Work Text:
“I would like to hear your opinion of Lin Shu,” said Prince Jing abruptly one evening.
Mei Changsu blinked at him. “May I ask why?” he said.
“Because I wish to know,” said the prince. “Tell me what the Divine Talent makes of my friend. Don’t you work for me?”
Mei Changsu sat still. Mei Changsu, after all, would not startle or flinch at the prince’s mention of a dead friend. He would merely consider the youth Lin Shu, deducing the shape of him by the hole he had left behind. He would be interested in the dead man only insofar as his echoes in the world affected the prince who was Mei Changsu’s present concern. Why else should Lin Shu matter?
Mei Changsu considered.
“Well?” said Prince Jing. “Speak plainly. You need not fear my anger.”
Mei Changsu did not, although he thought it was fairly likely the prince would get angry with him.
He took a moment more to arrange his thoughts.
“Lin Shu was not very old when he died,” he said mildly at last. “He lived a pleasant and easy life: in many ways more pleasant and easy than yours, though you were the prince. The heir of the Lin family received more care from his father than the Emperor’s younger son by a minor concubine ever hoped for from his. And as for himself, he was reasonably intelligent,” and there at reasonably was the anger sparking in Prince Jing’s eyes, as Mei Changsu had expected, “and very well taught: taken together those things may appear to approach genius, and since he enjoyed being thought of as exceptional, he encouraged this perception.”
“You are mistaken,” said Prince Jing coldly. “You did not know Lin Shu. He was exceptional.”
Mei Changsu inclined his head. “I do not mean any insult to his memory, your highness. But a man who was truly as clever as Lin Shu pretended to be would have seen the danger Xia Jiang and Princess Xuanji posed before it was too late.”
“As you would, I suppose?” said Prince Jing with clear and poorly suppressed dislike.
“As I would,” agreed Mei Changsu. “But I have offended you. I will say no more.”
“Say what you were going to say,” Prince Jing ordered. When Mei Changsu was silent he said, “Say it!”
Mei Changsu heard in his voice, and saw in his half-averted gaze, that Prince Jing craved this: to hear his friend’s name said aloud, even by a man he disliked, and so to have the force of memory acknowledged by someone. It was important to him that Lin Shu should be spoken of, that he should still matter. And who better than a cold strategist to assess honestly what mattered and what did not?
Mei Changsu could give him this. It would not even be a lie.
He looked away from Prince Jing’s expression, to be polite. “I was going to say that Lin Shu perhaps was exceptional, if not in the way he pretended to be,” he said. “He was blessed with unusual good fortune in his teachers, his family, and his friends, but even so his ability to inspire love and loyalty in those who cared for him was remarkable. Many years after his death it is still possible even for a stranger to see the evidence of this.”
“Yes,” said Prince Jing after a pause. His voice sounded scraped and painful. “That is true. He was loved. He was most worthy of love.”
Mei Changsu said nothing.
“I wonder, do you even know what it is,” said Prince Jing, “to have a friend you can trust?”
“Your highness,” murmured Mei Changsu politely.
“Someone you can be sure of,” said Prince Jing, “someone you never have to lie to, someone who will never tell you lies - in the court of Da Liang, to never tell a lie! But Xiao Shu could not keep a secret if his life depended on it - not one of his own, I mean. He kept other people’s secrets safer than jewels, but for himself, never.” A head shake, a wondering laugh. “He was in trouble more than anyone else as a child because he always admitted everything at once - or else confessed, if he thought he was about to get away with it. You will say it was because he only wanted everyone to know how clever he was. I say it was because he was true. Do you know the value of such truth, Sir Su?” He did not wait for an answer. “You claim he was fortunate; but we were the fortunate ones. I was fortunate beyond measure to have such a friend. I would rather have him by my side again than win a dozen thrones.”
“That is not the choice before you,” said Mei Changsu.
“There are no choices before me,” said Prince Jing.
There was a silence.
“I do know,” said Mei Changsu for no good reason.
The prince gave him an odd look. Mei Changsu had not modulated his tone appropriately. He tucked his hands more deeply into his sleeves. He made himself speak in a more level way.
“I do know, your highness, what it is to have true friends,” he said. “I agree with you on the value of such things.”
“You do,” said Prince Jing flatly. “You. You speak honestly, and get honesty in return? You have friends?”
“One,” said Mei Changsu. It had been a long time since he last saw Lin Chen. He did not often permit himself the luxury of missing him. But - “Just one.”
Prince Jing looked at him, still frowning. And then something he saw made him first stand straighter and then bow. “Then I apologise,” he said. “We understand one another after all.”
“It was more, once,” said Mei Changsu. He did not know why he said it. It was not relevant. It was not even true. Mei Changsu had one real friend, and was satisfied to see him only at long intervals. Mei Changsu was not the sort of person who required a great deal of honesty in his dealings with others.
“I envy you,” said Prince Jing. “I also had more, once. Now I do not even have one.”
Quiet took hold of the room again.
In it Mei Changsu saw an obvious opening. He could say: I am willing to be someone who speaks honestly with you, your highness. He could smile a little, and look Prince Jing in the eye, and permit a little weakness to show - a little loneliness.
And then the prince would turn slightly red in the face, and clear his throat, and say: such a person would call me Jingyan.
This was what Mei Changsu would see, though it did not take a strategist of Mei Changsu’s calibre to see it: Prince Jing’s weakness. That was what Mei Changsu would regard as relevant when he considered the hole in the world left by the absence of Lin Shu. That reasonably clever, hopelessly arrogant, blindly lucky youth had possessed some power over the hearts of others which it would be foolish to disregard. His disappearance had left wounds torn through those who cared for him which any sensible person could use.
He will have to know in the end, thought someone who was not quite Mei Changsu. An emperor with such an obvious vulnerability would be a puppet in no time at all. The space in Jingyan’s heart that he kept for his Xiao Shu must be sealed away, locked shut by betrayed certainty. He would have to know that there was no one who would not lie to him. He would have to know there was no one he could trust.
Not yet, not yet, thought that person, so Mei Changsu said nothing: not I could be your friend, not Jingyan, it’s me, not I miss you as well. He only looked at Prince Jing with sympathy; and he saw his prince mistake it for pity, and grimace, and look away.