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Though MacColla and Haley had chosen to raise their children in relative seclusion in Ireland. Jean's daughters had spent summers playing with his sons, and it pleased him.

“They're getting ready to play your song.” Haley had snuck

up beside him, her dance through.

“Och… ” Mac Colla glowered, listening to the musicians  start to play one of Iain Lom's odes to him. He took another  deep pull of his ale to cleanse the taste from his throat. “I  hate those.”

“You can't fault them.” Haley paused to listen. “You put

courage into the he arts of Gaels, husband.”

“You sound like one of those accursed poems.”

She only smiled brightly, swaying to the tune.

Alasdair, son of handsome Colla,

Skilled hand at sundering castles,

You routed the gray-skinned Lowlanders:

And if they drank kale soup you knocked it out them.

She leaned up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear, “Maybe we can get Iain Lorn to pen something about the mysterious  Dark Knight. You know, something like,”

“A knight in dark armor is come to avenge, so that Clan

MacDonald may reap  their revenge.”

“You've had too much ale,
 
leannan
.”

She giggled as he smacked her on the behind.

Haley stared up at him a moment, her face growing serious.

In their life together, he'd seen her wear gowns and fire guns. And she'd been as beautiful to him in velvet and finery as she'd been fighting with her corset busk.

She'd bathed their babes then seen them into lads, offering scoldings and kisses both, always there with love and

comfort. And now MacColla and Haley stood together,

realizing how their  sons had become men grown.

Though she still had much black in her hair, it was twined with gray, mirroring those bottomless gray and black eyes.  Eyes that he'd watched, countless times, grow dark with passion. Laugh with him. Fill with tears. Brighten at  the sight of him. And MacColla thought her the most exquisite woman who'd ever lived.

“Aw, hell, MacColla,” she whispered. “Just kiss me.”

Author's Note

I could write an e ntire series based on Alasdair MacColla

alone. He's idolized as one of the greatest Gaelic warriors,  and I was steeped in tales of his feats, his weaponry, his  vast size and strength.

My primary source was David Stevenson's astoundingly thorough biography,
 
Highland Warrior: Alasdair MacColla and the Civil Wars
, and I could've placed a finger at random on one of its pages and landed on fodder for an excellent story. (Note: That isn't MacColla on the cover-there is no image of him that I know of.)

Although  hard facts from his life are considerably spottier than from the lives of my previous heroes (we don't even

know his exact date of birth), there is much adulation for  him. Stories, legends, and songs abound. Truly, he is one  of the best loved of all the Gaelic heroes.

He seemed to me a man full of contradictions. He was

famous for his ferocity and cruelty but, digging deeper, I

uncovered so many instances of mercy and humor.

My focus was the mid- 1640s, a time MacColla really did spend in Campbell lands around Kintyre and the western isles, harrying Clan Campbell and wedding a woman we know nothing about.

Some basic facts about his immediate family are available, and I integrated those into my story. For example, his brother-in-law did die giving MacColla  his sword, though nothing is known of what happened to Jean after her husband was killed. Scrymgeour's involvement with the family is, as far as I know, fictional. MacColla did have two sons, raised in Ireland, who both lived past seventy.

I have one major disclaimer: Because I conflated James  Graham's final two battles in my previous book, my  Graham timeline here is a little off. That is, although this time period found him and MacColla having parted ways, at the time of the Battle of Knocknanuss, the real Graham had not yet been executed.

Like many Gaels, MacColla was a superstitious man. He truly didn't want to fight that day at Knocknanuss, fearing a long- ago portent. There are conflicting reports on how, exactly, he was killed. His initial victory was, in fact, decisive, but Taaffe had indeed been unable to see

MacColla's triumphant flank. When the unseasoned lord spotted the incoming Parliamentary cavalry, he fled.

Meanwhile. MacColla had been separated from his men, waiting for a messenger to bring  word about Taaffe's whereabouts, when he was surrounded and captured. One story goes that, though a cavalryman named O'Grady offered MacColla quarter, one Major Nicholas Purdon slaughtered their prisoner. Some go so far to say that this so outraged O'Grady, he fought Purdon every year for the next seven years. Imagining that Purdon and Campbell were in league, however, was pure fabrication on my part.

In addition to these real historical events, I've woven quotes and some apocryphal stories throughout. Iain Lorn  MacDonald really did pen numerous adoring paeans to  “Alasdair of the sharp, biting blades.”

MacColla truly did meet a young tinker with a frypan for a helmet and bemoan that not more of his soldiers were

tradesmen. (Though this happened at the Battle of

Inverlochy in 1645, predating Knocknanuss.)

Also, MacColla did famously offer an enemy two options: hanging   or   beheading.   The   man,   a   Campbell   of  Auchinbreck, replied.
 
“Dàd dhiù gun aon roghainn”
 
or “two evils and no choice,” a phrase that has since  become proverbial. (Again, this took place at the Battle of  Inverlochy, so it was a different foe at an earlier time.)

And finally, as they say, you can't make this stuff up. It's believed that his father, the famous Coll, or Colkitto, really

was captured when he exited the walls of his besieged

castle requesting whisky.

Please visit my website at www.VeronicaWolff.com, where you'll discover more tales from the life of Alasdair MacColla, warrior of the highlands.