A still worse
affront to them, however, was the favour with which we were regarded,
and the trust that was reposed in us. All these things tended
to make us excessively obnoxious to the great sacerdotal clan,
the most powerful because the most united faction in the kingdom.
Another source of imminent danger to us was the rising envy of
some of the great lords headed by Nasta, whose antagonism to
us had at best been but thinly veiled, and which now threatened
to break out into open flame. Nasta had for some years been
a candidate for Nyleptha's hand in marriage, and when we appeared
on the scene I fancy, from all I could gather, that though there
were still many obstacles in his path, success was by no means
out of his reach. But now all this had changed; the coy Nyleptha
smiled no more in his direction, and he was not slow to guess
the cause. Infuriated and alarmed, he turned his attention to
Sorais, only to find that he might as well try to woo a mountain
side. With a bitter jest or two about his fickleness, that door
was closed on him for ever. So Nasta bethought himself of the
thirty thousand wild swordsmen who would pour down at his bidding
through the northern mountain passes, and no doubt vowed to adorn
the gates of Milosis with our heads.
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