The Tattooed Tribes by Bev Allen Page A

left, he might have made the terms and conditions
clearer, but Lucien was long gone.
    The exact
value of the trade beads in his pocket occupied much of his
thinking and he reckoned the best way to find out was to buy
something.
    And the best
thing to buy was beer!
    Finding a
place selling beer was easy; he watched until he saw a couple of
bouncers eject a drunk, and followed them back inside.
    He was
delighted to find there were no inconvenient questions asked about
age and even more thrilled to find his string of thirty beads would
buy him ten beers.
    Sensibly he
decided not to have too much, so he alternated pints with some
clear liquid served in shot glasses. It slipped down easily and
quickly, but he had a bit of trouble stopping it from slipping back
up just as easily and quickly.
    A couple of
pints and a couple of these reduced his bead count to fourteen, and
he decided to have another beer and then see what eleven would get
him.
    He gave
serious thought to the original idea of a woman, but although he
knew where and how to buy beer, he was unsure of the logistics of
buying sex, and rejected the plan.
    Another beer
and chaser reduced his cash to three and he had enough sense left
to realise more beer was not a good idea, but a very civil
gentleman offered to relieve him of the last beads in exchange for
a roll of weed.
    Somewhere at
the back of his head he decided Jon was better off not knowing
about this, so he hid it in his flint bag.
    Spent out and feeling the need to lie
down, he made his way in what he thought was the direction of the office.
     
     
    When he woke up
he wondered where he was. The wooden ceiling above him was
unfamiliar and the bed under him felt wrong. He tried to sit, but
the pain in his head rapidly changed his mind. Unfortunately the
need to be sick overcame the need to lay still.
    Where to vomit
was going to be difficult, but he was taken firmly by the scruff of
the neck and his face was thrust into a bucket.
    “ In there, you bloody brat!” Jon told him
and Lucien obliged, several times.
    “ Oh God,” he whimpered as he was pushed
back onto the pillow, “Oh dear Lord God.”
    “ Drink this!” Jon commanded.
    “ Please no.”
    “ Drink it! And swallow this.”
    Weakly
protesting Lucien drank the fizzy liquid and swallowed the pill. He
thought it would come straight back up, but it had some magical
quality that kept it down.
    Slowly the
nausea and the pain began to fade, but his head felt bruised inside
and his mouth had a warm velvet coating he wanted rid of
quickly.
    He also
hurt!
    This seemed
very unfair, his head ached and his guts heaved and surged, but he
knew why. This other pain seemed a cruel and unnecessary
addition.
    Careful
experimentation showed he had possibly been in a fight, but he did
not remember anyone hitting him.
    Thinking did
his head no good at all, so he muttered, “What hit me?”
    “ Nothing,” Jon replied. “You fell down a
flight of steps and landed at a local copper’s feet. He was going
to throw you in the drunk tank, but he found your papers and
brought you here.”
    “ I feel sick again.”
    Jon took him
by the hair and pushed his face back in the bucket. Lucien had in
fact changed his mind, but the smell in the bucket demanded action
and got it.
    “ Shower!” Jon snapped, when the worst was
over. “Now! And then we’re going to have a talk.”
    Twenty minutes
later Lucien sat at a table trying not to look at the breakfast
laid out before him. He was starving, but the thought of pancakes,
butter and syrup made him shudder and the small people in his head
trying to kick their way out through his eyeballs did not help.
    “ Eat,” Jon ordered, loading his
plate.
    “ I’d rather not,” Lucien
replied.
    “ Do as you’re told.”
    He might have
wanted to die, but this jolted him back into the land of the
living.
    “ I don’t like people telling me what do
to!” he growled.
    Jon stared at
him for a second and then he laughed. “So you’ve