The soldier came knocking upon the queen's door
He said, "I am not fighting for you any more"
The queen knew she'd seen his face someplace before
So 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 must ask you why."
And down in 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
So now will you tell me why?"
The young queen, she fixed him with an arrogant eye
She said, "You won't understand, so 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.
She said, "I've swallowed a secret burning thread
It cuts me inside, and often I've bled"
He laid his hand then on 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 sit here alone, but 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, and 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.
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
She stood there, ashamed of the way her heart ached
She took him to the doorstep and she asked him to wait
She would only be a moment inside.
But out in the distance her order was heard
And the soldier was killed, still waiting for her word
And as the queen went on strangling in the solitude
She preferred, the battle continued on...
Lyrics found here