'Til Kingdom Comes - The Banished Prince Vol 2: Here Comes The Witches

Touring Around And Being Welcomed

There were now sprouts of plants everywhere and 4 small tenderlings of banyan tree were at four corners of the proposed duck pond.

"Fuuh... it is pretty hard work on our mental state of mind. We get exhausted just by conjuring the forces of nature this way. Who would have believed that we are indeed White Witches, eh?"

Penelope was just sitting down at the edge of the duck pond where the barricades that were set up by Ben and Frank much earlier before had been removed. As for Penelope, this kind of plants, besides vines, would take its time to grow. While waiting for autumn and winter to pass, these trees would be fully grown up by then.

Now, there's no need to be barricaded as no one would be able to sink or drown in these pond since there was no more quicksand. Now it is up to nature as well as eggs and small fry that had attached itself to these water birds when they flock in this duck pond.

"Alright, we are done now... Could we be excused to have a power nap about an hour at our new house? Hehe. This hard work really makes us sleepy, coupled with lots of great food that we had been consuming since we came here. Haha. Thank you so much for putting your trust and belief in us, Sirs and Ma'ams."

Penelope bowed after saying her piece and everyone walked down back to the west gate. The guards on the watchtower of the domain saw what was happening at the excavated area and they were surprised.

Not only did His Majesty had made a wise choice, but these Priests and Priestesses were indeed resourceful to the community.

=*=

"We did a pretty good job on our first day here, eh? The latrine pits, the radiating heat within that incinerates everything and lastly the duck Ponds. I mean, even without His Majesty's orders and wishes, the Ministers here does know what is good for the community."

"If other Kings, I don't think he would care about all these except coins in his pouches and food in his belly. He's kind of cute, don't you think?"

"But too bad he's married. Haha." Farah poked fun at Imelda because she was the only one that was being 'kidn*pped' by Crystal and brought forward to meet His Majesty.

"So what did you do when you were summoned? You never get to finish your ale and I'm the one who drank up yours... Nyeehh... Hahaha." Farah pulled a silly face at Imelda as she rolled about on the woven mat of their new home.

"Well, I made another chilled ale for His Majesty and then I accidentally invented something new with the leftover strawberry milk that we had earlier."

"It turned solid and Her Majesty was the one who hoards the whole jug. Hahaha. She so cute, you know. Even she may be the Queen but she's all kidding around and playful like us too. Hahaha."

Imelda recalled the time when Heather was clutching the jug close to her chest and at the same time making faces at His Majesty, her husband and all. Imelda deduced that His and Her Majesty were of the same group age or even a year or two older.

Michael and Hendry who were not involved with the activities earlier came over to Farah and Imelda and asked them if they would like to walk around the town.

It would be great to leave Penelope, Earl and Walter to rest a while but after their mental exhaustion. Besides, Andy was also with them and the 6 of them slowly walked around the residential lots to exchange pleasantries with everyone around.

Work around Gracehaven ended early every day since everyone was deployed to perform tasks together. Most of the task ended earlier by midday and citizens were able to do their own things while the remaining worked till 5 o'clock in the evening.

No one mattered how long they worked and how little they contributed to the community for as long as they do it on their own free will, no one objects and no one intervenes in other people's business.

The entourage that made up of the Ministers had gotten back to their roles and other positions earlier, leaving the others to freely roam the town. It was rather large and was very well organised.

Unlike other towns, there would not be single livestock or even crops within the vicinity and everything would be placed outside town as not to tarnish the town's image.

But Gracehaven is different.

Everything is well guarded within the town itself. When the 6 of them walked around the place, they noticed the weird beehive type of lantern hanging on the main street and Farah asked a citizen who had just finished picking up her laundry. "Good evening, big sister. What is this white beehive thing here for?"

"Oh, it's a lantern, my little sister. This is being used to light up the streets here from 9 o'clock at night till early morning at 5 o'clock."

"There are quite a number of them and they are lighted individually. The patrol guards are the ones who light these up as they go about patrolling the grounds."

"Here, when everyone is fast asleep, the guards, patrolmen and bakers work round the clock to provide food for us as well as supply food to other towns. Oh, by the way, you had just arrived here, right?"

"Come... Here's a silver coin. Go and make good use of it. I am sure you have not been employed yet since you had just arrived and may have no money to spend. Go on, take it, little sister." The lady, who was a widow, was one of the stricken family that came in about 3 months back or so.

She and her son had quite a considerable sum collected over the few months and giving away a single coin to someone who needs it more than them was nothing.

"Eh, big sister...there's no need at all. We were promised 5 silvers a month to be employed here and there's food and lodging provided. It's alright big sister, I have a silver coin too."

