The Chronicles of Harold the Healer Ch. 10

Harold Moser had not known what to expect when he'd signed on to be one of the small team of Healers working for the chapter of the Order of St. Thrimble that was based in Havisham, which he'd found out was the unofficial capital of the Westlands area of the Kingdom. The job that he and two other Healers had was to provide extra support to the doctors of a string of six small towns - Portnoy, Clinton, Mildmay, Green River, Provis, and Magwitch - on a roughly south to north line that parallels this part of the west coast of the Kingdom. They showed up at roughly two-week intervals, which would have been more frequent had there been a budget for horses, but the Kingdom would only cover their pay and a small stipend for food and lodging costs. Harold had been given a set of papers with basic information on the towns, including where the hospitals were and how to get from one to the next, and had discovered that the post station for Portnoy was not in the town itself, but at the junction of the Highway to the road into town, and that a one-hour walk or a taxi cab was required to get there.

As it turned out, the people were down-to-earth, welcoming and friendly, unlike some places where he'd been where they'd been suspicious or even hostile toward strangers. The fact that he was a practicing veterinarian who could treat their horses and livestock made them even more receptive. As he left Provis on the road that led north and west to Magwitch early in the morning of the Autumnal Equinox, he felt the pleasant ache in his loins that was the result of the hot, needy pussy of Clara Brown receiving the last of his cum two hours earlier. She was a nurse at the local hospital with blonde hair down to her shoulders, intelligent blue eyes over a prominent nose and full, sensual lips, and the solid farmer body frame that was typical of the Westlands, but with curves in all the right places.

He had rolled into Provis early in the afternoon three and a half days ago in the back of a farmer's wagon. Long experience had taught him that when he was able to get a lift and get somewhere faster, it was because a local Deity wanted him there, and this had been no exception. He had arrived at the hospital in the midst of a crisis that had been caused by a hay ride for a class of 11 and 12-year-old kids going terribly wrong. It had been a wet start to the harvest season, and as the wagons had been going along a shallow ridge, the soil had suddenly slipped, overturning the wagons and injuring nearly all of the participants. He had Cleaned everyone so that injuries could be better assessed, Healed two broken legs, two broken arms, and numerous bad cuts. After a very necessary three-hour sleep, Clara had taken him to a nice restaurant where he'd eaten a very substantial meal that the other patrons had paid for when they found out what he'd done. He'd pointed out the hotel that was across the street, but she'd insisted that he stay with her. The'd both been too exhausted to do anything that night except flop in her bed and sleep.

He had awoken to a very pleasant sight, namely Clara's D-sized breasts with brown nipples and medium-sized areolas dangling in front of his eyes, swaying towards and away from him as she rode his cock. Her far-away stare and how hard she was squeezing his cock indicated that she was very close to coming, as was he. Unable to control himself, he had groaned softly as she had locked him in place, moaned loudly, and shaken as her orgasm had overwhelmed her and his cock delivered two hard squirts and a few small ones before it was spent.

"Good morning, lover," she had purred. "Your not-so-little man woke up before you did."

"Did my little man need any help?"

"Only a little bit of encouragement," she had replied with a slightly evil twinkle in her eyes as she continued to squeeze his deflating cock with her vaginal muscles, making him moan softly as various fluids trickled down to accumulate on his abdomen. "He was up and ready for action very soon after I started. I'm surprised, given how exhausted you were."

"Healers can regenerate a little faster than most," he had replied as she finally had dismounted. He had gotten a little revenge by Cleaning their genital regions, making her squeal with surprise. "But there is a cost, of course." His stomach had grumbled. "I also need to visit your privy." After breakfast and other necessary activities, she had given him directions to the veterinary clinic. He had spent the day and the next two puttering around to local farms on borrowed horses Healing sick and injured livestock as well as tending to the needs of the farmers. He also had checked in at the hospital at the end of the day to make sure there weren't any others who needed Healing, and fortunately there had never been anything too serious. Clara had always been waiting for him at the end of her shift and had escorted him back to her home, where she had insisted on getting her fill of glowing, sparking Mage cock before dinner.

