I put this together as part of a 7th Sea competition; I wanted to get in on writing flavor text for the game. Alas, they did not decide to go with me. Alas, alack, their loss. I mean, I’m being arrogant here, perhaps — but I rather liked this. I think that you can figure out what’s going on, just by looking at what I wrote.
Anyway…
Gerard du Arrant sourly contemplated the scruffy, disheveled, and generally disreputable ruffian staring back at him in the hand mirror. All in all, he mused, this new look of his failed to satisfy. Oh, the beard could pass muster — when not even an officer in a Musketeer’s regiment can attend to his toilet, then no man in the regiment could be fairly called dirty. And the dirt and the bandages had their own charms; they reassured the viewer that Gerard had done his duty as a soldier, and never mind that this might come as a surprise to some, including of course Gerard himself.
The problem lay in the eyes. Those eyes disapproved of Gerard, and the braver he grew in battle the more they disapproved of what happened after the fighting ended. The Musketeer conceded that those eyes had a point. A soldier killed the enemy; very well, that happened. A soldier might find it necessary to kill foreign peasants; such things also happened, but a decent man would see to it that they happened as rarely as possible. But to kill your own peasants? Even at l’Empereur Alexandre’s express orders? By what right did Alexandre have to order that?
And, more to the point: by what right did l’Empereur have to expect Gerard du Arrant to play bandit by hanging farmers?