Bind him tightly, now,” a Valarauka boomed, and the orcs seemed set aflame to hear their commander’s encouragement. We march east,” a deep voice bellowed, and Maedhros flinched in horror as he felt himself passed between the company of uruks, they pushed him about as if he was nothing more than a rag doll until a fresh set of hands grasped him firmly, and miserably he stilled within them. “Collect what treasures you may from the field, but the elf’s sword and banner I claim in tribute to our lord. Make haste, we march with the shadows!” Y’hear that, snaga,” a deep voice growled, and an iron-shod boot clipped into the side of Maedhros’ thigh an instant later. “My boys should ‘ave their fun with you. Such troubles we took with you, you might give us a little pleasure in return…”

All that effort for this miserable pig?” A sneering voice whined before him, and Maedhros started as amid the slurred intonations of misshapen lips, he recognised the corrupt, basal form of archaic Quenya, and the orc’s crude words seared through him. “Nar, should’ve gutted him in the hollow, left him red and gasping with the rest of them.”He wasn't sure about fatherhood. "I was anxious, still am. I thought, at 45, I was too old. But they are nice kids, lovely people." And tall, both of them are going to be over six foot. "As a small person I always wanted to be tall." When he was, his mum used to say to him, "'Be careful with what you want, you may get it.' So, she was right. I did get it." Maedhros’ head lolled down onto his chest as exhaustion stole through him, the tightness of the gag tore at his lips and sent waves of such horrible pressure throbbing through his head. Despair clawed at his heart as for what felt like the thousandth time he squirmed within his bonds, he near ripped his wrists bloody in his attempts to free them, but such efforts were made in vain. Sleep while you can, prince,” he said slowly, almost sorrowfully; and his words drenched Maedhros in nothing but despair. “For my home is forged of nightmares, and you will find no rest there.”

The blunt tone of knowing in Gothmog’s voice sent spears of foreboding lancing through Maedhros’ heart. For a moment then he wavered: the rich scent of the stew sent hunger cramping through his innards, and though it felt like a betrayal, it felt like a surrender, at last he nodded. He suffered the Balrog to press the spoon to his lips, though his fingers twitched feebly within his bonds as he longed to be freed. As if he were no more than an animal made lame and helpless the Valarauka fed him, but though that degradation stormed through him, still he accepted each spoonful of warm stew past his trembling jaw.

A sudden pang of hunger twisted through Maedhros’ stomach, but haughtily he lifted his head, and with as much defiance as he could push into his voice he replied, “I do not want it… Not from you!” A tangle of voices jeered, and rigidly Maedhros held himself still as their scorn crashed down upon him. Yet even as that resolution turned in his mind, unbidden anger churned in his blood, and hard he gripped into the edge of the table to still the shake in his fingers. The Oath, that accursed oath sworn in fey mood and wrathful flames pounded in his veins and it renounced all clemency, it thirsted for blood, it crooned for war, but Maedhros would not so easily succumb to its seduction. Strength in arms might not avail his kin in reclaiming the Silmarils; their armies reeled in the wake of his father’s death, they mourned their kindred slain in the battle under the silent stars and wished no more for conflict, and Maedhros would not see the blood of his people further spilled upon capricious whim. The Oath renewed at his father’s deathbed might gnaw at him, and his brothers also; it would cozen patience to careless haste, it would twist sense to base impulse, but he would not fall prey to its demands. Within the stirrups he rose, he touched his spurs once more to his horse’s flanks and gave the beast its head, and he let the tender night wash over him as they sped away across the plains. In his book he writes. "It is memory that ages us not time." The mind forgets nothing, he says. "I may forget things, but the mind doesn't." In captivity he found himself remembering details from his childhood, things that he didn't even know he knew. "I could smell the linoleum in the house I grew up in. I could feel, twirl in my hand, the earrings that my mother wore when I was a child and she'd carry me in her arms." So he knows, however much he says, what happened in Beirut is the past. "It's like a book I can take down from a shelf and read it and replace."

Keenan's parents are both dead – his father's death was pivotal in his decision to go to Beirut. It was as he carried his father's coffin that he made the decision to leave Belfast, and to seek a new life overseas as a teacher at the American University in Beirut. At the time of the kidnap he was wearing one of his father's shirts, and that connection was a crumb of comfort to him – in An Evil Cradling, he writes movingly about how his dad became "not simply a memory but … a real presence … a presence I could feel more than see, a comforting reassurance that eased the hurt into a deeply filled sadness, yet that same sadness as it became reflective, lifted me". His mother died in 2004 having survived his captivity – something she rarely spoke about, Keenan says. "It was her way," he explains. "When I came home she didn't ask, and I didn't tell much at all. My sisters told me that when I was away she didn't speak much about what was happening. When there were rumours that I might be coming home, though, she knitted me a sweater." Why, Captain?” the deep voice called, and a chorus of snarls accompanied it. “He is a slave, for so we’ve captured him. We cannot take our sport with him?”Wait!” Maedhros croaked; the words sounded pathetic even in his own ears but still he spoke them to keep that awful gag from his lips. “Wait… you… You’re taking me to him, aren’t you? To… to the Moringotto, to Angband…” Celegorm’s words turned in his mind, but Maedhros would not allow them to daunt him. For as the ranks of his retinue formed up behind him, as Gaelor loosed his banner and Orellë sounded a triumphant horn to the skies above, as the drum of galloping hooves filled his ears, grim, unyielding resolve settled in Maedhros’ stomach, and it would not be undone. Please,” he whimpered, and how he hated himself for it; he hated that he subjected himself to this creature, he hated that he begged for its mercy, he cursed every blind, arrogant, stupid decision that had cast down him so low, but still the words poured from him. “Please, please just let me go… Release me, and… “

He is not yours to despoil.” The rumbling baritone of a Valarauka broke through the growls and mutters that heralded it. “He belongs to our lord, and I will see him delivered whole and un-abused, not torn bloody by your snivelling rabble. You answer to me, Dagmur, and I will have my captives treated with dignity, no matter how much it thwarts your desires.” But inevitably there are reminders, some of them funny. "We were in a taxi together in London, and the driver kept looking at us in his mirror," says Keenan. "And then he came through on his intercom and he said: 'Sorry to interrupt you gentlemen, but I couldn't help asking … wouldn't you be more comfortable travelling in the boot?'" This is nothing more than a feint,” Celegorm had whispered, he had implored Maglor to see reason even as the final preparations for Maedhros’ leave-taking were made. “This is a game of daggers and mirrors, and we cannot fathom what shadows lurk behind this façade. Nelyo will not see sense, he will not see the snare that loops before him; he will throw himself away upon the rash hope that a thief might relinquish that which he has stolen. This is madness, Káno, this is folly, and you must make him see it.” He hates it, and he hasn't got used to it. "It embarrasses me." A shy, modest man, he accepts it when people come up to him in the pub, offering him drinks, asking to shake his hand. He is polite and politely unimpressed. He doesn't want this fame. "I don't really understand it. What have I done? I didn't ask to be kidnapped."Fury swelled in Maedhros’ heart as he saw their lines break into a sprint, the outrage of betrayal squalled in his veins but tightly he gripped to it, he mastered it, and as Fëanor’s son revealed in the fey glory of his wrath he drew his sword, and aloud he cried: “Hold fast! Ortaerë, mehtarnya! Ortaerë!”