“What?”
“Maybe it was because she did not want to invade Kupari—Lars was making those plans even before I was banished! Or maybe it was that she was impatient to lead. Or maybe, just maybe, she was born with the spirit of a snake instead of that of a warrior. Perhaps she simply could not help herself.”
Something unsteady has awakened in my chest. “Are you saying . . . Thyra was somehow involved in the assassination plot?”
“She was going to poison her father, Ansa. She wanted him dead before the support around me could spread beyond the inner circle. She wanted him dead before he could change his mind about the succession.”
I shake my head. “Thyra would never scheme her way to power like a coward. That’s not what happened.”
“I was returning from hunting when I observed Thyra gathering the poison berries and leaves in the glen to the west of camp. You will recall Hilma was skilled in the art of crafting brews and poultices, and I knew she’d taught her sister a thing or two. Those berries—they have only one purpose,” Jaspar says. “But I tried to tell myself otherwise.” He frowns. “But then word came that very evening that Lars’s celebration goblet was missing. I realized Thyra was planning to do something terrible, and I brought those fears to my father immediately.”
Nisse grimaces. “It was agony deciding what to do. I knew of my brother’s heart for his daughter. I love her too! But her treachery . . .” He shakes his head. “She is more skilled at it than I could ever have imagined. Knowing that would have killed Lars even if the poison hadn’t—we all knew of his contempt for politics and scheming, and his own precious daughter had embraced it.”
“But the poison—and Lars’s celebration goblet—were found in your shelter.”
Nisse nods. “And there is only one way they could have gotten there. Thyra must have realized we knew of her scheming—and she decided to frame me.”
“Who do you think sent that slave to find the damning evidence?” Jaspar asks, his tone bitter. “It was well hidden—we had no idea it was there! But that slave somehow accidentally stumbled upon it while fetching a forgotten cloak?” He scoffs. “She laid her trap well.”
Nisse runs his hands over his face. “My own hesitation did me in. Perhaps I should have taken my information straight to Lars, but the consequences . . .”
“This is a lie.” I fold my ruined arms over my stomach.
“If I had poisoned my brother, succession still would have passed to Thyra.” Nisse’s voice has hardened like the ground in winter. There is no give there now, no softness. “With most of the warriors supporting her as his daughter. It would have been foolishness for me to try to assassinate him, even if I had wanted to. And think what you will of me—but I’m not addled.”
“If all you say is true, why didn’t you tell Lars everything when the poison was found in your tent?”
“She ran to him,” he says, clenching his teeth. “She took the slave, and the evidence, and she wove a web around him so tight that he couldn’t see any other possibilities. He ate the lies from her palm.”
“If the truth is so important to you, I would have thought you’d share it.”
“I wanted to,” says Jaspar, casting a frustrated look at his father. “I begged you to.”
“And there you reveal your youth, which protects you from all the worries an old man must carry,” Nisse says, suddenly weary. He trudges over to the table and settles his large body upon one of the benches. His palm strokes over the blue, flaking paint of the lake across the tabletop. “Lars’s heart could not have allowed him to believe that Thyra craved his death. If I had made a counter-accusation, he would have been forced to choose between us, and it would have ignited a war. I had enough warriors behind me to put up a fight, and fight they would have. To the death. My own niece had made me look like a cowardly schemer, and I faced a terrible choice. What was I to do? Let my warriors die for me just to defend my honor? Let them kill hundreds of Lars’s warriors in the process? That would have been a tragedy. Lars saw it as well. It’s why he didn’t have me executed, and why he let them leave with me.”