Chapter Four: The Twelfth Maria
It had been some time since the Schuldes had joined the Bussereau family bakery and ever time he looked upon Monsieur Schulde's bored and disinterested face, or noticed Madame Schulde's fits of stifled laughter when his brother bragged of his new oven system, he realized that he knew nothing of these people at all. All that he knew was all that Jean-Clair had told him, and that was that they were from Austria, and nothing more about that.
On this particularly lazy summer day, he found himself done with his midday baking as half the sun was halfway past the horizon, and the rush of morning customers had already came and left.
"This is too early for me," said Kate, yawning and gazing into the sun. She was seated at the front counter, and to Simon-Pierre, she sat like a man, leaning on her elbow and propping one foot upon the rung of the stool, although her dress draped gracefully over it all. Another thing Simon-Pierre noticed here was that she didn't care too much for style, and while the most impoverished women outside were passing by the window with wire frames and thick, unnatural hair, it almost seemed that her husband had to force her to put her hair in braids at night to induce some volume.
Simon-Pierre nodded, but eventually snapped back from his curious thoughts. "You're learning French fast!" he gasped in surprise. She merely smiled weakly and nodded, as if she was keeping up one of her secrets again.
For a few more minutes, it was quiet again, and Simon-Pierre pretended to listen to the fire as to check if his breads wouldn't burn. In reality, he was busy being frustrated about why he didn't know anything about these people.
"Madame Schulde--" he started.
She stopped him, looking particularly open for conversation. "Please, call me… er, call me…" Her eyes suddenly dropped to the corner as her cheeks flushed red. She muttered kind of swear that he couldn't understand, but then landed on the word. "Claudia! Call me Claudia, please."
Simon-Pierre could no longer hide his confusion, but he tried to be polite about it. "I'd much rather call you Madame."
"No, that's… how do you say… ridiculous? I am twenty-two, only a few years older than you, correct?"
He nodded, adding, "Yes, I'm eighteen."
"So, why are we using titles?" Kate questioned as if she had a point.
Simon-Pierre could think of a multitude of reasons, but he still surrendered in the end. "May I ask… Claudia… how old is your husband?"
For a while she looked blankly at him, but then she smiled very grandly and started laughing to herself as she usually did. "Old," she said, simply, but after a short pause she added, "He has secrets that he refuses to tell even me."
"But you still are very close," he complimented.
Kate nodded weakly, again, and her amused expression seemed to melt. "He isn't my husband," she said, looking out the window. "I'm not married to him, but don't tell anyone. It's easier to say that we are married."
"Oh?" Simon-Pierre said with interested eyes. "So you- oh, please excuse me. Nevermind."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "What? Go on. I won't be offended."
He shrugged. "It's hardly offensive at all. When I first met you, I thought you were a twelfth Maria and Ferdinand was your brother."
"A… twelfth Maria? What is that?" She looked as if she had no idea what he was talking about.
"You know. Your queen, Maria Theresa, had eleven daughters she named Maria, although they had second names like Marie Antoinette. Excuse me again, but two certainly do act as strange as royalty." He blushed, but acted to mean well, as he did.
Kate was fully curious now. "Yes? How so?"
"This part will be offensive, is that alright?" He continued after Claudia nodded. "Every time you bite into a piece of food, you get an uncomfortable look on your face, and I know we don't have the best ingredients to make the best bread or anything. Overall, it's just the way that you act. If I hadn't seen you in a dress, I would think you were a man from the way you speak so openly. But, do excuse me again. I do like talking more openly like this. I just don't talk this openly to women," he said shyly.
Kate scoffed. "And so are the times," she sighed. "What else?"
"Well, about Monsieur Schlude. Even I can tell from his hands that he hasn't worked a day in his life. And how would he know both French and German without being an educated noble? Also-- I don't mean to be suggestive, but there's been a rumor going around that when he was gone last Thursday, he was spotted at Château de Sauvageot, but I've also heard that the lord of the manor looks like him, but that lord had disappeared over a year ago."
"Is that so?" Kate raised her eyebrows and leaned in, trying to catch everything. "So is that all the evidence you have toward us being Princes of Austria?"