Farah was trying to push away the lady's hand to reject the handout. "A silver coin and this lady is giving it away... How generous could citizens of Gracehaven be?" Michael thought to himself as he watched the scene unfold before him.

The lady was insistent and Farah had to somehow accept the coin from her. "You all are Witches and Sorcerers, right? Dressed up in this way and finally gotten accepted within this community here?" the lady inquired as she fluffed her laundry.

"Errm... We are known as Priests and Priestesses now. We help others to make one's life much better. We had just assisted one of the ministers to fix the latrine pits and the proposed duck pond."

"I guess those latrine pits were much better now. It was designed by Earl, a municipal Hall worker who digs these latrine pits for a living."

The lady smiled and nodded as she acknowledged the piece of news. "Don't worry, little sister. I am an Irish Traveller and I lost my husband and only daughter sometime back before coming here. You have made a wise choice of being here and also being of service to the community. Gracehaven truly welcomes you."

The lady excused herself as she folded her fluffed laundry and then places it back in her home. Her son, a 6-year-old was busy sweeping the floor of the house after he had rolled back the woven mat. He smiled and waved at the group of Priests and Priestesses.

"Do you need me to show you around? At least with a local with you, no one would think otherwise. Besides, it's going to be time for the ladies to prepare dinner soon. Do you know how to cook?" the lady suggested as she held Farah's hands and led the girls out.

"Don't mind us though, we are heading to the herbal Garden to take a look on what's new and what's missing," Hendry called out to Farah and Imelda as they were led to the courtyard where old Kayla was there and directing the ladies on what to prepare for dinner.

Hendry passed by the domain with Michael and Andy and was quietly observed by both Heather and I.  "Say, where do you think those guys were going? Besides everyone had left the stations and they are heading to — herbs and vegetable gardens...!" I whispered hoarsely to Heather, not having any doubts about these Priests but just a tinge of curiosity, that's all.

"Wow...such a big vegetable farm and the vegetables here are so healthy...! Look at that pumpkin size...! That should be about 18 to 20 pounds at least...! And look how lush those green are... Wow... No wonder the pottage tastes great, all the fresh vegetables come from here." Andy remarked as he saw the lush leafy greens and other vegetables.

The vegetable farms had more than 90 rows of planting beds and the plants were well taken care of. "Penelope would love this place, it's her Haven to be close to plants. Haha. She could even make them grow more crops for Gracehaven's consumption."

Andy pointed out as he clasped his hands. At the meantime, Hendry detected a lot of herbs that he had never seen before in the herbal garden. Some were shrubs, some were single stalked plants and some were just sprouts on the ground like a weed.

A lady was tending to the herb garden when she saw the group approaching. When Hendry entered the herb garden, as usual, he saw his world as grey. The lady came up to him and asked if he needs any help.

By that time he had touched one the plants, information came in and filled up his thoughts as he gained new knowledge on that unknown plant in his database.

"Hello there, I'm the one who tends to this herb garden. I'm a hunter-gatherer from the Irish Travellers and how may I help you, mister?" the lady asked as she wiped her hands in front of her apron that was over her dress.

"Ah, it's alright. My name is Hendry and I am a herbalist. I gather new knowledge about plants and herbs when I touch them and this plant is....." and he goes on and on about the herbs uses for medication and tincture its name and all kinds of other information.

The lady was astonished at the extensive knowledge of Hendry as he narrated about some of the usefulness of the plant. "Wait a minute. Isn't these the people some of them were saying that were Witches and Sorcerers?"

"But how could they be Witches and Sorcerers if they knew so much about the benefits of herbs and so on? These people must be spreading rumours about these Witches and Sorcerers. I don't think he's such a bad person after all..."

The lady tending to the herb plants were remarkably taken in by Hendry and they walked along towards the courtyard as they chatted more about herbs and spices even. This left Michael and Andy who were, well, walking aimlessly and decided to go ahead and see what they could do in the courtyard.

As the ladies went about to get the menu for the day, Old Kayla saw the man and a lad walking around and called for them. "Dearie, old Kayla needs some wood for the fireplace and stoves, could you kindly get two handcarts full?"

"The handcarts are at the woodcutter's area and you can find the firewood there as well. Pick the driest and thickest you could find. Thank you so much for helping this poor lady."

The duo nodded and went straight across to get the two handcarts and then load one handcart with thick firewood while the other one with sticks as thick as a forefinger. They looked at the stacks of firewood as high as 8 feet tall and wondered how many trees were felled to make up for this amount of firewood pile...!

They wheeled the handcart and saw that Hendry had already joined both Imelda, Wendy and Farah at the courtyard and was busy helping the ladies at the cooking area to prepare food for dinner.

It was quite a noisy affair and the formerly known Witches and Sorcerers felt that they were very much welcomed into the society as the community was very friendly with them and worked together to achieve a common goal — preparing dinner.