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Ah, betrayal. If you grow up at the Royal Court, you breathe it in and out like air, but not in the way outsiders might imagine. We Centauri are a deeply misunderstood species, after all; quite often we find our name coupled with “betrayal” or “treachery”, in such a way that suggests “Centauri” and “betrayal” could be treated as synonyms. By this the other races usually mean that we Centauri, like everyone else, tend to look after our own interests first and rarely hesitate to sacrifice other people to save our own. This naturally makes us very different from, say, the Minbari, who were willing to wipe out an entire species because one of their own had died, yes?
But no. I know I am being churlish, and trying to avoid the topic. Let me try again. We Centauri place a great deal of pride in our loyalty, our honour, as much as this will surprise others. Any of us is raised to be loyal to his House, his House’s allies and friends, and the Republic. Not necessarily in that order. And there you have the problem, yes? I remember a time when the late Lord Kiro visited the station. (How can I not? It was then that I encountered Mr. Morden.) He had designs on the imperial throne, and tried to enlist my help. As it turned out, his scheme never advanced very far, or at all, since he died before the day was over. But his visit illustrates a quintessential Centauri dilemma. Our Houses had not just been allies of old, there had been a lot of marriages tying us together; we were related. What would have been the correct path to take, the path of honour? To denounce him to the Emperor, thereby fulfilling my loyalty as a Centauri subject, or to support him, thereby honouring our relationship but betraying the Emperor? It is a situation any Centauri of status finds himself in sooner or later, and decisions have to be made. Betrayal is as inevitable as loyalty to whomever one chooses to honour first, and that is where my simile about breathing applies.
Do not believe that choosing what one can quaintly call “the greater good” makes this any easier, or puts an end to the inevitability of betrayal. I am an ambitious man, yes, and yet I tell myself that my most serious actions were governed by a loyalty to my people first and foremost. Some of these actions resulted in war and the death of so many; but the most serious act I ever instigated, from a Centauri point of view, resulted in only one death, and might have saved our people from ending up as a funeral pyre to a madman. Yet this act was among other things most certainly a betrayal. For a Centauri noble, there can be none worse, if you believe the old saying about the Emperor being the soul of the people.
And yet it is not this act that haunts me. I never doubted for a moment that it was the right thing to do, and what regrets I have are tied to the unfortunate circumstances that let someone else’s innocence die at the same time. No, what comes inevitably to mind when I think of betrayal, the memory I have been avoiding most pointedly but which yells at me with a most distinct Narnish voice, is of an earlier and very different occasion altogether.
A drink. Such a little thing. And yet so much. When G’Kar rushed towards me, I was convinced he had already heard the news, had learned about what had happened in Quadrant 34. But he had not. He had heard something else altogether. It was not until much, much later that I found out what it had been. At that moment, I was too bewildered and horrified to understand much of anything, but I understood this: he invited me to a drink, he gave a toast to the Emperor’s health, he added “perhaps to your health as well”, he said there was hope for our people. And he was happy, gleefully happy. Happier than I had ever seen him. Happy not about something that caused the Centauri humiliation, or the Narn triumph. He was happy about the prospect of peace. True peace.
And with every sip I took, I knew that peace was utterly gone and destroyed. At my hands.
Later, when he did find out, he came to kill me. Sheridan stopped him before he reached my quarters, but he came close enough for me to hear him shout my name. My name, and the accusation of betrayal.
It was not fitting, I told myself. You can only betray an ally, or a friend. Someone from your own House. A member of your own species. Surely, it is impossible to betray an enemy who for most of his life thirsted to kill as many of your people as possible. But there it was, that word, claiming a horrible intimacy which I had not understood to exist until the moment I held that drink in my hand: Betrayal.
With this one world, I learned that all my assumptions, all the traditions I had been raised with, were not enough to teach me about betrayal. For you can betray your enemy, when he stretches out his hand to touch you in peace for the first time.
And this is the worst betrayal of all.
But no. I know I am being churlish, and trying to avoid the topic. Let me try again. We Centauri place a great deal of pride in our loyalty, our honour, as much as this will surprise others. Any of us is raised to be loyal to his House, his House’s allies and friends, and the Republic. Not necessarily in that order. And there you have the problem, yes? I remember a time when the late Lord Kiro visited the station. (How can I not? It was then that I encountered Mr. Morden.) He had designs on the imperial throne, and tried to enlist my help. As it turned out, his scheme never advanced very far, or at all, since he died before the day was over. But his visit illustrates a quintessential Centauri dilemma. Our Houses had not just been allies of old, there had been a lot of marriages tying us together; we were related. What would have been the correct path to take, the path of honour? To denounce him to the Emperor, thereby fulfilling my loyalty as a Centauri subject, or to support him, thereby honouring our relationship but betraying the Emperor? It is a situation any Centauri of status finds himself in sooner or later, and decisions have to be made. Betrayal is as inevitable as loyalty to whomever one chooses to honour first, and that is where my simile about breathing applies.
Do not believe that choosing what one can quaintly call “the greater good” makes this any easier, or puts an end to the inevitability of betrayal. I am an ambitious man, yes, and yet I tell myself that my most serious actions were governed by a loyalty to my people first and foremost. Some of these actions resulted in war and the death of so many; but the most serious act I ever instigated, from a Centauri point of view, resulted in only one death, and might have saved our people from ending up as a funeral pyre to a madman. Yet this act was among other things most certainly a betrayal. For a Centauri noble, there can be none worse, if you believe the old saying about the Emperor being the soul of the people.
And yet it is not this act that haunts me. I never doubted for a moment that it was the right thing to do, and what regrets I have are tied to the unfortunate circumstances that let someone else’s innocence die at the same time. No, what comes inevitably to mind when I think of betrayal, the memory I have been avoiding most pointedly but which yells at me with a most distinct Narnish voice, is of an earlier and very different occasion altogether.
A drink. Such a little thing. And yet so much. When G’Kar rushed towards me, I was convinced he had already heard the news, had learned about what had happened in Quadrant 34. But he had not. He had heard something else altogether. It was not until much, much later that I found out what it had been. At that moment, I was too bewildered and horrified to understand much of anything, but I understood this: he invited me to a drink, he gave a toast to the Emperor’s health, he added “perhaps to your health as well”, he said there was hope for our people. And he was happy, gleefully happy. Happier than I had ever seen him. Happy not about something that caused the Centauri humiliation, or the Narn triumph. He was happy about the prospect of peace. True peace.
And with every sip I took, I knew that peace was utterly gone and destroyed. At my hands.
Later, when he did find out, he came to kill me. Sheridan stopped him before he reached my quarters, but he came close enough for me to hear him shout my name. My name, and the accusation of betrayal.
It was not fitting, I told myself. You can only betray an ally, or a friend. Someone from your own House. A member of your own species. Surely, it is impossible to betray an enemy who for most of his life thirsted to kill as many of your people as possible. But there it was, that word, claiming a horrible intimacy which I had not understood to exist until the moment I held that drink in my hand: Betrayal.
With this one world, I learned that all my assumptions, all the traditions I had been raised with, were not enough to teach me about betrayal. For you can betray your enemy, when he stretches out his hand to touch you in peace for the first time.
And this is the worst betrayal of all.
