Chapter Four: The Road That Divides the Heart
The change began like a faint wind at the edge of a calm sea. Makeda felt it before she could name it—a cooling in the warmth of the palace, a sharpening in the glances that followed her steps. Servants still bowed, but their eyes lingered too long. Some of the king's wives, once merely distant, now drew together in tight clusters, their murmurs rising like gnats in the heat. She had heard the language of jealousy in Sheba, but in Jerusalem it took on a subtler tone, cloaked in piety and protocol. There were women who had shared Solomon's house long before she arrived, women whose families had woven alliances with his throne. To them, Makeda was a dust-storm from the south: unexpected, unsettling, incapable of being ignored. At first, she told herself it mattered little. Her heart had risen above the hunger for human approval. She was wrong!
Since her awakening to the Holy One's presence, the sting of whispered judgments no longer pierced as deeply as before. Yet she could not deny that the air had thickened around her. Conversations ended abruptly when she approached. Invitations to join the women's gatherings grew fewer, like fruit plucked from a branch until only leaves remained. More troubling than the jealousy, however, was the distance that began to stretch between her and Solomon. It was not a distance of affection, but of circumstance. The king's days multiplied with matters of judgment, treaties, and temple offerings. Messengers came and went with the urgency of storms.
When evening fell, there were nights when he could not join her in the garden of lilies, nights when the throne and the altar claimed him first. Makeda tried to accept this as the weight of kingship, yet her heart ached with a quiet, steady pain. She had learned to love not only Solomon's wisdom but his laughter, his silences, the way his hand would find hers as naturally as breath. Now, she found herself alone more often, tracing patterns in the dust with her fingers, whispering prayers into the twilight. One such evening, as the sky shaded from gold to violet, Makeda walked along the colonnade overlooking the inner courtyard. Above her, on an upper balcony, a cluster of Solomon's wives and concubines leaned on carved railings, their veils shimmering like soft clouds.
"She walks as though the court belongs to her," one voice said, not quite soft enough.
"As though the king's song has but one name upon it," another replied.
"She forgets that songs fade," a third added.
"And that the sun which bronzed her skin will set on her favor as well."
Makeda did not raise her eyes, but each word landed in her chest like small, well-aimed stones. She had once heard Solomon call her lovely as the tents of Kedar, blessed by the burning sun; now others named that same sun as a sign she did not belong. Her steps did not falter, yet something within her trembled.
That night, sleep would not come. The more she tried to rest, the more her thoughts wandered—to Solomon's long absences, to the watchful eyes of the court, and most of all, to the gentle voice that had begun to speak in her spirit since her nights near the temple courts. At last, unable to bear the silence, she wrapped herself in a dark cloak and slipped out into the palace corridors. The lamps along the walls burned low, their flames small and steady.
Outside the palace gates, Jerusalem lay in hushed stillness. She passed through the streets, her sandals whispering against stone, the cool night air brushing her face. In the distance, she saw the silhouettes of the watchmen, moving along the walls like slow, patient shadows. Their presence brought to mind the verses Solomon had once spoken of the beloved wandering through the city, searching for the one her soul loved. For the first time, she truly understood that image—the restless ache, that mingled devotion and confusion.
One of the watchmen noticed her approach. "Lady," he said, not unkindly, "what do you seek in the streets at this hour?"
"I seek the one whom my soul loves," Makeda answered softly. "Yet it seems that even when he is near, my heart is no longer at rest."
The watchman studied her face—the foreign features, the unmistakable dignity in her gaze.
"The king carries many burdens," he replied. "A man who belongs to many cannot belong entirely to one. But the One who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps, and His gaze is never divided."
His words struck deep. Makeda bowed her head, then moved on, her feet carrying her toward a small rise where she could see the temple hill. There, she sank to her knees, cloak pooling around her like gathered shadow.
"Holy One," she whispered into the open sky, "You have awakened my soul, and through the love of this man, You have drawn me nearer to Yourself. But now my heart is torn. Am I meant to cling to this love, or to let it open my hands for something beyond my sight?"
No thunder answered, no vision split the darkness. Yet in the stillness, a quiet certainty settled on her spirit. The love she bore for Solomon was not a mistake, nor a distraction. It had been a road—a beautiful, painful road—that had led her to a deeper knowledge of God. But roads were made for traveling, not for building houses upon.
