Ama (17 page)

* * *

As they entered the Queen Mother's courtyard, Kwame Panin, hiding behind a column in the gloom of the veranda, drove a spear into Ama's basket, spiked an orange and was gone. Ama felt the impact but couldn't see its cause. Only Esi caught a glimpse of the mischief's perpetrator.

“Kwame Panin!” she called after him, but he was gone.

“He is so naughty, that boy. What he needs is a good beating. I don't understand why his mother tolerates such behaviour,” said Ama when Esi had helped her to put her basket down.

“His mother?” cried Esi. Then she dropped her voice. “Oh, you mean Nana. But didn't you know? Konadu Yaadom is not his real mother.”

She looked around before she continued, “Kwame is the son of her elder sister, Akyaamah. Same mother, Aberefi Yaa, who was also once Asantehemaa, but different fathers.”

“And where is this Akyaamah now? Is she dead?” asked Ama.

“In a way,” replied Esi, relishing the prospect of sharing a scabrous piece of gossip with possibly the only person in the palace who had not heard it before. “Take a seat and I'll tell you.”

“This Akyaamah, as you call her, Kwame's natural mother, was the Asantehemaa in the reign of Kusi Obodum. His successor, our present King, Osei Kwadwo, came to find her occupying the Asantehemaa's stool. I wasn't here at the time but I have heard from others who were that, from the very beginning, Akyaamah and Osei Kwadwo didn't get on. Some say that Akyaamah had advised Kusi Obodum that Osei Kwadwo should be executed for dallying with his uncle's wives and that Osei Kwadwo never forgave her. You know about that?”

Ama nodded.

“Akyaamah's husband, and father of our young Kwame, was Safo Katanka, who was then the King of Mampon. While he was alive, Safo Katanka managed to keep some sort of peace between his wife and Osei Kwadwo, but he was already an old man and after three years he died.

“Soon after Safo Katanka's death, matters came to a head between the King and the Queen Mother. The woman started to rebuke him openly at Court. Now the Queen Mother has that right. Indeed she is the only person who may do that. However it seems she did it in such a nasty way and so relentlessly that Osei Kwadwo was publicly humiliated. They say that she threatened that if he refused to raise an army to attack the Fanti, she would do so herself.

“Nana Asantehene made a last attempt to resolve their differences. He invited Akyaamah to a private meeting. Only their personal slaves attended them, no one else; not even their closest advisers were present. Even at that meeting she insulted him. She called him a small boy; she told him he wasn't fit to sit on Osei Tutu's stool; she branded him a coward. Osei Kwadwo tried to keep his calm. He told her that the blood of both Osei Tutu and Opoku Ware ran in his veins and that she should not take his revered grandfather's name in vain. He told her that he was the Asantehene, not she and that by her behaviour she was undermining the authority of the Golden Stool. He told her that war was the business of men, not women. ‘It is the business of a woman to sell garden eggs, not gunpowder,' he told her.

“Akyaamah persisted with her insults. Osei Kwadwo became angry. He told her that he would no longer tolerate her abuse. He said that she wasn't fit to be Asantehemaa. She called him stupid and ignorant. She threatened to start destoolment proceedings against him on the grounds of his adultery with the wives of his late uncle Kusi Obodum. He replied that she had lost her senses, that she was mad. That infuriated her. In a fit of uncontrollable anger she slapped his face.

“Now in our custom, the Asantehemaa is supposed to be the mother of the nation. She has the right to say practically anything to the King. But that privilege does not extend to inflicting violence upon the King's person. It is unheard of for anyone to slap the Asantehene, just as it is unheard of for him to beat any subject.”

“So what did he do?”

“What could he do? He had no alternative. He called in the guards and had her placed under close arrest. Then he sent for Nana Asumgyina Penemo, Safo Katanka's successor as Mamponhene, who happened to be Konadu Yaadom's father and Akyaamah's step-father. They agreed that the matter should be hushed up. Akyaamah was sent into exile in Mampon and there she has remained since. The two slaves who were present were executed.”

“The slaves were executed? For what?”

“For having been present. They had seen and heard too much. It was not proper for the story of such events to be told by slaves.”

