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
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 in the long narrow hall he was led
And she never once took the crown from her head
Into her rooms with her tapestries red
She asked him there to sit down.
He said, "I see you now, and you are so very young
And I've got this intuition, says it's all for your fun
But I've seen more battles lost than I have battles won
And now will you tell me why?"
The young queen, she fixed him with an arrogant eye
She said, "You won't understand, and you may as well not try"
But she closed herself up like a fan.
It cuts me inside, and often I've bled"
But her face was a child's, and he thought she would cry
And she said, "I've swallowed a secret burning thread
He laid his hand then on top of her head
"Tell me how hungry are you? How weak you must feel
And he bowed her down to the ground.
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
But she knew how it frightened her, and she turned away
And she wanted more than she ever could say
And he said, "I want to live as an honest man
And would not look at his face again.
To get all I deserve and to give all I can
Your highness, your ways are very strange."
And to love a young woman who I don't understand
But the crown, it had fallen, and she thought she would break
And 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.
Out in the distance her order was heard
And while the queen went on strangeling in the solitude she preferred
And the soldier was killed, still waiting for her word
The battle continued on