I'm wondering what my King is doing, what he is thinking.
Wm. Shakespeare's Henry the King — at the end of a long bloody campaign — walks at night among his sleepless men, underdogs on the eve of battle.
Henry's face is cloaked, so he may hear and share thoughts with his troops in the dark disquiet. He describes how the common man might truly regard his King, himself:
France. The English camp at Agincourt.
…I think the King is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him, as it doth to me; the element shows to him, as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions. His ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing: therefore, when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish as ours are. Yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he, by showing it, should dishearten his army.
Henry V (Act IV, Scene 1)
Can we see our way through to battle at dawn?
And what of victory in the morn to follow?