“Not proper!? And was it proper to kill the slaves on such flimsy grounds?”

“Ama, calm down. I am telling you the story as it happened. I didn't say they did right.”

Ama shook her head from side to side in disbelief. She massaged her arms as if that would in some way assuage her anguish.

“What a country! Those slaves who were executed could have been me, or you. What a travesty of justice! What mindless cruelty!”

With a note of urgency in her voice, Esi said, “Ama. My sister. Get a grip on yourself. If you want to survive in this place, you have to learn to control your emotions. Remember that slaves have few rights and that the Asantehene is not only the King but also the highest judge in the land.

“Please, I beg you, remember too that you have never heard the story I have just told you. By order of the Asantehene all reference to Akyaamah has been expunged from the history of the Golden Stool. It is a capital offence to speak of her.”

“But then how is that you know exactly what happened?”

“Every one knows the story and at the same time no one knows it. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to keep anything a secret in this palace. But if you want to survive, particularly if you are a slave, or a pawn like me, you must learn to exercise the greatest discretion in choosing whom you speak to and what you say. Do you understand?”

“That's what Mensa told me,” Ama mused.

“So what happened to Kwame Panin?” she asked.

“They took him away from Akyaamah, him and his elder sister, Amma Sewaa, and gave them to Nana Konadu. I guess that Nana Osei Kwadwo made that a condition for recognising Akyaamah's son as his successor. Anyway they are all family: Akyaamah and Konadu Yaadom are both his nieces.”

“Do they know all this? Do they talk about it?”

“Who? Kwame and Amma Sewaa? I have never heard either of them talk about it. They treat Nana Konadu as if she were their natural mother. Perhaps they have been warned that if they take Akyaamah's part they will be denied the succession.”

“I will ask them,” said Ama with a mischievous glint in her eye.

“You will stir up a hornet's nest and the wasps will sting you to death if you do,” said Esi.

* * *

Ama dreamed. She stood beside a deep pit. Red-shirted dwarfs ran towards her, each bearing a basket on his head.

As each dwarf reached her he tipped the contents of his basket onto a bloody heap of severed human heads. Ama's job was to throw the heads into the pit. The Chief Executioner stood by, bare-chested, displaying his muscles and cracking his whip. Ama worked faster and faster but the pile continued to grow.

The scene changed. Before her lay another pit, shallower, but much larger. It was full of naked bodies. They were dead, but they continued to writhe like snakes in a sea of blood. The royal procession approached, led by the King under his umbrella. Drums beat and horns screeched.

“Yes, that is the one,” said the King, pointing at her.

The Chief Executioner grabbed her suddenly from behind, one arm round her waist, the other hand in her crotch. The horns blared out again as he propelled her up into the air, in a great, arcing slow-motion trajectory which would take her into the pit. She screamed.

Ama awoke, drenched in sweat, with the sound of her scream still on her lips.

She was awake, but the horns were still screeching. She was sure she was awake. She could not still be dreaming. Here was Esi snoring beside her. Ama shook her friend.

“What's the matter?” asked Esi sleepily.

“The horns,” said Ama.

“The horns? Have you never heard them before? Just the King's horns. They play every night at about this time. They are saying,

‘King Osei thanks all officers and men,

‘Of his government

‘And of his army.

‘He thanks all his people

‘And wishes them a peaceful night.'

“Now go back to sleep.”

CHAPTER 10

Osei Kwadwo was dying of cancer.

Okomfo Tantani, priest and servant of the river god Tano, tried his whole gamut of cures. None had any persistent effect upon the King's condition. At last the priest called for a white ram and a white ewe from the King's flocks. Konadu Yaadom contributed a white cockerel. The priest slit the throats of all three and daubed their blood on the door posts and window frames of the King's bedroom, on the royal bed and on the solid gold foot stool which a predecessor in royal office had acquired from the vanquished King of Denkyira. When these measures, too, failed to drive off the malignant spirits which were troubling the King, Tantani succeeded in persuading his patient that he was the victim of human malevolence in the person of one of his discarded wives. Only by allowing the Okomfo to discover the individual responsible, could Osei Kwadwo hope to return to good health.