The town was quickly left behind as he walked past a mailbox with the name Groom on it on his right, then the town's cemetery on his left a short distance later. He noticed that the road was unnaturally flat and smooth and that up ahead there appeared to be a horse-drawn wagon of some sort. He had adopted his usual pace that maximized speed while minimizing energy expenditure, and soon overtook the conveyance. It looked like a standard wagon, except that the rear wheels had been replaced by a metal cylinder three feet in diameter with a hole through it for the axle.

"Good morning, sir," Harold addressed the driver, who was a middle-aged man wearing faded clothes and a wide-brimmed hat. "You must be the local road maintenance crew." He continued forward to check out the brown and white draft horse that seemed to be a bit past her prime, but still able to pull a load like this.

"Indeed, I am, sir," he replied with a jovial voice. "It's a great morning to be out. The soil is in just the right state to be flattened. Please pardon me if I don't stop while we chat, as I've got a lot of roads to cover today." Harold nodded as he watched the horse's gait carefully for signs of irregularities.

"I understand. I'm Harold Moser, the new Healer from the Order of St. Thrimble. I'm also a veterinarian, so if you should ever be in need of some assistance with this sweet lady, I'll be around every six weeks for a few days." He had loaded his pockets with apples he'd found under a tree and offered one to the horse, who had clearly smelled them and was bumping his leg with her head.

"I'm Jeb Morley, and the sweet lady here is Gretchen. She seems to have taken a shine to you," he added as the horse happily munched the apple while the Mage scratched behind her ears.

"I've always been this way. It makes the job a lot easier. I have to get going. Next stop is Magwitch."

"It's a nice place. You'll like it there. They even have a Healer, name of Leila Parsons. She knows her business." Harold nodded his thanks and picked up his pace, soon leaving them behind. His information package had mentioned Leila, of course. She is 36, seven years younger than him, and had taken over the position from her grandmother Marcie Parsons, who was the first Healer that the town had been able lucky enough to attract, when she retired ten years ago. 'Both of these ladies are highly regarded by the citizens of Magwitch and the surrounding area,' Lakash Moto, his boss, had written. 'I have heard nothing but good things about them.' Since leaving Carcosa, Harold hadn't encountered any other Healers at all in his travels aside from Lakash, and was looking forward to meeting them, but doing that required that he get there. According to the map and the info package, Magwitch was only about a ten-hour walk from Provis, which wasn't much of a hardship for him, especially on a lovely day like this.

"I hope that they celebrate the Equinox in Magwitch," he said to himself as he marched along the road, enjoying the sight of tall asters with purple and gold flowers, other asters with white or purple-white flowers, and goldenrod bustling with busy insects. The gently rolling landscape was mostly farms growing corn, wheat, various root vegetables, and even hemp, some for smoking, some for rope or fabric. Occasional creeks and small streams were afforded space on either bank and shady trees and bushes grew along them, providing shelter for various critters and roots with which to reduce erosion. Every so often he would pass by a driveway leading to a farmhouse, each of which was a different size and style.

A tall hedge masked the approach to one driveway on his right, so he couldn't see the source of a sound of a horse clopping down the driveway, along with the creak of a wagon. Then the sound stopped.

"Damn it, don't stop here! We'll get stuck!" a man's voice shouted. "Move, you damned horse!" The horse whinnied, sounding fearful, and scrabbled in what was probably mud. By this time, Harold was jogging toward the mouth of the driveway, the four canteens attached to his pack thumping and bumping. "Why the fuck can I never find the time to put in proper drainage tiles here?" he demanded, just as the Healer rounded the corner. Startled by his sudden appearance, the horse reared, but slipped in the large area of mud in the mouth of the driveway. Only his quick action in grabbing the animal's flailing left front foot and pulling down hard prevented it from taking a nasty fall and possibly flipping over the wagon.

"Who the hell are you?" shouted the other person, a teenaged man by the look of him. Harold was murmuring soothing noises at the horse and stroking its muzzle, quickly calming it down.

"I am Healer Harold Moser, the new guy in the Order of St. Thrimble," he replied, offering the horse an apple from a pocket, which it munched greedily. "Sorry for scaring your horse. I didn't realize that you were so close."

"She probably heard you coming and got spooked," the other man, who was older and most likely the other man's father, replied irritably. "Now we're stuck in this muck. It's always been prone to getting this way after rain because it's at the bottom of the slope, but I've always been too busy to put in some sort of drains."

