It was a clear night and the ground was covered in a thick frost. I looked straight up into the deep blue-black sky, and puffed out my breath, watching it cloud away on the freezing air. The yaks stood grunting resignedly behind our heads. The air was fresh and clean on my face, and although I had thought they were mad for wanting to sleep out like this, I was grateful for the beauty of the experience. Once again, I was coming close to nature in a way I hadn't known before. At home in England, Tsedup could only sleep with the window wide open, even in midwinter. He craved the Tibetan night air. I now knew why. But it wasn't the same. In London he hadn't had the spectacular dome of the galaxy to ponder. Nor had his tears turned to ice.

Fourteen. Winter Chronicles

He didn't come home for a while. But it was no longer childish obstinacy that kept him away. Tsedup's friend, Nawang, had been shot a few weeks ago. A man from a distant tribe had tried to swindle his brother, Tsering Samdup, during one of their gambling sessions. The man had ripped off Tsering Samdup's enormous coral necklace. Nawang had got involved, and in the skirmish, the man had pulled a gun from inside his leopardskin tsokwa and shot him in the back. The bullet had passed right through him and out. There had been a lot of blood, but he had recovered well and I discovered that Tsedup had accompanied him to Labrang to the hospital there for a check-up. It worried me. At times like this I was all too aware of the lawless nature of this place.

In the week that followed I remained in the safety of the family home. Since Tsedup had left, I had become accustomed to sharing my sleeping quarters with a whole new collection of life. As usual, I awoke to a small bird scrabbling in the eaves above my head. I watched the outline of its body as it shuffled between the fabric pinned to the wooden beams. It had somehow found a home between the wood and flower-print material and I listened to the rustling of the straw against its feathers. Next to me, the old flea-ridden bitch lay snoring quietly, content to be free of her yapping brood, though on most nights the pups joined us and scrabbled and whined in the straw next to my head. Their mother had recently taken refuge with me in the clay hut, since the nights were freezing and she was no longer as hardy as the other dogs. Behind the woven sacks, saddles and plastic drums of frozen curd, a small rodent called an abra had set up residence. It was much prized by the nomads as a creature of gentle nature, which had been known to exhibit domestic tendencies, accepting tempting treats from outstretched hands, sometimes sitting beside the fire with a generous child. At night it scurried across my bed, furtively seeking out scraps to nibble, and left a pile of droppings at my feet.

That morning, however, I woke to someone walking on the roof and the shrill tones of Shermo Donker, ordering everyone in the house out of bed. If I had had glass in my window, surely her dulcet tones would have broken it. As usual, there was no response from the slumbering Tsedo and I lay drowsily, tasting the wet snow on the sheepskin around my face from the night's light fall, feeling a faint rumble in my stomach. Her persistent shrieks eventually roused him and the rest of the family, and a small commotion ensued outside in the yard. I could hear a ripping sound and was curious to see what I was missing. I disentangled myself from the considerable mountain of quilts and peered through the window. In the yard, not five feet from me, I saw the enormous carcass of a yak, half skinned, legs akimbo, the taut flesh of its stomach stripped pink and naked, steam flushing from the deep gash carved in its chest. Tsedo and Annay Urgin were butchering it. Both were panting from the effort of cleaving this vast beast and their breath clouded white in the hazy morning sunshine. Shermo Donker was running around fetching huge cauldrons in which to spill the fresh blood and her brother, Rinchin, had his arm inside the yak's strained neck, rummaging around for something. I decided to lie down again for a while and let them get on with it. The sounds of cracking bones and swilling blood, flaccid organs flung on to plastic and snapping tendons entertained me for a while, then I got up. I went to the house to watch the proceedings from the window, respectfully muttering, ' Ommani padme hum,' as I passed them.

From inside, I could hear their chaotic chatter and intermittent bursts of laughter. The children were all helping to pare the yak and one of the puppies was tearing excitedly at an enormous pile of offal, until it was dragged away by Sanjay. Tsedo came to the window to sharpen his knife on a stone and I saw the skin of his forearms stained crimson. An enormous liver sat on the gatepost and various organs were trailed along the wall like washing on a line. Soon the job was done. Tsedo came in and sat with me while I prepared him a bowl of water to wash in. 'Our Amdo home is not good,' he said. I thought that maybe he was unsure how I felt about the killing. I knew how much he regretted his task, but we all realised that we couldn't carry on eating just tsampa every day. The kill was long overdue. Until the next death we would have good food.

As they prepared the offal, I played with the children. They were a wild bunch, fascinated by everything and constantly asking me questions. Sometimes I would find one of them alone in the hut, rooting around in my rucksack for a new oddity from the West. As with every day, I took out my book of blank paper and a pen to write, and within moments it was wheedled from my grasp by small, furtive fingers. They wanted to draw. I don't know if they had ever drawn before I came, but I suspected not. It had become a new delight for them, and a fascination for me. It had started with me drawing for them, then I had encouraged them to try for themselves. At first they had touched the paper hesitantly with the end of the nib, intimidated by the white space, then gently and slowly they made tiny shaky marks, maybe a few squiggly circles, not really trusting themselves. As they gained confidence they began to draw yaks, horses, sheep, and eventually people. By now they had each developed a style. Dickir Che drew large, deliberate figures with huge round heads and stick arms, Dickir Ziggy's people were covered in intricate checked clothes and had tiny facial features, while Sanjay's people sometimes had no bodies at all, just heads, arms and exaggeratedly long stick-legs. It reminded me of English children's early drawings, known as 'tadpole men', a primitive body image. Sanjay's drawings were less developed than the other two children's.

I offered him my pad and asked him to draw his mother and father. Instead, he drew his grandmother, Annay Labko, large on the page, then his grandfather, Amnye Karko, smaller, and then Gorbo, with no body. All had enormously long legs. Gorbo was a tadpole man. These three were Sanjay's most treasured relations. As the smallest child in the family, he was unashamedly spoilt by his grandparents, and Gorbo was his hero; I wasn't surprised that he had preferred to draw them. In nomad society it was usually the grandparents who had most physical contact with the children, hugging and kissing them frequently, while their parents seemed more inclined to discipline them. Sometimes, Shermo Donker was particularly hard with the children. She barked her orders at them as they scurried around performing tasks for her. When they fell asleep at night on the floor, she sometimes wrenched them up by the arms to put them to bed, bellowing their names at the top of her voice. I saw their tiny faces contorted with discomfort and heavy with sleep.