Chapter One: A Shunammite's Lament
I was seventeen when the winter of my life began. Before that, I was simply Abishag—daughter of Naham the potter, sister to four loud brothers, and beloved of Eliab. He was the shepherd who always smelled of sun-dried grass and laughed easily even when there was nothing to laugh about. Everyone in Shunem knew that we were as good as promised to each other. Our parents had already begun whispering dowry agreements behind half-closed doors. I had begun weaving my wedding shawl in secret, though I pretended it was for market sale. Life was simple, warm, and expected—until the king grew cold.
Word reached our village that King David, the warrior whose songs we had sung since childhood, had become frail, unable to keep warm even under many blankets. Court officials had decided that the solution to his shivering was not thicker quilts, nor stronger fires, nor prayer, but a girl. A young virgin—beautiful, untouched, healthy. Someone whose body could give warmth where blankets failed. I had heard the rumor, but rumors rarely touched people like me. That changed when soldiers rode into Shunem. They did not announce their purpose. They did not need to. The moment I saw the royal crest on their shields; my stomach twisted like a knot being pulled too tight.
I was walking with my friend Tirzah—her arms full of reeds for basket weaving—when the commander approached us. His eyes were cold, assessing, and when they settled on me, I felt as though he was weighing my life in his hand.
"Name," he demanded.
"Abishag," I whispered.
He nodded once and motioned to the other soldiers. "This one."
Tirzah stepped between us so quickly the reeds scattered on the ground.
"She is promised! Choose someone else!"
But promises meant nothing to men carrying the king's seal. The commander grabbed my wrist.
"The king requires a virgin," he said, as though speaking of livestock. "She fits the description."
"I don't want to go," I said, trying to pull away.
"You have no choice," he answered.
Tirzah's fingers squeezed mine tightly, her eyes already shining with fear.
"I'll go with you," she whispered. "I'm not letting them take you alone."
The commander glared but allowed it. "One companion. No more."
They did not give me an hour to pack. Not even a moment to say goodbye to my mother. They simply put me on a horse and rode away from everything I knew. The sun had just begun to set, turning the sky red—the same color as the wedding thread I had hidden under my bed. I wondered if my mother would find it and cry. I did.
Jerusalem was louder, darker, and colder than I imagined. The palace was a maze of stone corridors where whispers traveled faster than footsteps. I could feel every eye watching me—as though I were a lamb fattened and presented at a feast. Tirzah stayed with me that first night in the women's quarters. She held me while I cried, brushing my hair the way my mother used to.
"There must be a mistake," she kept repeating. "They'll see you're just a village girl. They'll let you go home."
But the next morning, a court woman named Serah entered with a parchment and a cold expression.
"It is confirmed. You are the one chosen to attend His Majesty."
I remember staring at her and asking, "Chosen?" The word tasted bitter. "Chosen implies choice." Serah did not flinch.
"Your beauty is exceptional. Your health is perfect. You will bring warmth to the king. Israel will be grateful."
"I don't care what Israel is," I snapped. "I want my life."
Tirzah squeezed my hand. Serah pretended not to hear. They bathed me for hours—scrubbing me until my skin stung, oiling my hair, trimming nails, plucking stray hairs as if shaping me into an offering. My reflection in the polished bronze basin looked like someone else: a girl too polished, too perfect, too terrified.
Before they led me to the king, Serah said, "Remember: you do not speak unless addressed. You do not move unless instructed. You do not refuse him. Ever."
I was shaking so hard Tirzah had to steady me. "Don't leave me," I whispered. "I'll be right outside," she promised.
But outside was not inside.
King David was not what I expected. Legends painted him as radiant, mighty, filled with fire. But the man lying in the bed looked like winter itself—thin, pale, shrunken. So many blankets covered him that I could barely see the outline of his body. His breath rattled faintly. His eyelids fluttered but rarely opened. I had imagined a man still capable of ruling. What I saw was someone barely capable of living. The chamber physician gestured.
"Lie beside him. Your body heat will help."
My feet felt nailed to the floor. I did not want to move. I did not want to be there. I did not want to share a bed with a dying stranger. But I moved. Because they told me to. Because what else could I do? The blankets were heavy as I slid under them. The king's skin was icy where my arm brushed his. He murmured something I could not understand—some half-remembered battle, or prayer, or name.
The first night was the longest night of my life. Every breath felt stolen. Every moment felt like I was vanishing—a little more, a little more—until I wondered whether I would leave that bed as the same person who entered it. When the sun rose, I felt as though I'd been underground for years.
Days blurred into each other after that. I was not a wife. Not a concubine. Not a servant. I was warmth. A breathing blanket. A living thing used to preserve a dying man's comfort. Court attendants praised me. "His Majesty sleeps more soundly with you." "You are serving Israel." "You are blessed to be here."
Blessed. The word mocked me.
At night, when the palace quieted and only torchlight flickered on the walls, I would sneak out to the courtyard where Tirzah waited for me. She was the only person who let me be human. She held my hands, rubbing life back into them.
"You look paler every day," she whispered.
"I feel paler every day," I answered.
She drew me into an embrace, and for a heartbeat, I could pretend that I was not trapped in the coldest palace on earth.
"How is he?" she asked once.
"Cold," I replied. "Always cold. Sometimes he cries for his sons. Sometimes he calls for Bathsheba. Sometimes he doesn't seem to know I'm there at all."
"Has he… touched you?" Her voice wavered.
"No," I said. "Not like that. They say he is too weak. Too old."
She exhaled sharply.
"Then let them send you home!"
"They won't," I said. "They think if he dies, it will be my fault. As if warmth could stop death."
Every night I poured my sorrow into her hands. And every night she stitched my pieces back together—enough for me to survive another day. But I could feel something changing inside me, like a door slowly closing. Tirzah saw it too.
"You're disappearing," she whispered one evening.
"I know."
One afternoon, as I fed the king broth, Eliab appeared at the palace gates. I saw him from the window, the familiar slope of his shoulders, the anxious way he scanned the courtyard, the hope in his step. My heart shattered. I wanted to run to him. I wanted to scream his name. I wanted everything. But Serah placed a hand on my shoulder.
"You will not go to him."
"He came for me," I pleaded.
"Then he came for disappointment," she said coldly. "You belong to the king now."
They turned him away. He never saw me. I saw him leave. And something inside me died quietly.
That night I collapsed in Tirzah's arms.
"I can't breathe," I sobbed. "I feel like the air is made of stone."
Tirzah cried with me. "Hold on. He cannot live forever. It will end." I knew she was right.
But the days stretched. The king lingered. And winter had made a home inside my bones.
I became a shadow in the palace—a fixture, not a person. People stopped speaking to me and started speaking around me. I heard secrets that were never meant for my ears—whispers of succession, tension between Bathsheba and Adonijah, rumors of power shifting like fault lines. Yet no one ever asked what I wanted. My youth was a thing they stripped from me piece by piece.
Hope became a stranger. But Tirzah remained. She was the only warmth I had that wasn't demanded, the only softness not wrapped in obligation. She held me up when I wanted to let myself fall. She reminded me that I still had a name, and a past, and maybe—if God remembered me—a future. And every night, before I returned to the king's bed, she would take my face between her hands and whisper:
"You are not a blanket. You are not a tool. You are Abishag."
Some nights I believed her. Most nights I did not. But I lived because she said it. I endured because she stayed.
And the winter in the palace deepened. But soon—very soon—death would come. And with it, freedom. Or something that looked like freedom. I did not yet know that another winter waited for me beyond David's last breath. I did not yet know the name of the man who would claim me next.