A 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'm leaving tomorrow, you can do what you will Only first I am asking you why" And down the long, narrow hall he was led Into her room with her tapestries red And she never once took the crown from her head She asked him then 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, would 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 Then she closed herself up like a fan And she said, "I have swallowed a secret burning thread It cuts me inside, and it's often I've bled" And he laid his hand then on the top of her head And he bowed her down to the ground "Tell me how hungry are you, how weak you must feel As you are living here alone, and you're 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 To love a young woman who I don't understand Your Highness, your ways are very strange" But the crown, it had fallen, and he thought she would break She stood there ashamed of the way her heart ached And he took her to the doorway, she asked him to wait She would only be a moment inside And out in the distance her order was heard And the soldier was killed still waiting for her word While the queen went on strangling in the solitude she preferred A battle raged on