Read Online The Scorpion God: Three Short Novels by William Golding - Free Book Online Page A

gestures round his own body. The Liar had wrapped his arms round himself and was hooting like a demented owl. “—we will cut off your public parts——”
    The Prince leapt to his feet.
    “Oh yes, yes!”
    The Liar stopped hooting and began to speak, more and more violently.
    “A patch of land no bigger than a farm—a handful of apes left high and dry by the tide of men—too ignorant, too complacent, too dimwitted to believe the world is more than ten miles of river——”
    “You’ll drown us all!”
    “Drown then, if you haven’t the wit to climb the cliffs away from it——”
    “We implore you!”
    “Myself, trapped, condemned, the only sensible man in this, this——”
    He flung himself forward and grabbed Pretty Flower by the foot.
    “Don’t you understand? Your brother is—what is he—ten? You have the power—the power, the power, the power! Do you want to marry him? That miserable shrimp of a boy——”
    “Unhand me!”
    “He’d sooner be a girl. You have the soldiers—you, one of a dozen petty chieftains that line this river—you have the beginnings of an army——”
    Pretty Flower was gasping for breath. Her hands were up by her face. She stared at him as if his eyes were the only place to look. The Liar spoke again.
    “Do you want to marry him?”
    Her mouth opened and shut. Her hands on the arms of the chair drew back. Her knuckles whitened. She took her eyes from his face, glanced at the smiling Prince, at the bowl on the pedestal.
    “You have the beginnings of an army. What could you not do?”
    The Head Man spoke.
    “We know what to do.”
    But as if he had found some hope, some security in Pretty Flower, or even some power over her, the Liar stood before her and spoke like a God.
    “The man who holds the high seat in this country is the man who has you, strange and beautiful woman, for his bed. He could burn up the banks of this river from one end to the other, until all men living by it were bowing to your beauty.”
    “Who on earth ,’’ said the Head Man, “would want to do a thing like that? I said you are mad!”
    “I am not mad. There is no deceit and no wickedness in me.”
    Pretty Flower cried out.
    “No wickedness? After what you said about strange women?”
    The Liar flung his arms wide.
    “Don’t you see? You’ve none of you seen! In this land of halfwits there is only one man with access to all women—Great House, the God!”
    Pretty Flower was standing up, her hands over her cheeks. But the Liar had turned and was staring at the Head Man in hatred and contempt.
    “Not even you—a man thought wise—all this nonsense of my not having that woman, that girl, that beautiful—and her wanting me——”
    He stabbed out a finger in the Head Man’s face.
    “ Supposing I were Great House? ”
    Under his dark skin, the Head Man’s blood ebbed away then came rushing back. He took three steps away from the Liar.
    “Soldiers—kill him!”
    The soldiers moved forward behind their spears. The dignity dropped from the Liar like a fallen cloak. As if fear and hate had possessed him like a God, he did instant and impossible things. His body took charge of his face. He swerved sideways and forward, turned. The soldiers passed him and even before they had stopped this movement, one was tripped and falling and his spear had whipped into the Liar’s hands. Nor could eye follow the snake-tongue of the point as it snicked in and out of the soldier’s neck. The other soldier turned but only in time to meet the point. He flapped at his chest and fell in a disjointed way. He had not reached the floor before the Liar had faced round to the Head Man, who shouted at the top of his voice.
    “Bowmen!”
    The Liar’s spear made magic passes round the Head Man who did nothing. Talking, the Liar sprinted across the terrace and leapt to the top of the parapet. He turned back, just as the bowmen came running with their unstrung bows. He threw the spear, and a bowman fell, his