Rostam and Esfandiyar

At a Glance

• Central figures: Rostam, the aging pahlavan of Sistan and champion of Iran; Esfandiyar, the invulnerable Zoroastrian prince and son of Shah Goshtasp; and the Simurgh, the great bird of the Alborz mountains.
• Setting: Iran, in the reigns of the Kayanid kings; the road between the court at Balkh and Rostam’s stronghold in Sistan.
• The turn: Goshtasp commands Esfandiyar to bring Rostam back in chains - a task that forces two champions loyal to Iran into a duel neither wants.
• The outcome: Rostam, guided by the Simurgh, fashions a double-pointed arrow from tamarisk wood and drives it through Esfandiyar’s eyes - the single point of vulnerability on his body. Esfandiyar dies.
• The legacy: Rostam accepts guardianship of Esfandiyar’s son Bahman, raising the boy in Sistan. The killing marks Rostam with a sin he cannot wash away and begins the slow decline that ends in his own death.

Goshtasp wanted the throne and would not give it up. He had promised it to his son Esfandiyar - promised it plainly, before witnesses, more than once - and each time found a new errand to send the prince on instead. Esfandiyar had already passed through seven labors: wolves, lions, a blizzard, a sorceress, a great bird of darkness, a river in flood, and a div stronghold. He had come back from each one. He had spread the Zoroastrian faith at the point of his sword, as his father asked. Still Goshtasp sat on the throne.

Now Goshtasp found one more errand. Rostam, the old champion of Sistan, had grown lax in his obedience. He had not come to court. He had not sent tribute. The shah commanded Esfandiyar to ride to Sistan, bind Rostam in chains, and bring him back to Balkh. If Esfandiyar did this, the throne would be his at last.

The Invitation Refused

Esfandiyar rode south with a host of soldiers and his own sons beside him. He did not want this fight. He knew Rostam’s name. Every man in Iran knew Rostam’s name. When he reached the border of Sistan, he sent a messenger ahead with courteous words: come to my tent, drink wine, and then ride with me to Balkh. No chains, no dishonor. Just come.

Rostam received the message and sent back his own: he would feast Esfandiyar, he would give him gifts, he would ride to Balkh of his own will if the prince asked politely. But he would not go in chains. He was Rostam, son of Zal, son of Sam. No man had ever bound him.

Esfandiyar rode to the bank of the river where Rostam waited. They sat across from one another and drank wine and traded the names of their ancestors. Each man praised the other. Each man said he did not wish to fight. But Esfandiyar could not go back to his father without Rostam in bonds, and Rostam could not accept bonds. The words circled and circled. When evening fell, they parted without resolution, and both knew what morning would bring.

The First Day’s Combat

At dawn they met on the plain. Rostam wore his tiger-skin cuirass and carried his heavy mace. Esfandiyar came in full armor with his bow. They fought with lances first, and both lances shattered. They fought with swords, and both blades notched. They closed and wrestled, and neither could throw the other. Hours passed. Blood ran from Rostam’s arms, his chest, his face. He struck Esfandiyar again and again - clean hits, hard hits, the kind that had broken divs open - and the prince’s skin did not part. Not once. Esfandiyar had been bathed in sacred water by the prophet Zoroaster himself. His body was closed to every weapon.

By afternoon Rostam was staggering. He managed to break away and rode Rakhsh back to his own lines, bleeding from dozens of wounds. His arrows had bounced off Esfandiyar’s chest. His mace had left bruises but drawn no blood. He had never faced anything like it.

Zal and the Simurgh

Rostam went to his father. Zal, white-haired and ancient, saw the wounds and understood. He built a fire on the hilltop and burned three feathers of the Simurgh - the great bird who had raised him in the Alborz when he was an infant cast out for his white hair. The smoke rose. The sky darkened. The Simurgh descended.

She was enormous, her wings covering the hilltop like a canopy. She examined Rostam’s wounds and drew her beak across each one, and they closed. Then she spoke.

You cannot kill him with iron or steel. His body is sealed. But his eyes were open when the sacred water touched him. The eyes are mortal.

She told Rostam to cut a straight branch of tamarisk and fashion from it an arrow with two points. She told him to aim for the eyes. She told him that if he did this thing, he would carry the sin of it for the rest of his life and beyond, because Esfandiyar was a holy prince and the killing would blacken Rostam’s name. But if he did not do it, Esfandiyar would kill him, and Iran would lose its champion.

Rostam cut the tamarisk branch. He shaped the arrow himself, sitting by the fire while Zal watched.

The Arrow of Tamarisk

They met again at dawn. Esfandiyar came forward with his bow drawn, confident. He had seen Rostam’s wounds the day before. He expected a weakened man.

Rostam nocked the tamarisk arrow. He waited. Esfandiyar rode closer, calling out one last time for Rostam to submit. Rostam did not answer. He drew the bowstring to his ear and released.

The double-pointed arrow struck Esfandiyar in both eyes.

The prince dropped his bow. He fell forward over the neck of his horse. His hands gripped the mane and then loosened. He slid to the ground. His men rushed forward. Rostam stood where he was.

Esfandiyar lived long enough to speak. He did not curse Rostam. He said that his father had sent him here to die, that Goshtasp had known what would happen, that the throne had never been truly offered. He asked Rostam to take his son Bahman and raise the boy properly, away from the court at Balkh, away from Goshtasp’s ambitions. Rostam promised.

Esfandiyar closed his ruined eyes and died on the plain beside the river.

What Remained

Rostam carried the body back to Esfandiyar’s camp with his own hands. He sent word to Goshtasp: your son is dead. The message carried no courtesy.

He took the boy Bahman into his household in Sistan and raised him alongside his own kin. The tamarisk arrow he kept. He did not burn it, did not bury it, did not throw it in the river. It sat in his armory among the weapons that had won a hundred wars - the mace, the lasso, the tiger-skin cuirass - and it was different from all of them. Those weapons had made him Iran’s champion. The tamarisk arrow had made him something else.

Rakhsh stood in the stable and grew old. Rostam stood in his hall and grew old. The farr - the divine glory that clings to the righteous - had dimmed around him, and he knew it, and he did not speak of it.