Ama (20 page)

He invented a nickname for each of the old fogies who were his teachers: the one who was forever scratching his balls; and the other who picked his nose in public. But now there was no one to share an innocent malicious chuckle with him. He much preferred the Muslim clerics to whom he gave weekly audience. They told him gripping stories from their Holy Book and the Tales of a Thousand and One Nights, preparing the ground for ambitious future projects which they discussed amongst themselves only in whispers.

He appointed Koranten Péte to act as chairman of the Regency Council. This was one man he could admire and respect, a welcome substitute for his natural father, Mamponhene Safo Kantanka, whom he had hardly known. Koranten Péte called on him every day to brief him fully on the affairs of state and the decisions which had been taken in his name. He heard in this way of the removal of his erstwhile sponsor, Atakora Mensah, from the stool of Mampon and learned that at times high office demands the renunciation of such qualities as loyalty and gratitude, prized by men of humbler origin.

He was eager to prove himself in war. Koranten Péte had great difficulty in persuading him that he was not yet ready to lead his forces in person. On his Regent's advice he appointed Osei Kwadwo's young protégé, Opoku Frede-Frede, Opoku the Swift, to lead an Asante force which he sent to chastise the Asens for their impudent rebellion against his ailing predecessor. He celebrated Opoku's resounding victory with generous gifts and a lavish public celebration over which he presided in person.

Koranten Péte and Konadu Yaadom advised him to court popularity amongst the common people as a counterweight to the schemes of ambitious enemies who might seek to take advantage of his youth. So he decreed that only convicted criminals would henceforth be killed at public executions; and that only once a year, on the occasion of the Great Adae.

For a while he shunned female company. He hardly noticed Esi and Ama, who had helped to raise him and had sometimes joined his boisterous childhood games. When he did deign to acknowledge their respectful greetings, he did so with haughty indifference. He stopped bullying his elder sister Amma Sewaa and now ignored her completely. He kept his distance, too, from Konadu Yaadom. The Queen Mother was the only person with the constitutional right to scold him in public, and although she wisely held this privilege in reserve, he feared her zeal and her acid tongue.

He continued to live in Konadu Yaadom's quarters but he now had a bedroom of his own.

It was one of Esi's duties to tidy his room each day, but whenever she was menstruating, Ama took over this task. Esi generally waited until he had left the courtyard before she entered his room, so that he hardly knew who it was that cleaned up the mess he often left in his wake.

One day Ama, it being her turn and thinking him absent, entered Osei Kwame's bedroom, humming to herself, thinking of her little brother Nowu and how big he must now be. She was already halfway across the room when she realised that Osei Kwame was there. He was lying on his bed, face down, and sobbing. Ama stopped dead in her tracks. Becoming aware of a presence in his room, Osei Kwame turned. Before she averted her eyes, Ama saw the tear stains on his cheeks.

“What do you want,” he snapped at her.

She fell to her knees.

“Please, Nana, I didn't know Nana was here. I only came to tidy Nana's room.”

He stared at her but said nothing so she rose and started to back out of the room.

“Wait,” he said.

Then, “Latch the door.”

She was not sure if she had heard right.

“Latch the door, I said.”

He was sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Come,” he said.

She approached him slowly, hardly knowing what to expect, until she stood before him.

He wiped his eyes. Then he looked up at her. Ama wondered if it were not improper for the King to be raising his eyes to a slave and whether she should not perhaps sink to her knees before him. But this was only Kwame Panin, whom she had known as a boy, who had patiently taught her the rules of
oware
. And he was still a boy, she saw.

“Ama,” he said, “Ama.”

And then the flood burst. Sobbing uncontrollably, he sank his face into her breast. Suddenly she remembered Suba and how they had cried together after he had helped her to bury Itsho. She held the boy's head to her and caressed him.

“I don't want to be Asantehene,” he said through the sobs.

“There now, don't talk,” she said, holding him tight and comforting him, though unsure how she should address him.

After a while the sobbing subsided. He kept holding her though, his head between her breasts, afraid to show his face. Then she became aware of the pressure of his erect penis. All of a sudden her mind was in a turmoil. She was consumed by a deep, almost maternal, compassion for the boy. She was sure he had never before been with a woman. Then she struggled to impose her will upon her own rising desire. What would be the consequences? Was she condemning herself to a wasted life in the royal harems like the old women she had heard talk of? What if Konadu Yaadom or Koranten Péte should come to the door?

