something against the laws of nature since all sex and marriage must be between blood relatives. Pretty Flower reveals that she had actually been having sex with the Liar, which Head Man did not know and which shakes him. The Prince arrives in search of rope for his escape plan, but Head Man understands what he is trying to achieve and has the Liar summoned, intending to persuade or force him to join Great House, so he can be appeased. The Liar tries to persuade Pretty Flower to take him as a husband instead, as all women would be permitted to him if he were Great House and their love would no longer be forbidden. He also claims to be able to make the river recede if given the chance. The Prince is delighted by the idea and Pretty Flower seems torn. Head Man orders two soldiers to kill him but the Liar is able to overpower them and escape across floodwaters, killing Head Man in the process. In his dying words, Head Man says that the Liar "stings like a scorpion" and has a "death wish". The last words of the story are Pretty Flower's: "All the same—we'd better go and talk to Him". The significance of the new capitalisation is left unstated. "Clonk Clonk" "Clonk Clonk" was written specifically for The Scorpion God. At one point the plan had been for "The Scorpion God" and "Envoy Extraordinary" to be rounded out with two new short stories and later Monteith suggested using two much shorter stories of Golding's that had been previously published: "Miss Pulkinhorn" (Encounter, vol 15, August 1960, pp. 27–32) and "The Anglo Saxon" (Queen, 22 December 1959, pp. 12–14 and in the collection Winter's Tales 16, 1970, edited by Alan Duart Maclean). Golding felt that they were too different – "written with the right hand while SCORPION and ENVOY were written with the left, if you see what I mean" – and wrote "Clonk Clonk" instead. Kevin McCarron describes "Clonk Clonk" as "a comic tale, and probably the most optimistic piece of fiction that Golding has ever published". "Envoy Extraordinary" While "The Scorpion God" and "Clonk Clonk" were published for the first time in The Scorpion God, "Envoy Extraordinary" had appeared before in 1956 as one third of the collection , Never, published by Eyre & Spottiswoode, alongside "Consider Her Ways" by John Wyndham and "Boy