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enthusiastic acceptance. I wasn’t a very touchy person.
    “Bah! Those pigs! I am so glad my McKay was near! Are you hungry? But you would like a nice bath first, am I right?”
    “Very right,” I admitted. I looked distastefully down at my clothes. I probably smelled.
    “I will get hot water up. Right away. McKay will stay with you till I get back.” And she bustled out the door.
    “Wow!” I said. “McKay?”
    “Oh, she’s something,” said Johnny, settling into one of the chairs. “Been with that woman twenty years now, and she has yet to call me Johnny. Doesn’t think it’s proper to use my first name. Puts me in mind of those Victorian ladies always called their husbands ‘Mister’.”
    “She’s lovely.”
    “And you’ll love her. But I warn you, she’ll try to mother you to death. We got two boys, she always wanted a daughter.”
    I sat down in one of the other chairs. “You side-stepped that very nicely,” I said.
    “What?”
    “That man. Who is he? And if he’s important, why did Dalph ignore him for me?”
    Johnny sighed. “Well, I said you noticed little things. That would be Baka of Canor. Guess you might have noticed, Truscans don’t have last names as such. The nobility, I guess you’d call ’em, use their place for identification. Baka’s the current head of the House of Canor. That bunch had a taste of the throne a long time ago, never got over the flavor.”
    “But you said Dalph’s line’s held the throne for five hundred years, didn’t you? They remember the taste from that long ago?”
    “Good memory, darlin’,” Johnny said approvingly. “But I also told you they earn it every damn day. Actually, they’ve held it longer than that. Five hundred years ago, they just got interrupted for a few years. Guess by who?”
    “House of Canor?”
    “Give the girl an A. I hear Kiera coming back with your bathtub so I’m about to get booted out. But Baka, he’d love to interrupt the line again. Very subtle about it, very careful, no excuse to stretch his neck for him. Dalph’s father would have done it anyway on general principal, just to make sure he’s not a problem later, but not Dalph. Sometimes I think I Americanized that boy too much. I repeat, you—”
    “Ain’t in Kansas anymore,” I finished for him. “You mean hang him?”
    “Damn straight. Can’t prove it, but I think he’d do just about anything to sit on that throne. Even work for the Prians. Fool doesn’t stop to consider the Prians won’t need him if he hands them Trusca. Thinks he’d be their honored advisor. He’s gonna bite Dalph in the butt one day, and that’ll be my fault, stories of the American justice system and all.”
    His vehemence shocked me. Johnny was so laid-back, so cool and collected. And had he really had that much influence on Dalph, who had broken Ken Hanslett’s neck and punched my lights out without hesitation? Necessary actions, which I now understood. I didn’t doubt he’d hesitate to take Baka of Canor down either, not if he thought him an immediate threat. I also didn’t have any doubt Johnny wanted the man dead, though. He’d apparently been Truscanized just as much as Dalph had been Americanized. I decided they were a good balance for one another.
    “That was a not so subtle put-down, by the way, Dalph’s not speaking to him right off,” Johnny explained. “Dalph lets him know who’s boss. You try and avoid him. Don’t get near him without me or Kiera.”
    That was a direct order from the head Troubleshooter of Trusca, not a suggestion, and I knew it.
    “Yes, Mr. Connecticut Yankee,” I said. We were interrupted by Kiera and two young men bearing a large wooden tub between them, which Kiera instructed them to place in front of the fireplace. Clouds of steam rose from the surface.
    “Oh Lord, that looks like Heaven!” I exclaimed.
    Johnny laughed and rose to his feet. “And that’s my cue to leave,” he said. “Kiera, you gon’ take care of some