He died in the winter of his thirty-second year—arrow through the throat during a raid on a Roman supply train. His body was carried back to the hill-fort wrapped in his wolf-pelt cloak. Lupa’s pelt—gray, worn, still warm with her last breath—was draped over him. The village mourned with silence, not wails. They buried him under the young oak he had planted above her grave. They left the cracked clay bowl beside him—filled with river water, leaking into the earth.
