The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door He said, "I am not fighting for you anymore" And the queen knew she'd seen his face some place before And slowly she let him inside
He said, "I've watched your palace up here on the hill And I've wondered who's the woman for whom we all kill But I am leaving tomorrow and you can do what you will Only first I am asking you why"
Down the long narrow hall he was led Into her rooms with her tapestries red And she never once took the crown from her head She asked him there to sit down
He said, "I see you now and you are so very young But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won And I've got this intuition, says it's all for your fun And now will you tell me why?"
Well, the young queen, she fixed him with an arrogant eye She said, "You won't understand and you may as well not try" But her face was a child's and he thought she would cry But she closed herself up like a fan
And she said, "I've swallowed a secret butning thread It cuts me inside and often I've bled" And he laid his hand then on top of her head And he bowed her down to the ground
"And tell me how hungry are you? How weak you must feel As you are living here alone and you are never revealed But I won't march again on your battlefield" And he took her to the window to see
And the sun, it was gold though the sky, it was gray And she wanted more than she ever could say But she knew how it frightened her and she turned away And would not look at his face again
And he said, "I want to live as an honest man To get all I deserve and to give all I can And to love a young woman who I don't understand Your highness, your ways are very strange"
But the crown, it had fallen and she thought she would break And she stood there ashamed of the way her heart ached And she tool him to the doorstep and she asked him to wait She would only be a moment inside
Out in the distance her order was heard And the soldier was killed, still waiting for her word And while the queen went on strangling In the solitude she preferred, the battle continued on