"It's not as easy a job as you might think. I knew a couple of Engineer Mages back in the Army, and they and their colleagues had to do that for our camp near the Capital. It was a hell of a lot of work. But I can help you out of this. Banish Water will turn the mud into dust and you'll be able to get out." The two men in the cart looked at each other.

"We've never heard of the Order of St. Thrimble or even seen any Magic," said the young man. They watched with interest and felt something shifting around them as Harold summoned his Magic, made some motions with his arms, hands, and fingers while saying some words in an unfamiliar language. With a final word and a sharp downward gesture, there was a flash of forest green and turquoise light on the ground and a large spray of water and some mud blasted out from under the horse and cart towards their right. The horse was unperturbed, quietly munching on her apple.

"I put a mild Daze spell on the horse to keep her calm," he added for their benefit. "I didn't want her to freak out on us again." The other two nodded, greatly impressed, as the neatly trimmed hedges dripped. With a wave, the spell on the horse was released, and she looked around, seemingly in wonder, then moved forward onto the road through the dust that shifted under her hooves and the cart's wooden-spoked wheels. Harold paused to Clean the horse, who'd gotten mud all over her lower half, and then himself, nearly losing his hat in the process.

"Are you going to Magwitch?" the older man asked, surprised again. "If you are, it's the least we can do to give you a lift, if you don't mind sitting in the back. We aren't going all the way into town until the evening, but we can save you some walking." Harold grinned back.

"I was hoping for a lift. Thank you. I want to get there before the Equinox party, if they have one."

"Oh, they do," the younger man said as the Healer tossed his pack into the back of the cart, then scrambled in and found a seat on the bundles of seven-foot hemp stalks. "We'll be going there after our trip to the Wells farm. I'm Chris Cole."

"I'm Jack Cole. Nala is the horse." He shook hands with both of them, sat down in the cargo area, and after a cluck of the tongue and a flick of the reins, Nala got them moving.

"So, what can you tell me about the marvelous metropolis of Magwitch?"

-=-=-=-=-=

"Gran, why are you up so early?" Leila Parsons asked her grandmother. Marcie Parsons was sitting at the little glass-topped metal table on the back lawn, all bundled up in a warm hat, coat, boots, and a wool blanket wrapped around her legs to combat the chill of the crisp early morning of the Equinox.

"I'll tell you once you've had your pee," she replied. Despite her advanced age and the early hour, her voice was strong. After Leila had returned from the necessary morning trip to the privy, dressed in her warm flannel nightgown, shoes, wool socks and coat, she stood next to her grandmother and looked around. The sky was brightening in the east and the stars were fading. It was very quiet, as the people in the town were only just beginning to wake up and get ready for the day. "I've always loved this time of the day, when the world is waking up and the day is fresh and new."

"Me too, Gran. It's so peaceful." She paused and they looked at each other.

"I'm here because I woke up from a dream a while ago and couldn't get back to sleep." She moved to get up and Leila helped her divest herself of the blanket, then helped her to stand. "I dreamed that the Goddess and I were out here drinking tea and talking about my life, all the things that I've seen and done over the years that I've been here. At the end, when we got up, she said that today would be my Last Day." Leila gasped in surprise as they reached the kitchen door.

"Why on earth would you have a dream like that?" The kitchen was already warming up because Leila had started the fire in the wood stove before she'd gone outside. She cast a Mage Light on the ceiling to illuminate the room as they undressed and hung up their coats, and she folded the blanket, went down the hall a few steps to the spare bedroom on the right, and dropped it on the unused bed.

"The Goddess said that it was a courtesy call, because of all the good things I've done and all the help that I've given her all the years. She will really miss me, but Alan, Garth, and Barbara will be there to welcome me as I cross over." Alan had been her husband, who had passed away two years ago from heart failure. Barbara had been her daughter and Garth her son-in-law, who had been Leila's parents and had been killed in a thunderstorm when a tree had been blown over and fallen on their cart. The deaths had weighed heavily on their spirits, and Marcie had not been the same since they'd buried Alan. Life moves on, but the memories do not. Tears were trickling down her face and Leila had to grab a tissue from a box on the kitchen table for her Gran and for herself. Tears always came easily, even now.

