Taking a piece of heavy paper from his luggage, he rolled it into a tube, then blew on the coals to raise the temperature still further. The principle was the same as a blacksmith's bellows. However, he was not going to be shoeing a horse but branding his wife.
For the next few minutes no one spoke. Murad had brought water, and he quietly put some on to boil for tea. Saleh used more to clean Juliet's arm and rinse blood from her robe.
Finally the blade was as hot as it would get, and Ross could delay no longer. He wished they were in a Christian country so there was brandy to fortify Juliet for the coming ordeal. He could have used some brandy himself, for the thought of what he must do made his heart pound and his palms damp.
Juliet lay down on her right side, her body partially curled as she braced herself for the burning. Saleh placed his hands on her shoulder and waist to immobilize her in case she involuntarily tried to pull away.
Ross knelt beside her, careful not to let his shadow fall across her arm. Her bare skin was pale in the firelight, except for the scarlet gash of the knife wound. Face grim, he lifted the dagger from the coals. He had wrapped cloth around the handle to protect his hand, and even so the heat was uncomfortable.
He wavered a moment as he raised the blade in front of him. It glowed with ugly, sullen heat. At the thought of laying the metal against Juliet's raw, bleeding flesh, his muscles locked, refusing to do his bidding.
"Khilburn!" Saleh said sharply.
The man's voice pierced Ross's numbness. Delay was only making matters worse, so Ross grasped her elbow in his left hand to steady her arm, then swiftly laid the broad back edge of the blade along the entire length of the open wound.
As the red-hot steel seared her, Juliet jerked violently against the restraining grips of the two men. Her left hand had been lying by Ross's leg and her fingers spasmodically clutched his knee, the nails biting deeply.
The three seconds that Ross held the hot iron in place seemed eternal. To keep herself silent, Juliet had taken a fold of the tagelmoust between her teeth, but as the stench of burning flesh smoldered through the night air, she gave a suffocated cry that tore at Ross's heart.
With a shuddering sigh of relief he finally lifted the cooling blade away from her arm, but his relief was tempered by the bitter knowledge that for Juliet the pain was far from over. Wrapped in stoic, anguished silence, she seemed unaware that she still gripped his knee.
Saleh passed over a small jar of ointment. "This will take some of the pain away."
Hoping Saleh was right, Ross used his fingertips to gently spread the salve along the angry wound. He put a light bandage on for protection, but the bleeding had stopped. God willing, there would be no infection, though she would carry a scar for the rest of her life.
Murad, who had been watching sympathetically, helped Juliet sit up, then pressed a cup of heavily sugared tea into her hand. At first she simply stared down at it, as if drinking without removing her veil was too much effort. But after taking a deep breath, she managed to empty the cup in two long swallows.
Noticing how white her arm looked through the slashed sleeve, Ross decided that the tear should be repaired tonight. He always traveled with a basic sewing kit, so he dug it out, then closed up the torn fabric with crude but adequate stitches.
Juliet sat cross-legged and uncommunicative throughout the procedure. Her mute suffering reminded him of an injured animal.
Saleh suggested, "Jalal, take some opium so you will sleep."
"No," she said brusquely. "I need only rest."
She rose shakily to her feet, then crossed to her sleeping rug, which she had laid out earlier in the evening. Taking that as a signal that it was bedtime, Murad and Saleh went to their own rugs and settled themselves for the night.
Ross decided that this was one time that discretion could be damned, so after banking the fire he rolled out his own rug beside Juliet's. Since he doubted he would be able to sleep, it should be safe to be near her, and he had a powerful, irrational need to stay as close as possible.
Juliet did not object to his presence. In fact, she had said scarcely a dozen words since the fight.
Most of the rest of the camp was already sleeping, and soon Saleh and Murad were also breathing with slow, deep regularity. Ross lay on his back and watched the night sky, acutely aware of Juliet's nearness. She was also lying on her back, since that position was the most comfortable for her injured arm.
After a half-hour or so had passed, he guessed that he and Juliet might be the only two people in the caravan who were not sleeping. Tuned to every one of her tense breaths and slight, restless movements, he knew that she was awake and in pain.
In a voice so soft it could not have been heard more than a yard away, he said, "Clever of you to get into a fight with Habib. If you wanted revenge for what I put you through by diving into the flooded wadi, you've got it."