Dariun glanced at the prince, then asked Narses, “What would you do against that?”
“Good question. Promise freedom to any ghulam who fights and earns merit. Reward them as well. That might buy some loyalty. But it wouldn’t last long.”
“I wish to return to Ecbatana before that happens,” Arslan said. “Narses, will you not lend us your wisdom no matter what?”
Narses turned his eyes away from the prince’s earnest gaze. “I’m honored by the request, Your Highness, but I intend to spend the rest of my life here in the mountains, devoting myself to artistic creation. I no longer care about the world beyond them. Please don’t think badly of me… though I suppose you have every right to.”
Dariun pushed aside his teacup. “Narses, there’s a fine saying: apathy is a breeding ground for evil, not an ally to good.”
“That sounds less fine than pretentious,” Narses replied. “Who said it?”
“You did. The night before I left for Serica. We were drinking together.”
Narses clicked his tongue. “You remember the most useless things.”
“You said the Lusitanians slaughter anyone who doesn’t worship Yaldabaoth,” Dariun pressed on. “People who discriminate in the name of a god won’t sincerely free ghulams.”
“Even so, most ghulams would choose relief from today’s grievances over fear of tomorrow,” Narses replied flatly. Then he turned back to the prince. “Prince Arslan, your father despises me. If you take me into your service, you’ll only deepen his displeasure. It won’t benefit you.”
The young prince gave a faint, bitter smile. His delicate features looked nothing like his father’s. “That hardly matters. Father already dislikes me. Dariun has also fallen from his favor. Since we’re disliked anyway, we might as well stick together.”
For a brief moment, Narses studied him as if trying to decide whether the prince was straightforward or oddly twisted. Arslan met his gaze calmly, without the slightest trace of shame.
Narses let out a small sigh. “War and politics will all, in the end, turn to ashes and vanish. Only great art endures through the ages. Forgive my rudeness, but once you leave this mountain, I can promise nothing. While you remain here, though, I will do whatever I can for you.”
“I understand,” Arslan said with a small smile. “Sorry for pressing you.”
Then, all at once, exhaustion overtook his face, and he let out a quiet yawn.
After the prince fell asleep in the next room, Dariun and Narses stayed up a while longer, speaking in hushed voices. It was then that Dariun finally told his friend about Vahriz’s strange order.
“The shah is very indulgent toward Queen Tahmineh,” he said, “but with Prince Arslan he’s oddly distant. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“The queen, huh,” Narses muttered, folding his arms. “I met Queen Tahmineh a few times when I was a child. She had a dangerous kind of beauty. Before she became the wife of Prince Kayumars, she was actually engaged to his framadar.”
“So the ruler took his subordinate’s fiancée. That alone would shake a country. What happened to the minister?”
The two fell silent over their nabidh, thinking back to the history that came before Arslan’s birth.
In the year 301 of the Parsian calendar, Shah Gotarzes II died after thirty years on the throne, a ruler praised as the Great Guardian of the Continental Highway. He left behind two sons: the elder, Osroes, twenty-seven years old, and the younger, Andragoras, twenty-five.
Even before the king’s death, Osroes had been named crown prince. Andragoras supported his brother’s claim, and Osroes took the throne without dispute.
The new shah then appointed his brother as Eran, commander of the entire army. For two years, the brothers ruled in close cooperation, preserving the legacy of their father. Then disaster came.
In 303, civil conflict broke out in the southeastern Principality of Badakhshan, which until then had been an ally of Pars. This country, situated between Pars and Sindhura, had long shifted its allegiance between the two kingdoms, but under Gotarzes II it had remained firmly allied with Pars. After his death, however, pro-Sindhura factions that had once kept quiet began to stir.
“Only Shah Gotarzes kept Pars stable,” they argued. “Without him, Pars cannot be relied upon. We should align with Sindhura to preserve our peace.”
Their influence grew. Badakhshan expelled the Parsian ambassador and signed a treaty of amity with the Kingdom of Sindhura.
Andragoras, with Vahriz as his deputy, led one hundred thousand cavalry into Badakhshan. Prince Kayumars cried out for help from Sindhura. Sindhura sent reinforcements, but Andragoras traversed Badakhshan with astonishing speed and destroyed every bridge along the routes the Sindhuran army would have used, cutting off their advance entirely. While the enemy was stalled, he turned his forces and captured the capital of Badakhshan, Helmandus.
Prince Kayumars threw himself from a tower to his death, and the pro-Sindhura ministers and generals who had incited him—more than two thousand in all—were executed by the Parsian army. After Andragoras declared the annexation of Badakhshan into Pars, the Sindhuran forces gave up and returned to their homeland.