"That was really kind of her to let you know," Leila said sadly, wiping her eyes and blowing her nose. "So, I suppose that we owe it to you to give you the best Last Day that you can have."

"That seems logical," Marcie grinned crookedly. "Let's start with breakfast." The usual pedestrian, but filling, oatmeal with raisins was set aside in favour of bacon, eggs, and toast with lots of marmalade. After breakfast, Marcie took the honour of Cleaning the dishes, making the usual loud rattle and clatter, and they were then put away. "According to Lakash's letter, the new guy he hired should be showing up sometime today," she said as they moved to their respective bedrooms to get dressed. "Did you know Harold Moser when you were in school?"

"We never really crossed paths because he's seven years older than me, but we all definitely knew of him," Leila replied through their open doors as they got into their clothes for the day. "He's the one who tweaked the Ward spell to make it absorb energy, and he also put together the Third Discipline of Quarterstaff Martial Arts."

"The one whose moves you practice so diligently? The one whose School you helped to found with your friends Frank and Sally?" Marcie inquired, a smirk audible in her voice.

"Yes, that one," Leila replied, avoiding her Gran's eyes. They were in the hallway now. "You should have seen him fight in the Quarterstaff Championship. He beat the pants off everyone else. They cried foul, but he had followed all of the rules and was technically correct."

"There's something about a man holding something long in his hands that gets the juices flowing, isn't there?" Leila felt herself blushing and was unable to stop it. Marcie's snickers didn't help.

"All you have to do to get laid is to give a very willing old man control of a Mage Light spell until he's horny enough to get it up and stuff it in you. I have to wait for the St. Thrimble Healers or the occasional out-of-towner to give me what I need, as you well know."

Like Oliver Holmes yesterday, Marcie remembered, smiling inwardly. He was 85, five years her junior, and had been having erectile difficulties for a few years. Back in June, he and his wife Janet had worked out an agreement with her whereby Marcie would get the first fuck from his cock, which would be fast, then he would walk home holding the Mage Light in a discreet black bag and Janet would get its benefit for as long as he could maintain it. She had discovered why Janet had been fine with the terms as she'd watched the flabby, wrinkled cock expand into a thick, eight-inch erection that had quickly been buried in her suddenly desperate pussy and had flooded it with several squirts of cum after she'd been unable to stop herself from clamping down hard on it. Janet had told her later that she and her widowed neighbour Gwen had been waiting for him and had exhausted themselves on his cock until he'd finally come again, deep inside her, and all three of them had been totally ruined for the rest of the day and well into the next. Since then, he'd been a regular visitor.

"We won't mention your Joy Buzzer," she continued, hastily pulling her mind back to the present.

"Or yours," Leila retorted, helping Marcie to put on her light fall jacket, since it was still chilly. Gran had obviously been remembering something hot, judging by what she was feeling from her.

"I will see you later, dear," her Gran said, giving her a light kiss on her left cheek. "I have people to thank and say goodbye to. You have appointments to keep and a new cock for your pussy coming." Leila blushed again while giving her Gran her best basilisk stare, which had no effect, as usual. "Don't be nervous about meeting him after all these years."

"I'm not nervous!" she lied, and she knew her Gran knew because Mages, especially those who were close to each other, could feel the emotions of other Mages. It's one of the reasons why sex with another Mage always felt so good. Leila watched Gran walk down the paved path to the street and turn right towards Main St., which wasn't far, since her house was on the corner. Leila walked the few steps down the hallway and turned left into the room that served as her office and patient exam room.

The one-storey, unassuming house was well over a century old and had been used since its construction for the residence of a doctor or, more lately, the Town's Healer. There are two other doctors in Magwitch, but they work at the hospital and live in fancier places west of Main St. that were nearby, but this house was where Leila had grown up and she couldn't imagine living anywhere else. The room's centerpiece was the padded examination table, upholstered with easy-to-clean dark brown leather. The end that folded down had a pair of stirrups for gynecological exams and the end that folded up had a small pillow built into the upholstery. To her right, against the wall, was a desk made from cherry wood that dated from the construction of the house and had been so well made that it functioned perfectly even now. Its companion four-drawer filing cabinet, between it and the hallway wall, held all of her records; the records of her Gran and the doctors who preceded her were stored in an archive in the hospital.