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The Sindar took more than the Silmaril in their flight: they took down every bridge across the river arms that girdle the kingdom of Doriath.
Maedhros and his last remaining brothers wait out the winter in the ruins of Menegroth. Rain, unseasonably warm, turns the snow to mud that trickles through fissures in the rock. In every room, the damp walls and ceilings glisten sickly. Esgalduin swells, gurgles under the belly of the great bridge, then bursts his banks and creeps beneath Thingol’s mighty gates.
As he makes his way down a dim corridor, a figure catches Maedhros’ eye. It moves nervously, as though it does not wish to be seen. Maedhros conceals himself behind a pilaster carved into the wall. The figure slinks nearer, and by its bare scalp Maedhros knows it as his youngest living brother. Amras slips into a chamber: the one Maglor has come to call his own.
It is three days since Maedhros spoke to either of them. He does not mind. They both despise him. Maglor simpers and fawns, but there is contempt rattling behind his teeth when he bares them in false smiles. There was nothing you could have done, Maglor said, last he saw him, bringing him a cup of Thingol’s wine and taking a seat beside him at the hearth, uninvited. There was nothing we could have done, he echoed in a different key, that we that holds me within it betraying what he really longs for: absolution.
As for Amras, he has shunned Maedhros since his lord-brother left him to hold Himring alone while they marched on Angband’s gates. He was, and is, Celegorm’s man. He grieves deepest for their brothers slain in Doriath. Were Maedhros a dutiful lord and loving brother, he would grieve with him. He would be concerned at Amras’ sullen silence, shorn head, and the too-regular burn stripes down his wrists. Amras is not coping well. Perhaps he, too, is doomed to die in Doriath. A slower death than Celegorm’s, Curufin’s, Caranthir’s, but no less inevitable.
As he passes by Maglor’s chamber, Maedhros has no intention of stopping. Let them lick each other’s wounds. But a pained sob from behind the door hooks onto something in the pit of Maedhros’ stomach; makes him stay and listen.
“Let go of me,” Maglor says, in that firm, commanding voice for which he was named and which he never now uses with Maedhros. “Why are you doing this?”
Amras’ reply is a jumble of shrill words, but Maedhros makes out “—’ve fucked him— me?”
“I know nothing of what you speak. Release me. Sit. Take some water. Have you been drinking?” He turns pleading. “Pityo— your arms. You told me you had stopped. The skin is still hot. Pityo.”
Light seeps through a crack in the old wooden door, swollen open with the damp. Maedhros lines it up with his eye and squints.
Amras is perched on the edge of a high-backed chair, glowering at a glass goblet in his hand. Maglor procures a salve from the disordered heap of belongings on the desk and begins to smooth it over Amras’ forearms.
With a sudden thrashing, Amras hurls the cup against the opposite wall. He is slighter than Maglor, and weak with distemper, but when he leaps to his feet he overtops his elder brother; and though Maglor is honed for war, swift to defend himself against assault, he is not armed, and Amras is. Maglor steps back.
The knife juts into the space between their bodies, wavering in Amras’ unsteady hand. It is almost comical, a pathetic parody of the high drama their father, too, once orchestrated against a brother. A moment later, the knife clatters harshly against the stone floor.
Amras sinks to his knees. “Please.” He clasps the backs of Maglor’s thighs and stretches his long, scarred neck to look at him. Maglor’s face flushes with colour. Maedhros grimaces: ever has his nearest brother been weak for worshippers.
“I have been alone so long,” Amras whispers. “You remember? When we lost him? And we thought your Russandol was lost, too.” His voice breaks. “Me, youngest; and you, eldest. Only, Russandol returned. Ambarussa would never return. Do you remember?”
“Remember what, Pityo?”
Maedhros strains to make out the expression on Maglor’s face. Remember what, indeed?
“I told you, there was nothing of desire in the affection I offered you then — which, recall, you spurned at the time — and there is not now.” Maglor’s throat rises and falls. He cups Amras’ face. “Come, stand and let me hold you.”
At the centre of the room, they embrace. The moment stretches on, and still they hold each other in silence. Amras’ back is to the door, and Maglor’s face hides behind his shoulders. With little to watch, Maedhros pulls away. The meeting is drawing to its close and Amras will soon leave his brother’s chamber.
But as Maedhros withdraws, Maglor’s broad hand spreads wider across Amras’ back, grips his brother tighter. Amras’ hips shift. Maedhros presses his eye back against the crack in the door. Maglor’s hand slides lower, to the small of Amras’ back; he urges Amras’ hips to roll again. Their legs slot together, and Amras’ arms rise to cup Maglor’s face. They kiss, stumbling and falling into the bed.
It is little work for Amras to remove Maglor’s scant clothing, revealing a chest taut and scarred by centuries of warfare. Maedhros’ hand tightens into a fist that wants to beat upon the door, to stop this perverse union. This betrayal. But he withholds, for his eyes are hungry.
Their bodies twine, naked, and Maglor beneath Amras’ sinuous body whimpers and groans, unheedful and unashamed. The initial fervour slows; their touches become intimate. Maglor drags his fingertips from Amras’ ass and over his rippling, straining back to caress his face, to pull him into a kiss long and deep. How easily Maglor’s resolve breaks when a beautiful body offers itself to him. Even one desperate and bereft of his senses.
If Maedhros loved them as a brother should, he would stop them. He does not. He watches, intent. His throat tightens and his breaths quicken.
Their hands disappear between their bodies, leaving Maedhros to imagine what touches elicit their gasps, Maglor’s rising moans. Their minds are locked in silent communion. Then Maglor’s arms fly above his head, grasping at the sheets, and Amras’ hips sink between his splayed legs. They stay there, gasping a moment, then Amras bucks and thrusts, beast-like, the way a man takes a woman, and Maedhros is certain that is all Amras has ever known. Maedhros also knows Maglor has had much better, but still he writhes and arcs, ever a glutton for pleasure.
Maedhros pays no mind to his blunted wrist creeping to relieve the pressure at his groin. It is disgust that swells his thoughts, and he allows it to grow fat and swallow whatever else aches along the edges of his mind.
It is not long before Amras shudders to a climax with a cry more grief than pleasure. And indeed, when he collapses over Maglor’s body, tilting his head to the side to rest upon his chest, Maedhros sees that his cheeks are wet with tears. Maglor smooths them with his thumb, murmuring words of comfort, kissing and caressing his brother’s bare scalp. There is no doubt in Maedhros’ mind that Maglor’s cock lies yet thick and unsatisfied between their bodies, for Maedhros would have marked and heard his ecstasy unspooling. No, he is hard yet, gorged with want even as Amras weeps.
Maedhros’ vision clouds. He blinks and grits his teeth, but still all is blurred. No matter: he has no wish to see more. He withdraws and stalks away down the long hall.