Up to that point, nothing had yet cast a shadow over the kingdom.
But in the castle, Andragoras discovered a woman who would change the course of both brothers’ lives: the young widow of Prince Kayumars, Tahmineh.
When the younger brother returned in triumph to the capital of Ecbatana, Osroes welcomed him with joy. As reward, he prepared to grant him the entire former Principality of Badakhshan and the title of viceroy.
Andragoras, however, turned down the offer. “Brother, I don’t want land or the rank of viceroy. I only want the wife of Kayumars.”
He said this because, under the laws of Pars, all spoils of war first went to the shah and were later redistributed among the troops.
“What? You want a single woman over land and rank? You are one unambitious man. Very well. I will give her to you, along with a new estate and jewels to adorn her.”
After Andragoras thanked him and withdrew, Shah Osroes was struck by curiosity about the woman who had moved his brother’s heart. Andragoras was enthusiastic about war, hunting, and banquets, but he had little in the way of romantic affairs with women.
Osroes secretly visited the mansion where Tahmineh was confined, where he saw her walking through the garden under the moonlight. By the time he left, he had already decided to marry her. Neither his position as shah nor his role as brother weighed on him any longer. This chapter was copied from novelping . com without permission.
Osroes had married at the age of eighteen while still crown prince, and a son was born the following year. After his wife died of illness, he never formally took another queen and continued to live alone, but now he ended that life.
The following day, when Andragoras went to see Tahmineh, she had already been moved to the royal palace by the shah’s order.
Andragoras flew into a rage. “You promised me!” he demanded of his brother.
But Osroes rejected his protest, saying there were no witnesses and no written agreement. Instead, he tried to pacify Andragoras with generous gifts: the entire former principality of Badakhshan, the rank of viceroy, a million dinars, and several beautiful women. But Andragoras shut himself inside his residence and stopped appearing at court.
Shah Osroes attempted to proceed with the marriage to Tahmineh, but his senior ministers, including Vahriz, advised against it, and he finally gave up. However he tried to justify himself, the fact remained that he had broken his promise to his brother.
From that moment, relations between the brothers deteriorated sharply, and divisions spread through the court. Many courtiers leaned toward Andragoras, who was famed as a warrior, rather than toward the more frail Osroes. Needless to say, the shah grew displeased with those who supported his brother and exiled them to provincial cities and frontier regions. Vahriz himself was demoted and sent to a fortress on the western border with Misr.
Andragoras grew more and more dissatisfied. He abandoned his duties as Eran and spent his days drinking at home. For Shah Osroes, this provided a convenient excuse. He dismissed Andragoras from his post as Eran, demoted him to marzban, and reassigned him to the eastern frontier.
“If Andragoras and Vahriz stayed close, they might conspire to rebel,” he reasoned. “If they are separated by three hundred farsangs, they will not be able to plot together.”
But just before the new appointments were announced, Osroes fell ill. While he was out hunting with Tahmineh, his horse was startled by something and reared, throwing him from the saddle and injuring his shoulder. The wound festered and caused a high fever.
The fever did not break for days. It slowly consumed his body. The doctors’ desperate treatments failed, and even the priests’ prayers were in vain. The shah fell into a critical state.
When a king died, a successor had to be chosen. Normally, the throne would pass to his eldest son, but Osroes’ son was only eleven years old at the time and had not yet undergone the formal rites required to recognize him as crown prince. Osroes had hesitated to take that step, mindful of his brother Andragoras and his supporters. With powerful enemies in the east and west, he feared that placing a boy on the throne might arouse foreign ambition.
On the nineteenth day of the fifth month, on a clear early-summer night filled with moonlight and the scent of flowers, Prince Andragoras was summoned to the palace. One hour later, the death of Shah Osroes and the accession of Andragoras were announced.
Some said, “Shah Osroes requested that, after his death, the prince be enthroned and Andragoras serve as his regent. But Andragoras smothered the dying king with a pillow and took the throne for himself.”
Others said, “Osroes grew mad with jealousy, suspecting an affair between his brother and Queen Tahmineh. He summoned his brother to the palace in an attempt to kill him, but was killed instead.”
Many rumors spread, but once Andragoras became shah with the overwhelming support of the army, people fell silent. Soon after, a fire broke out in a corner of the palace, and the son of Osroes died in the flames. The palace cook, held responsible for the fire, was executed.
Shah Andragoras appointed Vahriz as Eran. Tahmineh, who had long remained a strange guest in the palace, married Andragoras the following year and became queen. The year after that, Prince Arslan was born.
And until this year, the reign of Shah Andragoras had seemed unshakable.