nam Jeon presides over the successor’s visit to the executive offices. At fourteen, Ui’an is still more brain than body. This is unusual both for his family and for the times, but Sam Bong, that sly so-and-so, likes to say that that the balance of power is now as it ought to be.
“Give or take a body,” Nam Jeon muttered under his breath once, when they were both in their cups, though they pretended that he hadn’t.
The Crown Prince charms the executive office. He is a sunny-natured boy, like his father. He is unsurprisingly eager to be considered a man of modesty and restraint. The visit is concluding as heavy boots sound outside the door. Nam Jeon says no with his eyes to the doorkeeper, but Ui’an-gun, courteous and intelligent, asks, “Who is it?” and says “Nam Seon-ho?” when the guard announces the name. “Of course. We remember his kindness to us in our childhood.”
The Jurchen with the angry tread stays behind doors, but Seon-ho alone is enough to overpower the office, even if he’s surrendered his weapons, or some of them, at the door. The overwhelming stench of hard work wafts into the room with him: he’s been riding every week to Namgyeong to oversee business.
“How are your studies?” he asks the prince, direct, after the courtesies.
“We are reading the commentaries of Zhu Xi,” Ui’an says, and explains a little about them, to demonstrate. You can’t go near the throne room without Yi Seong-gye boasting about his Highness’s reports: Ui’an criticised this and Ui’an composed that, and at his age, one was polishing the boots of the chiliarch! “Our instruction in the Classics was concluded last year.”
“I see,” Seon-ho says, in his flat way. Your son has a face like a flower, Sam Bong once told Nam Jeon, but does he have to blot out the sun every time he opens his mouth? It’s worse when he tries to be polite, Nam Jeon had said, in reply.
“We are lacking in understanding, but persevere by the guidance of our teachers,” Ui’an is saying. The councillors are starry-eyed: he is so earnest.
“Do you?“ Seon-ho says. "I once heard Poeun tell that the Ming conqueror could barely write his name until some monks took pity on him and gave him an education, in his years as a beggar.”
“A personage of dazzling talent,” Ui’an says, with grace.
“We’re getting by in an age of genius,” Seon-ho agrees. “At your age, your fifth brother was writing his final examinations at Sungkyungkwan—the only man of your family to go to the academy.”
The grace flickers, uncertain.
“His peers at school spread stories about how he slew a tiger with his bare hands at a hunt in Yeongdeok—or at least, his friends did, because he had successfully had his enemies expelled by then. He was running a racket in smuggled arms for the household of your first brother, and had a network that spied on the offices and landholdings of every major family in Gaegyeong. Your Royal Highness?”
“Yes?” Ui’an says, wide-eyed.
“The Ming will recognise you before that man does.”
“Our brother has promised to treat our life as his own,” Ui’an says. Nam Jeon heaves a private sigh of relief. Ui’an did not say how dare you besmirch a prince’s intention? He’s not going to grow up a poseur.
“This man!” one of Nam Jeon’s colleagues spits. They know they’re free to rebuke Seon-ho in his father’s presence; it’s when Nam Jeon isn’t there that they fear for their lives. “What, in your insolence, are you suggesting his Royal Highness lacks?”
“Cunning,” Seon-ho says.
“Is that necessary?” Ui’an asks, honestly curious. “We walk in the shadow of his Majesty’s favour.”
“His Royal Highness has the law on his side,” Nam Jeon intervenes, at last. Seon-ho can never seem to keep himself out of royal attention, and it’s usually injurious to his health. “He has the good opinion of his subjects. And, not incidentally,"––he smiles at Ui’an, hopes it’s reassuring––“a rather fearsome army.”
Ui’an smiles back, bravely. “And you all,” he says, to his audience. He turns back to Seon-ho, still smiling: ha, says his face.
What a child.
A smile begins to hover at the corners of Seon-ho’s own mouth.
“Well, genius does make men reckless,” he concedes. “And, after all, your Highness has a treasure that the fifth prince lacks.”
“What’s that?” Ui’an says.
The smile blossoms in full. “A mother,” Seon-ho says. “I crossed Bongwon-sa the day before yesterday and took the liberty of buying some medicine for her Majesty. Sung-rok will deliver it to the Office of the Royal Physician, with your permission. The monk said it helps let down the phlegm at night.”
“I will tell her,” Ui’an says, low and sincere, and quits the office. Seon-ho doesn’t join the farewell train. Nam Jeon expects to find him gone when he turns back to the office, but he’s in the back room, sopping a washcloth in a basin of water and slapping it to his neck.
“The queen remembers kindnesses to her sons,” Nam Jeon says. “Not to herself.”
“The queen is all but dead,” Seon-ho says. “Bang-seok will be, too, after that.”
“Bang-won––“
“Can’t seem to stop evading your murderous designs,” Seon-ho says. “Cheer up, though, maybe you’ll succeed by accident.”
“Well,” Nam Jeon says, after Seon-ho’s wrung out the washcloth and scrubbed his hands and the backs of his ears. “Perhaps the son will remember the kindness to the mother.”
Seon-ho laughs his sunless little laugh. What a sweet boy he used to be, Sam Bong had said. “Perhaps,” he says. “What a prize.”
“He may yet surprise you,” Nam Jeon says.
“He’ll be your puppet,” Seon-ho says. “I am unsurpriseable on that particular count.” He huffs. “Poor bastard.”
"Why the fuss with the medicine for a poor bastard?” Nam Jeon says.
“Because I envy him,” Seon-ho says, to the grimy water in the bowl. “He has a mother.“
"Don’t be melodramatic.”
“She is fighting for every breath she draws, every hour she can be spared, so that she can be with him,” Seon-ho says. “If I could give my mother one chance to do that, for me, I would give up life and death for it.”
“That is the difference,” Nam Jeon says, when he can bring himself to speak, “between the son of a queen and yourself.”
“That isn’t the difference,” Seon-ho says, and leaves.