A Rose by This Name

-3-

A/N: The name Wriothesley does not have a definitive pronunciation, but it is widely assumed to be pronounced as Roseley or Rozely. Shakespeare used the rose comparison a few times in his own work as well.

William wakes to a cold room, his sheets found piled carelessly on the floor. The worn curtains framing his window blow inwards, bringing with them a biting chill. He groans, standing up slowly and making to close the broken shutters. The best actor in England and he can't even afford a proper living space. Closing the window, he's reminded of the large rainstorm from the first year after he and Anne had married. The shutters of his family home were also damaged, making for poor insulation and wetting every inch of their floors. After the storm was over, he'd written a small poem for her about the woes of homeownership and left it near her writing desk. William had watched his wife read it from across the room later that night, and saw the melancholy and ironic smile across her face as she finished reading. He chuckles at the memory, wishing on this morning more than usual that he was back home in Stratford-upon-Avon with his wife and children.

His relationship with Anne Hathaway was unconventional, as she was pregnant with their first child before wedding William. He did the gentlemanly thing and proposed as soon as he discovered her pregnancy, so there was no one-- as far as he was concerned-- frowning upon their relationship. He was 18 at the time, while Anne was 26, so in the absence of him owning his own home, he simply invited her to move into his family's home. It was only marginally cramped, but after several years of this arrangement he was finally looking for an estate to buy for their family alone. After he left Titchfield-- the city he'd been lodged in for a few months now with his actor's troupe-- he planned to visit the land lords surrounding Stratford-upon-Avon and purchase land from them.

William removes his night-clothes, still shivering from the early morning breeze. He quickly dresses, looking to retain some of his body's warmth, and descends the stairs of his apartment. His riding boots leave small prints of mud on the worn out boards and echo with small clicks in the stairwell. Before he can unlock the door in front of him, he passes a mirror in the entry hall, catching sight of his reflection. Despite his cluttered performance schedule, he still looked well put together, save for a few stray hairs. His eyes remind him of the eyes of his youngest and sweetest daughter, Judith.

He suddenly thinks of Henry, an image of the young man looking in another, different mirror the same way William was now beginning to cloud his mind. He thinks again of Judith, how she'd inherited many of her father's most defining features. Would any child of Henry's have his same fair looks? William looks back to the apartment door before stomping up the stairs to his apartment again. It was time to write another sonnet.

-----

Oddly enough, though neither of them knew it yet, Henry was in fact looking in the mirror at the same time as William was. He traces the shape of his angular nose with a single finger, bringing it up to outline his eyes. William had said one day they would be deep-sunken with age. Could he really get older and lose his fair youth? The skin above his eyes is not yet wrinkling, nor is the skin near the corners of his eyes or the skin on his brow. The days of old-age William so forlornly spoke of feel to him so far off, so distant from today that Henry can't help but imagine they may never come.

A cat of the estate pushes open Henry's door, stalking into the room quietly before observing Henry with a judgemental glare. She was a black and white cat, the runt of her litter rescued from the stables to live her life not as a mouser but as a pet in the house. Henry had actually been the one to suggest it, when he was 8 and found her sick, away from the rest of the kittens. With the help of his governess, they nursed her back to full health and she had been the delight of everyone in the household. But the days of her youth seemed to be long gone as well, as she was going half blind in one eye and still seemed to be bumping into things wherever she went.

She bumped into Henry's leg now, startling him from his mirror-gazing and meowing to show she wanted to be picked up. He gently raises her into his lap, careful to avoid the spot on her leg where she'd been biting it again. She flexes her claws into his skin, causing him to inhale sharply, but she releases almost immediately.

"Hello Elsie," he pets her head as she purrs, "Catch any mice today?" She looks at him with her clouding eyes by way of an answer, as if she was reprimanding him for forgetting her dwindling health. "Of course you didn't." He shakes his head. There was not much he could do to help her, as he obviously was not a mouse catcher. If Elsie was getting too old to hunt, she'd be dying soon.

Would Henry one day be too old to even feed himself as well?

Henry rises from his place before the mirror, setting Elsie back on the stool. She curls up with her tail swishing off the side slowly, her eyes following him as he paces the room.

A knock sounds from the door, creaking open to reveal a shy waiting servant girl. She's holding a tray with a tea set and a plate of scones.

"Good morning, My Lord," she says, eyes flicking from Henry to the floor as a faint blush spreads across her cheeks. Henry fixes her in his gaze with a look of pure disinterest. "Here's your late morning tea." He motions with one hand to the tea table in the center of the room. She quickly steps over to set down the tray, curtsying once her hands are empty. "Is there anything else I could bring you?" She looks up at him through her eyelashes, a smile showing bashfully on her pink lips.

"No." Henry says, and walks away towards the window to peer through the lace curtains.

"I could bring some fresh bed linens for you," she continues, "Or maybe a dish of milk for your kitty over there. Perhaps even an early lunch I could fix for you--" She is cut off by Henry turning back to face her.

"That is all. You are dismissed, girl." She quickly bows her head, face flushing even more before she hurries back through the still-open door. She closes it behind her with a quick click, and Henry listens to the quiet snaps of her shoes retreating in the hall beyond.

He lets out an exasperated sigh. She was perhaps the seventh servant-- eleventh girl over-all-- who had attempted to seduce or woo him since he'd returned from Lord Burghley's estate. Could absolutely none of them see his distaste for them? He was sick of their attempts to flatter him; there was only one person-- a man-- who had succeeded so far.

-----

William sets down his quill, considering the sonnet laid before him.

Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live, remembered not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.

It had taken him only a half hour to write, something that would be a great feat for someone not as poetically accomplished. He folds up the parchment and stuffs it into an envelope, taking the time to once again ink in some small roses. This was an obvious play on Henry's surname, Wriothesley. He had hoped Henry would notice with the first sonnet, but he wants even more now for Henry to pay attention to the details William was adding. Satisfied with his work, William puts his riding boots and jacket back on, carefully placing the envelope containing the sonnet in his pocket. With one last glance into the mirror hanging in the hallway, he sets out into the late morning streets of Titchfield.