The main temple at Tiger’s Nest was surprisingly small—not much larger than the dining room of an average home and far less regularly proportioned, being built around a cliff face. Its walls bulged around protruding boulders, the ceiling curved in a dramatic warp.

As we arrived, Jangbu, the monastery First Aid attendant, was on his knees. Dorje was standing next to him, holding a hissing gas lamp. On the floor, Lama Tsering looked small and frail, a bundle of bones in red robes.

I knelt down immediately, studying those familiar features, wanting so much to find a sign that this wasn’t what I’d been told. But the moment my knees touched the stone floor, I knew. Eyes closed and features expressionless, Lama’s face was a pale reminder of what had once been. The consciousness that had defined him with such immense benevolence in life was no more.

Jangbu gently rolled the body so he was lying on his back. The left side of his head was dark, the skin of his cheek grazed. The movement of his body caused Lama’s wooden mala beads to rattle from his robes onto the stone. The abbot quickly swooped to collect them, handing them to me in a fluid gesture. ‘I am sure Lama Tsering would have wanted you to have this.’

Wordlessly I accepted the rosary with both hands, pressing them in prayer mudra to my heart. Even in my numbed state, the significance of the abbot’s gesture wasn’t lost on me.

As Jangbu studied the left side of Lama’s head, concentrating on the graze to his face, Dorje murmured something. Placing Lama’s head back on the floor with infinite care, Jangbu quickly rose, seizing the gas lamp and holding it to where Dorje was gesturing towards the wall. The abbot and I both stepped forward, staring at the same spot.

It was evident that Lama’s head had struck the wall with some force. This was not the mark of an elderly man falling to his side in the throes of a seizure.

The abbot stepped away, his eyes meetings Dorje’s with an expression I had never seen before. A look of such darkness, such deep foreboding, I felt a chill pass through my body.

‘Were there visitors today?’ he asked.

‘Only two this afternoon, Abbot. They were Khampas.’

The Khampas! Massive, fearless men from the Kham province of Tibet, it was said that Khampas had been the fiercest warriors in Genghis Khan’s Mongol army. Sangay and I had passed by two of them, less than an hour from the monastery, dark shadows moving with unusual haste. I explained how we’d seen them, clambering across a precipitous ledge. We had thought they were descending quickly on account of the failing light. Now I realized the true reason for their furtive maneuvers.