As a boy, Gjergj Kastrioti was taken as a hostage to the Ottoman court, where he became a famous commander named Iskender Bey: Skanderbeg. In 1443, in the chaos after a battle at Niš, he slipped away with three hundred Albanian horsemen, rode home, and took his father's old castle at Krujë by a clever trick with a forged letter. On its walls he raised a red banner with a black double-headed eagle. The words are imagined.