Lhakpa the snow monk had watched from the stable, where he sat on a keg with his goat at his side, sharing a hearty laugh with his brother the hail chaser. Shan had wondered more than once if it had really been the old hail chaser, not the doctor, who had saved his son.

He had feared for Ko’s life as they had waited for the helicopter with Dr. Anwei. But then Yankay had seen Shiva’s astrology chart and pointed with excitement at the bottom row of figures, which none of them had been able to decipher. “You have to live now, boy,” the hail chaser had exhorted. Ko had weakly shrugged his shoulders. “You have to, son, because this says you will be getting married!”

Thus they had embarked on a double wedding ceremony, subject to Shan paying the customary milk price to Yara’s grandmother, to compensate her household for the loss of a strong young woman. Shan had chosen not to point out that since they were all going to be living in the same compound Lhamo was not in fact going to suffer the loss of Yara.

Meng had agreed to marry Shan the day he had returned from monitoring the dismantling of the Five Claws compound. He had actually been doing research on whether Choden had authority to conduct a simple civil ceremony when Marpa and Shiva had descended on his office, insisting that the event deserved a grander and more traditional celebration. Shan had seen the shy anticipation in Meng’s eyes and agreed, provided that some old Chinese traditions might be added to the Tibetan affair. The next day he had driven Meng to Lhasa, where they bought traditional clothing and boxes of small sweet cakes.

He had waited to break the news to Meng that Tibetan weddings were essentially three days of drinking and feasting. Meng and Ko had both understood the importance of acting quickly, though no one would speak of the reasons. Ko’s medical parole lasted only so long as it took him to regain enough strength for hard labor, and Meng’s own health on any given day was unpredictable. Tserung the mechanic had reluctantly accepted that he would not have time to brew the special wedding beer of Tibetan tradition and Shiva had dropped all her other work so that she could produce elaborate astrological charts for the marriages, which had, to Shan’s great relief, identified a propitious date that provided for a short weeklong engagement for both couples.