That illuminated the god who flew in between her drapes.
Hermes whipped his caduceus forward. “Halt!” he commanded. The small bowl and plate which the young woman had dropped came to a midair stop. The liquid which had splashed from them returned. Hermes guided them gently to a table. She didn’t notice.
He smiled at her. “Rejoice,” he said in his
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best English. “Be not afeared. No harm shall befall you, mademoiselle, damme if ‘twill.”
She was good to look upon, tall, well-curved, golden-haired, blue-eyed, fresh-featured. He was glad to see that the brief modern modes he had observed on mortal females elsewhere had reached America. However, Yahweh’s nudity taboo (how full of crotchets the old fellow was) kept sufficient effect that he had been wise to will a tunic upon his own form.
“Who . .. what?” The girl backed from him till a wall blocked her. She breathed hard. This was, interesting to watch, but Hermes wanted to dispel the distress behind the bosom.
“I beg pardon for liberties taken,” he said, bowing. His helmet fluttered wings to tip itself. “Under the circumstances, d’ye see, mademoiselle, discretion appeared advisable. ‘Twould never do to compromise a lady, bless me, no. My intention is naught but to proffer assistance. Pray be of cheer.”
She straightened and met his gaze squarely. He liked that. Broadening his smile, he let her examine him inch by inch. He liked that too. The lasses always found him a winsome lad; the ancient Hellenes had portrayed him accurately, even, given certain moods, in the Hermae.
“Okay,” she said at last, slowly, shaken underneath but with returned poise. “What’s the gag, Mercury, and how did you do your stunt? A third-floor window and no fire escape beneath.”
“I am not precisely Mercurius, mademoiselle. You must know Olympian Hermes. You invoked
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the Lady, did you not?” He saluted Aphrodite’s eidolon.
She edged toward the hall door. “What do you mean?” Her tone pretended composure, but he understood that she believed she was humoring a madman till she could escape.
“You sent her the first honest prayer given an Olympian in, lo, these many centuries,” he explained, “albeit ‘twas I, the messenger, who heard and came, as is my function.”
The doorknob in her hand gave confidence. “Come off it, Charlie. Why should gods pay attention, if they exist? They sure haven’t answered a lot of people who’ve needed help a lot worse.”
She has sense, Hermes thought. / shall have to be frank. “Well, mademoiselle, peculiar circumstances do ensphere you, linkage to a mystery puissant and awful. That joined your religious probity in drawing me hither. Belike the gods have need of you.”
She half opened the door. “Go quietly,” she said. “Or I run out hollering for the police.”
“By your leave,” Hermes replied, “a demonstration.”
Suddenly he glowed, a nacreous radiance that filled the twilit room, a smell of incense and a twitter of pipes through its bleakness. Green boughs sprouted from a wooden table. Hermes rose toward the ceiling.
After a silent minute, the girl closed the door. “I’m not in some kind of dream,” she said wonderingly. “I can tick off too many details, I
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can think too well. Okay, god or Martian or whatever you are, come on down and let’s talk.”
He declined her offer of refreshment, though hunger gnawed in him. “My kind lacks not for mortal food.”
“What, then?” She sat in a chair opposite his, almost at ease now. The blinds drawn, ordinary electric bulbs lit, he might have been any visitor except for his costume .. . and yes, classic countenance, curly hair, supple body…. How brilliant those gray eyes were!
“Tell me first your own grief.” As he gained practice in contemporary speech, the music came back to his tones. “You begged the Lady to restore your lover to you. What has borne him off?”
She spread her hands. “I’m square,” she said bitterly.
Hermes cocked his head. “I’d call you anything but,” he laughed. Quicksilver fast, he turned sympathetic again. ” ‘Twas aYou found yourselves too unlike?”
“Uh-huh. We loved each other but we bugged each other.”