Days later, the question that had stirred faintly in her heart came to her in the form of men from the south. A caravan from Sheba reached Jerusalem, their camels laden not with spices this time, but with letters and pleas. They asked an audience with Solomon, and he, remembering his bond with Makeda's people, agreed. Among the caravan was an elder who had known her since childhood, his hair white as desert salt, his eyes sharp with both affection and concern. When he saw Makeda standing beside the king, his face softened, but his voice bore the weight of distant troubles.
"Daughter of Sheba," he said, "your mother's house grows anxious. Drought has stretched across parts of our land like a tight bow. Trade routes falter, and the people murmur. They have heard of your wisdom and your nearness to the king of Israel. They say: 'Let Makeda return, that she may counsel us, that she may bring with her the fear of the God she has come to know.'"
The words fell between them like a drawn line. Makeda felt the pull of two worlds tightening around her—Jerusalem with its temple and king, Sheba with its thirsty fields and waiting faces.
That evening, Solomon came to her chamber in unadorned garments, the weight of kingship visible in the set of his shoulders. For a long moment, neither spoke. Then he said, quietly,
"The south calls you."
She nodded, fingers curled tightly together.
"They ask for what I have received here," she replied. "Not only the wisdom I've heard from your lips, but the knowledge of the Holy One I've found in your city."
"And your heart?" he asked. "What does it say?"
Makeda lifted her eyes to his.
"My heart is divided," she confessed. "Part of me longs to remain in the shadow of this temple, near the man whose love woke me from a long sleep. But another part hears the cry of my people, who sit in a land south of Egypt, hungry for counsel, for hope, for this God I have met in Israel. I cannot pretend I was awakened only for myself."
Solomon stepped closer, his gaze tender and grave.
"From the first day you entered my courts," he said, "I knew you were not meant to be hidden. Your presence here has been like a rare fragrance, filling these halls with a reminder that the Holy One's reach is wider than Israel alone. If He now calls you back to Sheba, then my love must agree with His will, or it is not worthy of you."
Tears pricked her eyes.
"Will our distance undo what has been woven between us?" she asked.
He raised a hand, brushing away one tear with his thumb.
"No distance can erase what God has written," he answered. "You go as one sealed—by my love, yes, but more importantly by His. Let jealousy speak as it will within these walls; it cannot lay claim to what the Holy One has sanctified."
In the days that followed, the court buzzed with quiet speculation. Some rejoiced at the thought of the foreign woman's departure; others watched her with a reluctant respect, sensing that something holy hovered around her choice. Makeda moved among them with a new calm. The jealousy that once stung now seemed small amidst the vastness of her calling. She was no longer merely a beloved in a king's chamber; she was a woman summoned to carry light back to a land that still sat partly in a shadow.
On the morning set for her departure, the sky over Jerusalem glowed with a soft, pale gold. Solomon walked with her to the city's outer gate; the streets lined with curious onlookers. She wore simple, traveling garments, yet there was a quiet majesty in her bearing—the radiance of one who had looked for both love and loss in the face and found something greater on the other side. At the gate, Solomon drew from his robe a small seal on a cord, impressed with his mark. Placing it around her neck, he said,
"Let this rest over your heart as a sign that you are loved—not in the small way of possessions, but in the larger way of blessings. As you return to your people, may the fire that has been kindled in you burn without consuming you, and may those who see you know that the God of Israel has visited the lands of the south."
Makeda's throat tightened.
"I go because the Holy One calls," she said, "but also because your love has given me courage to answer Him. Whatever songs you write after this, know that one woman in Sheba prays that your wisdom will always bow to His voice."
Their hands parted at last. She turned toward the road that wound southward, the same sun that had darkened her skin now lighting her path. As the caravan moved away, she did not look back often. She carried Jerusalem within her: the courts of the king, the jealousy of the women, the watchmen of the night, the temple's rising smoke, and the voice of God that had spoken through love and loneliness alike. Her awakening and her love had been tested—by distance, by envy, by the tug-of-war between staying and going.
Yet she walked now with a strange, fierce peace. She went not as one abandoned, but as one sent. And far behind her, in a city of stone and song, a king watched the diminishing figure of the woman who had taught him that the flame of true love always points upward, toward the One from whom every good gift comes.