Chained on a Courtier's Word

He wins his father's war and is promised the throne for it, and then the Shahnameh does the thing the whole story turns on. A royal kinsman tells Goshtasp that his son is plotting for the crown. There is no evidence in the poem and no investigation in the story. Esfandiyar is rebuked in front of the court, seized, put in irons and shut in a mountain fortress — by the king who had just sworn to hand him the kingdom. He is the loyal one and he is the one in chains. Everything he does afterwards, including the thing that kills him, happens to a man who has been here.