Chapter Two: The Cold Kingdom
The palace was a strange place. A place where people smiled while plotting, bowed while betraying, and whispered blessings with poisoned tongues. It was a place where no emotion was pure—except my own misery.
That, at least, was real. Weeks passed, and King David faded like the last ember of a dying fire. His attendants fussed over him, physicians murmured prayers, and servants moved around him with the reverence due a man whose stories had been carved into Israel's memory. But to me, he was a weight beside me, a cold constant, a reminder that I was trapped. His breaths became shallower. His murmurs more fragmented. Sometimes he clutched at the air, as though trying to grasp invisible reins.
Sometimes he whispered things that chilled me more than the winter wind: "My house… my sons… the sword will never leave…"
I did not know what he meant. I did not ask. I had learned that my silence was the only shield I possessed. By then, the courtiers avoided meeting my eyes. As though I were a sign of death. As though sharing a bed with the king made me half-ghost myself. Only Tirzah stayed unchanged.
Every night she brought a piece of home to me—a handful of dried figs, a joke from one of the market vendors, a memory of the fields in Shunem. She spoke of the world outside the palace as though holding open a window, letting breath into my suffocating days. But even she could not stop what was coming.
The struggle for the throne began before King David even died. I was returning from bathing, wrapped in a thin linen shawl, when I heard raised voices echoing through the corridor. Curiosity tugged at me, and I paused behind a carved pillar. Adonijah, David's eldest living son, marched down the hallway like a man already crowned. His face was stern, handsome, sure of itself. Servants bowed as he passed. Officials murmured support. Everyone seemed to orbit him.
"Tell the others," He ordered. "The feast will proceed at En Rogel. The kingdom knows the king is too weak to rule. Let them see who truly holds power now."
The men with him nodded eagerly. A chill knotted in my stomach. Tirzah, who had followed my path, whispered,
"That's Adonijah, isn't it?"
"Yes," I said. "David's son."
"And he means to take the throne before the king dies."
The palace air suddenly felt thick. Dangerous.
We moved away before Adonijah could see us, but the weight of what I'd heard settled over me like a stone cloak.
That night, as I lay beside David, he stirred and gripped my arm with surprising strength. "Who… who is in the house?" he rasped. I froze.
"Only me, my lord."
"Not you," he whispered. "The others… they move like jackals."
I swallowed hard.
"Should I call someone?"
"No."
His eyes opened slightly clouded, ancient, tired. "They smell the crown."
His fingers loosened. His head fell back. And I felt a cold certainty: the kingdom was about to tear itself apart.
By morning, the palace buzzed with rumours. Even without speaking, I could feel tension thickening the hallways like smoke. Bathsheba walked with her head high, her expression hard. Zadok the priest moved quickly, urgently. Nathan the prophet whispered instructions. Adonijah was claiming kingship. But Bathsheba and Nathan were preparing a countermove. I wanted no part of any of it. Politics was a world where people like me were crushed without being noticed. I kept to the shadows, to the quiet corners, to Tirzah's company.
Until the day Bathsheba approached me. I had been tending to the king—adjusting his blankets, moistening his lips—when she entered, regal as ever. She studied me with eyes sharp enough to pierce armor.
"You are the Shunammite," she said.
"Yes, my lady."
"You keep the king warm."
"I do what I am commanded."
A corner of her mouth lifted. "We all do."
Her gaze flicked toward David, then back to me. "I am told you are observant. You are in his chamber day and night. You may know things others don't."
I stiffened. "I don't wish to be part of anything, my lady."
"You are part of it whether you wish to be or not," she replied coldly. "Everyone in this palace is."
I lowered my eyes. She did not stay long. But her words clung to me afterward like burrs. By nightfall, David was declining faster. His hands were icy despite my closeness. His breath rattled as though scraping against broken glass. And I felt something inside me, something I had not allowed myself to feel—begin to ache. Pity. Fear. A strange grief for a man I did not choose, whose needs had consumed my youth. But before I could understand these emotions, the palace erupted. Shouts. Running footsteps. Doors slamming. Horns sounding from somewhere outside. Tirzah burst into my room.
"Abishag! They're anointing Solomon! Right now—at Gihon!"
My heart stuttered.
"Solomon?" I whispered.
"Yes! Zadok and Nathan are with him. Bathsheba must have convinced the king. Adonijah's men are scattering!"
I felt dizzy. Everything was changing too fast. Too violently.
"What does this mean?" I asked. Tirzah shook her head.
"I don't know. But it will not be safe here tonight."
She was right. The palace felt like a battlefield. Every glance carried suspicion. Every shadow held danger. I returned to the king's chamber that evening to find him barely conscious. When I touched his hand, he whispered:
"Solomon… king…"
It was the last thing he ever said.
The morning he died, the world fell silent. No mourning wails at first. No trumpets. Just a strange, heavy quiet, as though the palace itself held its breath. I sat beside him when the final shudder went through his body. His hand slid from mine. His eyes emptied. The blankets that had once been mountains around him collapsed into hollows. He was gone. For a long time, I couldn't move. I had spent months warming this frail, flickering life. Months giving my youth to a man who barely knew my name. And in his death, I felt two things—two truths pulling me apart: Relief. And something like sorrow.
I wept. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just quietly—because something had ended, and in its ending, I felt the weight of everything I had endured crash down on me. Tirzah found me like that. She wrapped her arms around me and whispered,
"It's over. You're free now. Abishag, you're free."
And for the first time in months, I believed her. I allowed myself to imagine returning to Shunem. I imagined hugging my mother. Running across the fields. Feeling sunlight that didn't carry the scent of death. I imagined breathing again.
But freedom is a fragile dream in a king's palace. And mine shattered the moment Solomon entered the room. He came not as the shy boy I once glimpsed in the corridors, but as a king—crowned, guarded, heavy with authority. His eyes swept over his father's body, then landed on me. For a moment, his expression softened. Almost pity. Almost admiration. I could not tell which.
"Abishag," he said. "You served my father faithfully." I bowed.
"I did my duty, my lord."
"You will be honored for it," he said.
A strange unease pricked at my skin. Honored. In a palace like this, honored could mean anything.
"Return to your quarters for now," he continued. "You will be summoned later."
Tirzah clasped my hand, squeezing reassurance into my bones.
"It's alright," she whispered. "He cannot keep you here. His father is gone. Your service is done."
I wanted to believe her. But as I walked away from the bed where David had died, I felt the weight of Solomon's gaze on my back. Not the gaze of a king looking at a servant. But the gaze of a man considering a possession. And deep inside, where winter still lingered, a new fear stirred. Freedom might not be waiting for me. Something else was.