Jean de Créquy

1411. Canaples, France 

I am Jean de Créquy, a feudal creep, the owner of a terrible life. The day Pa croaked and I made seigneur, me and this scullery tart, Destiny, sidestep the feudal grind in search of steamy larks. We were doin’ the whole picnic-blankie scene by the Créquoise river—I even bartered a goat skin of bubbly from our pervy apoth, and lugged along a dirtbag flautist (so I’d suffered a monsoon of flutey solos)—when the goddamn Duke of Burgundy rolled up, him and his tunic wearin’ flunkies making it known, they were lookin’ to piss in the pudding.  

“Tell me something good,” he leered at Destiny, who giggled. 

“Them off-brand tunics ain’t.”  

The Duke of Burgundy snapped his gloved fingers: “My boy, Roberto, can wail on your knees.” One flunky waved a morning star in the air. “You want business with me, son?”

“No.” 

 “You best know what I’m about,” Roberto swung his morning star over his head, then tomahawked it into the river. We watched it float lazily away.  

The flautist cleared his throat.  

Roberto: “I meant to do that.”

“He meant to do that,” the Duke of Burgundy confirmed and squinted at me.

Me and the Dukie had tainted blood from the Hundred Years, where he played the odds so damn much even he forgot who it was he was turn coatin’.  

“What’re you doin’ with this lace-curtain gigolo?” The Duke turned towards Destiny, but she was fleein’ across the fields. I’ll admit, I felt winded and even a bit hurt. But Destiny was no great loss—her conversation was a tax on science—and were I a betting fellow, I’d lay down a mighty wager she beelined home for the afternoon hanging. No, it’s when I realized she’s made off with the booze that my mood dropped several decibels. 

The Duke: “You have that effect on people. Let’s bro out, entourage.” Roberto gave me the finger in farewell. The retreating horses kicked up dust that settled on my face.

I don’t really want to go back home, so I just stood in the middle of the empty day, holding a bare-ass picnic basket. On paper I was the big cheese, but in real life, I was a teenage toad, and the entire fiefdom hated my fucking guts, and Destiny would barely look at me, and on his deathbed my pa chortled one final time before turning away from me, so he could die alone. At least that’s what I was thinkin’ when the bucolic winds picked up, and the flautist, who I’d forgotten, blew a short, single note, which sounded bitter and shrill when it disappeared in the air. 

Mike Itaya lives in southern Alabama, where he works in a library. His work appears or is forthcoming in decomP Magazine, Superstition Review, Four Way Review, and Canned, among others.