The Scorpion God: Three Short Novels Read Free

women in the crowd cried out how sweet and pretty he was, the smile became one of genuine pleasure. He paused by the dais, squinted up at Pretty Flower’s face before its backing of fans, then lowered his hand to his knee in the appropriate gesture. His nurses helped him on to the dais and he stood there, blinking. Pretty Flower leaned, undulating. Her smile became one of love and she touched his cheek in an exquisitely feminine gesture with the back of her hand. She murmured down to him.
    “You’ve been crying, you little runt.”
    The Prince examined his feet.
    The noise of the crowd sharpened. The Prince glanced up and Pretty Flower took a step towards the edge of the dais, pulling him with her. From behind them, palm fronds were thrust into their hands. They looked where the crowd was looking, along the path.
    Upriver, and just within sight, was a kind of foot of stone, sticking out of the cliff. There was a long, low building on this foot and a tiny figure moving by one end of it. Then a second figure appeared beside the first. They were difficult to see; and their movements were complicated by a wild vibration from the sunheat. They were manikins who changed shape with it or even disappeared in it for a moment. All of a sudden, the crowd on either side of the lane became thickets, hedges, groves of palm fronds moved by a perpetual wind. The shawms brayed.
    “Life! Health! Strength!”
    The first of the two figures was not the God. He was the Liar, the bony young man, who ran not only straight along the path, but back along it now and then, circled the God, made desperate gestures, urging him on. He sweated but was tireless, voluble. Behind him came the God, Great House, Husband of the Royal Lady who had attained her eternal Now, Royal Bull, Falcon, Lord of the Upper Land. He was running slowly and sharpening his carving knife with a vigour that had a dawning desperation in it. He shone more wetly, and the kilt stuck to his thighs. He came out of the shuddering of the land and the sunblink. His white headgear had collapsed and he no longer jabbed at it with the crook or flail. Even his tail seemed affected and jerked about like the tail of a dying animal. He reeled sideways in his run. The Liar cried out.
    “Oh, no!”
    The crowd noises were as desperate as the runner’s face.
    “Great House! Great House!”
    Even the soldiers were affected, turning sideways and breaking rank as if to help. The Prince saw a remembered figure with a stick edge between them into the path. The blind man stood there, face up, stick out. The God came thudding down the lane and the crowd closed in behind him. The blind man was shouting at the top of his voice—shouting something completely inaudible. The God’s feet made an irregular pattern in the dust. His knees were bending, his mouth opened wider, his eyes stared blindly. He was falling. He struck the blind man’s stick, his arms dropped, his knees gave. Still staring, he fell on the stick, rolled and lay still. The headgear of white linen trundled away.
    In the sudden silence, the blind man was heard at last.
    “The Prince is going blind, God! Your son is going blind!”
    The Prince made a despairing gesture upward to Pretty Flower who was still smiling. He cried out his lesson.
    “He’s lying!”
    “The Prince is going blind!”
    Pretty Flower spoke clearly, calmly.
    “Of course he’s lying, dear child. Soldiers—take him to the Pit.”
    The soldiers were pushing, striking out, clearing a space round the fallen God and the Liar who crouched by him. The crowd was swirling round the blind man who became a toy, a shouting doll. Pretty Flower spoke again.
    “He tripped the God with his stick.”
    Other soldiers got at the blind man. They fought round the group on the ground; they got the Blind Man between them. Pretty Flower took the Prince by the wrist, shook it, and spoke sideways down to him.
    “Smile.”
    “He’s lying, I tell you!”
    “Little fool. Smile.”
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