Khosrow Parviz and Bahram Chubin

The rebel

Bahram Chubin's victory over the Turks turns sour. A report reaches Hormozd that Bahram has kept back some of the spoil, and the king sends him a black distaff case with cotton and women's clothes. Bahram puts them on and shows himself to his officers, who renounce the king for him. Out hunting, he follows a wild ass into a palace where a crowned lady tells him that the throne of Iran is his. From then on he sits in state like a king.

His sister Gordiyeh tries to stop him. "Our father was marchlord at Rey," she tells the men urging him on, "and you have set him on the road to the throne." Bahram will not listen. He has coins struck in the name of Hormozd's son, Khosrow Parviz, and sends them to the capital, so that the king will suspect his own son. Khosrow flees. In Tisfun his uncles Bandui and Gostaham break out of prison and blind the king, and Khosrow comes back to be crowned.

Flight to Rum

The rivals meet with the Nahrawan between their armies. Khosrow reminds Bahram that he was nobody until old Mehran-Setad named him to the king. Bahram claims descent from Arash and from Gorgin son of Milad, says the Sasanians have had their five hundred years, and boasts that his helmet smells of the crown. That night he attacks; Khosrow's men drift away, and the young king flees over the bridge to Tisfun. His blind father tells him to go to Rum. As he leaves, Bandui and Gostaham turn back and strangle Hormozd with a bowstring. Bandui then saves Khosrow by dressing in the king's clothes to delay the pursuit, and Bahram takes the throne.

In Rum, Caesar gives Khosrow his daughter Maryam, an army under Niyatus, and treasure. Khosrow returns through Azerbaijan and prays at the fire temple of Azar Goshnasp. The second battle goes badly. Chased by Bahram into a gorge blocked by rocks, alone and on foot, he calls on God, and Sorush (an angel) appears in green on a white horse, takes his hand, carries him clear and tells him he is safe and will be king. In the third battle Bahram is beaten and flees to the Khaqan of Chin.

Death in exile

Bahram serves the Khaqan well. He kills the Khaqan's champion in a contest, then a monstrous lion-ape that has killed one of the Khaqan's daughters, and is given another daughter as his wife. Khosrow sends Kharrad Borzin east to undo him. Kharrad finds a poor old Turk, Qalun, who agrees to the murder. Carrying a royal seal won by a trick, Qalun reaches Bahram at Merv, says he has a secret message from the Khaqan's daughter, leans close as if to whisper, and stabs him.

Bahram dies with his head in Gordiyeh's lap. He admits she was right: a demon led him astray, as demons once misled Jamshid and Kay Kavus. He leaves his men to Yalan-sineh, tells them to go home and seek Khosrow's pardon, and asks to be buried in Iran. The Khaqan burns Qalun's house. Gordiyeh leads her brother's followers home, killing the Turk sent to bring her back, and after further turns of fortune becomes Khosrow Parviz's wife.