Simon-Pierre smiled a little. "I believe the terms are Archdukes of Austria, but yes. That is all."
"It's the same." She rolled her eyes, but looked playfully at the young man. "Simon-Pierre, I'm going to advise you to stop wondering about us. As far as you need to be concerned... " she paused, "you don't need to be concerned."
He scowled. "Who is to say I would not understand?"
She scowled, but chuckled, "Trust me, if you could understand, you wouldn't want to understand. In either case, we will be leaving soon, and then you can forget all about it."
"Is that so? Where are you going?"
Now, she looked insulted. "Home," she said.
"Then why come to Paris at all?"
"Because... we..." she looked to the corner of her eye again, choosing words, "left because... Ferdinand's family situation is a bit stressed, but... sometime soon, his niece should be here to tell us that everything is fine and that we can go back home again." Kate looked confident about her little story.
Simon-Pierre didn't know what to believe. "You came to a country drowned in debt and on the brink of anarchy to avoid a family feud?"
"Yes," she nodded, but then shook her head. "I mean, no. We couldn't really choose-- I mean, no. Nevermind." She finally stood up, smoothed out her dress and stated very sternly, "I'm not even going to explain it. Is that all you have to talk to me about? Because if so, we are simply not going to talk at all."
Simon-Pierre stood up as well, looking down at himself. "I'm sorry. Madame, please excuse me. I really did not want to be rude. In the beginning, I did have something to ask of you. Something not related to your history."
"Yes?" she asked.
"A printing press?" gasped Kate. "How ancient!"
As flour and generally all other bakery ingredients do not fair very well in dark and damp places, the bakery cellar was only used for keeping wine until a few years ago when even that became too expensive. Now, it was a perfect place to hide a large secret.
Simon-Pierre nodded, watching curiously as Kate circled the machine, inspecting it carefully. "Yes," he said, "the man I bought it from said it was around fifteen years old. If you can not mention this to any of my family, that would be perfect. I wasn't saving my deniers for anything in particular, but now, more than ever, people sell the strangest of things just for a weeks worth of food. And-- what are you doing?"
"Primitive," she muttered, but looked up to him and said, "I'll need a few blocks of wood and a knife, but after I make all the parts, it should be fixed."
"How did you know it was broken?"
Kate blinked for a moment. "I just know. It's... a talent. I can understand how things work."
Simon-Pierre shrugged it off. "Yes, I did notice that you are unusually good at solving mechanical problems. And no, I will not ask you how you are so talented."
"Good boy," she smiled. "What do you need a printing press for?"
"I bought it for next to nothing, so I was going to see what I could sell it for."
She frowned, looking disappointed. "You're not going to fight the obscenely rich aristocracy by publishing provocative pamphlets to start a revolution?" she asked.
He raised an eyebrow. "Like the Americans? Of course not. Fighting their homeland and what they get is blood with debt up to their ears. And for their so-called 'freedom,' we get a crippled economy with people begging off the street while Marie-Antoinette can buy a necklace worth a thousand lifetime wages."
"That's what I am talking about!" Kate nodded eagerly. "I'll even help."
"No," said Simon-Pierre firmly. "Anything that I would want to say is already being said by people who are crazy enough to risk their lives by opposing the throne, not to mention the cost for ink and paper. No, I am just going to resell it."
"Here you are, faced with such an opportunity, and you're going just hoping to make an easy sou or two? Simon-Pierre, I am disappointed in you!"
Simon-Pierre laughed. "Fine. You can print your own newspaper, and then you can starve."
"Then maybe I will!" Kate hissed. After the boy looked uninterested in her, she turned on her heel and started upstairs. "I hate men! All of you! You're all just the same!" she shot out in random spurts until she was far enough away that she couldn't be heard.
A/N: I'm not sure if it's clear, but Kate's ability is intuitive aptitude, which happens to be Sylar/Gabriel's ability. Mind, this is before this "hunger" thing came about. I just meant Kate to be really very mechanically smart, understanding the inner-workings, but in doing so be frustrated with how little she understands of social workings, as shown by a whole chapter devoted to her self-conflict of loving Adam. Except, you as a reader had to point that out yourself, and I shouldn't be explaining it to you. Ah, well.