The eunuch who managed the Street of Old Wives co-operated by preparing a short list of his most troublesome charges. Six old women were paraded before the ailing King. They were all his wives but he could recall neither their names nor their faces.

An ordeal by poison and the death of the unfortunate victims had no effect upon the health of Osei Kwadwo, whose condition continued to deteriorate.

The State Councillors went into caucus with the Queen Mother. It was decided, as a desperate last measure, to call in the Kramos, the Muslims. Sharif Imhammed welcomed this opportunity to demonstrate the superiority of the occult powers of Islamic prayer, over those of animist superstition. In anticipation of this invitation, for which his small community had lobbied vigorously, he had delayed his departure on his long return journey to Fezzan. Or so he persuaded himself. Truth was that no foreign visitor was permitted to leave the Asante capital without the say-so of the King and the King was in no condition to deal with such administrative matters. Until the King recovered or until he died and his successor was lowered three times onto the Golden Stool, Sharif Imhammed would remain a virtual prisoner in Kumase.

* * *

“Esiii, Amaaa, where are you two? Come here at once.”

Konadu Yaadom rushed into her courtyard in a state of all too evident consternation. Esi and Ama dropped the yams they were peeling, wiped their hands and came running to meet her.

“Where is Opoku Fofie? What have you done with my baby?”

Esi considered replying,
We have eaten him, you bitch
, but she said only, “Please, Nana, he is sleeping.”

“Put his things together and bring him. Both of you. I may not be able to come back here tonight and I shall have to feed him there when he wakes up. Do you understand?”

Esi and Ama exchanged a nervous glance.

“Yes, Nana,” they replied in unison and went to do as they had been told.

The baby grumbled a little as Ama put him on her back and tucked in her cloth, but he soon fell back into a deep sleep.

“Eat-and-sleep, eat-and-sleep,” said Esi, giving him a kiss on the cheek. She was fond of him. He was only a baby after all and hadn't yet had time to acquire the royal arrogance which so offended her.

Konadu Yaadom was giving instructions to her other servants. Her first-born and his two small sisters had to be fed and put to bed. It was not easy to be a wife and mother, to manage such a large household of slaves and at the same time to perform her exacting royal duties. The imminent death of Osei Kwadwo placed great responsibilities upon her young shoulders and she was nervous. She wondered what could have happened to Koranten Péte. He should have been back by now. She needed his support. Her new husband, the royal prince Owusu Ansa, was next to useless in such matters. He was probably out drinking while his father lay dying.

She had sent Kwame Panin, the heir apparent, to Mampon for his own safety. She had no illusions: her survival hung entirely upon his. If the Kokofuhene were to succeed in his plans to take the Golden Stool, her fate would be in the balance. She would be lucky to escape with her life as her sister Akyaamah had.

Kwame Panin's elder sister, Amma Sewaa, had gone with him to Mampon, but her aunt had soon recalled the girl. Amma Sewaa was now fourteen. It was more than a year since her menarche and her nubility rites were overdue. A husband had already been selected for her, a son of the late Asantehene Kusi Obodum. More pressing matters, however, had intervened.

“Amma Sewaa, you come with us, too,” said Konadu Yaadom.

Amma Sewaa was Konadu Yaadom's most obvious heir as Asantehemaa and it was important that she should be by her aunt's side in these trying times. That was the best way to fit her for her future office.

Konadu Yaadom gave strict instructions to the captain of the guards at the gate. She strengthened her personal bodyguard and then they set off, waiting for the opening of locked gate upon locked gate, until they reached the inner courtyard of the King.

Flaming torches lit every corner of the King's quarters. Courtiers sat in small groups and conversed in low tones. There was a constant flow up and down the stairs to Osei Kwadwo's first floor bedroom. Konadu Yaadom took Amma Sewaa with her to keep watch by the bed of the dying monarch.

Ama looked around. In one corner of the courtyard stood a forked
Onyame-dua
, the tree of God, with its brass bowl of rainwater, God's water, in which resided the King's favoured deities. As she passed it, Konadu Yaadom paused. She drew aside the red and white cloths which covered the vessel and flicked water over her face. Amma Sewaa followed suit.