Far to the south, in the city of David, the young king Solomon awoke before dawn. The palace still slept, but his heart was restless. The throne had come to him suddenly—Adonijah's ambition crushed, the old king's blessing upon him—yet already the weight of it pressed like a crown of iron. Courtiers whispered of alliances, priests spoke of the Ark's resting place, mothers of Israel brought their disputes to his judgment seat. Wisdom had been granted him in a dream at Gibeon, but wisdom did not quiet the ache for something simpler, something true.
He rose quietly, exchanged his royal linen for the rough wool of a shepherd, and slipped past the guards with only a trusted servant who knew to keep silence. Mounting a mule, he rode north through the waking hills, seeking the solitude where a man might hear his own soul speak.
The road wound upward past Bethlehem's fields, through the oak woods of Ephraim, until the broad plain of Jezreel opened before him like a green sea. Beyond lay the hills of Shunem, terraced with vineyards that caught the morning light like facets of emerald.
Solomon left the main path and followed a sheep track into the higher valleys. The air was cool, scented with wild thyme and the distant promise of rain. He tethered his mule beneath a carob tree and walked on foot, staff in hand, feeling for the first time in months the good earth beneath his sandals.
It was then he heard the voice.
Not the bleating of sheep nor the call of a bird, but a woman's song—clear, ardent, rising like incense from the vineyard below. The melody was simple, almost a shepherd's tune, yet the words carried a longing that pierced him.
"Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?"
He stood still among the rocks, hidden by a clump of terebinth. Below, in the midst of the vines, moved the singer: the Shulammite, her basket at her feet, driving away a fox with gentle stones. Her veil had slipped back in the warmth of her labor, revealing hair black and abundant as a flock descending the hills of Gilead.
Solomon's heart stirred in a way no dream of wisdom had ever moved it. This was no court beauty painted and perfumed, but a daughter of the soil, darkened by the same sun that ripened the grapes she tended. Yet in her voice he heard something royal, something that called to the hidden king within him.
He stepped forward, parting the vines. She turned swiftly, startled, her hand flying to her veil.
"Who art thou?" she asked, eyes wide as a doe's. "These vineyards are guarded."
"I am a shepherd of these hills," he answered, the lie coming easily for he wished to be known first as a man, not a monarch. "And thy voice, maiden, rises fairer than the song of the turtledove in spring."
She laughed then—a sound like water over stones—and the fear left her face. "A shepherd? Then tend thy flocks elsewhere, stranger, for my brothers are fierce, and the vines are not yet ready for wandering feet."
Yet she did not turn away. They spoke of small things first: the early blooming of the almonds, the little foxes that spoiled the tender grapes, the best paths to the hidden springs. His words were gentle, hers quick and unguarded. When he asked her name, she answered simply, "They call me the Shulammite."
"And I," he said, "am called... a keeper of sheep."
The sun climbed higher. Reluctantly he rose to leave. "I will return," he promised, though he knew not how a king might keep such words.
As he walked back toward his mule, her song followed him, softer now:
"As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste."
In Jerusalem that night, Solomon could not sleep. The voice in the hills had awakened something deeper than desire—a recognition, as though his soul had heard its counterpart singing from afar.
And in the vineyard of Shunem, the Shulammite lay awake beneath the stars, wondering at the stranger whose eyes had looked upon her not with judgment for her darkened skin, but with a wonder that made her feel, for the first time, truly seen.