Itsho
. She tried desperately to conjure up Itsho's presence, but he did not respond.

Since Abdulai had raped her, she had never felt any desire for a man. Now she was overwhelmed. She pushed him gently from her.

“Lie down,” she said.

She pulled his cloth away from under him. He lay naked; she was aware of his rigid organ, but, knowing that he would be shy, she did not look at it. Instead she stroked his cheek with the back of her hand and looked straight into his eyes. He returned her look, his mind confused by strange emotions. She let her cloth drop to the floor and unfastened her beads. Then she climbed onto the bed and, taking him in her hand, lowered herself onto him.

She played him like a
sanko
. She let him move a while and then she pinned him down, holding him immobile.

“Ama, Ama,” he begged her.

When she felt he could hold it no more, she held him tight to her and rolled them both over so that he could ride her to the finish like a man.

When they had rested, he said, “Ama, you will be my first wife.”

“No, Nana, no,” she replied, suddenly terrified at what she had done.

“Why ‘no'?” he asked. “I will command you. It is my right.”

“Nana,” she said, “I beg you. I will make love to you whenever you desire it, but please do not force me to be your wife.”

“You should be honoured,” he said, sulking, “It is not every woman who gets to marry the King of Asante.”

She looked at him, wondering whether she might risk a cheeky reply.

“Only three thousand, three hundred and thirty three,” she said.

“Oh, that's what it is, is it? Anyway, there is no hurry.”

She rose.

“Nana,” she said, “I must go. My absence will be noticed. Nana Asantehemaa will be calling for me.”

He pulled her back and put his moist lips to a nipple. She saw another erection coming and pulled away.

“Where did you learn that?” she said and then, “Not now. Keep it for another time.”

“When?” he said, “Tonight?”

“No,” Ama replied, “I will tell you when.”

She went out and busied herself in the courtyard. Soon he followed and called his personal bodyguard. He paid no attention to her but she noticed a new jauntiness in his step as he passed through the gate.

* * *

Osei Kwame soon found an excuse to quarrel with Esi.

He demanded that she should no longer clean his room. Ama alone was now to do so and she was to do so only in his presence, before he left for his classes each morning. She was to report to him every day at dawn.

The boy's lust for Ama was insatiable. Sometimes he would have her twice in quick succession, before he took his breakfast. He was barely willing to abstain during her periods. She could only hold him off by threatening him with the wrath of his ancestors for breaking the customary taboo.

And then he would pester her every day: “Haven't you stopped bleeding yet?”

It was only his fear of Konadu Yaadom's anger and unpredictable response that dissuaded him from boasting about their relationship.

Ama cursed herself for falling into a trap of her own making. She seemed destined either to life-long imprisonment as a rejected royal wife or to early execution for her temerity in introducing the young King to the mysteries of sex without the prior permission of the Queen Mother. She had no illusions about the boy's fidelity to her. Once the novelty had worn off, he would look around for a substitute or substitutes. On the other hand if Konadu Yaadom were to get wind of what was going on, she would have no compunction about handing her over to the Chief Executioner. She could see no way out, except a desperate attempt to escape from Kumase, an attempt that she knew was doomed to failure.

Ama found it difficult to fall asleep at night and when she did, she was disturbed by frequent nightmares. She could no longer concentrate on her work. Esi sometimes found her crying, but Ama refused to take her into her confidence, fearing that, with the best of intentions, her friend would not be able to keep such a secret. Most dangerous, she found that she most often had to feign pleasure for Osei Kwame. If he should begin to suspect, that would be the end of her.

Then, one day in the market, she caught sight of Minjendo. They ran to meet, fell about each others' necks and cried.

“Minjendo,” said Ama, “I had given up hope of ever seeing you again; and now you tell me that you have been working in a house I pass each time I am sent to the market.”

“Nandzi,” said Minjendo, “How are you? Tell me everything, everything that has happened since we were parted.”

They found a quiet spot and Ama began. In the joy of speaking in her own mother tongue, her resolution failed. She felt she would go mad if she could not tell her troubles to someone. When she came to talk of her relationship with Osei Kwame, Minjendo's eyes opened wider and wider in astonishment.

“You mean the King, the Asantehene himself?”

Ama nodded ruefully. Then she went on to talk about her fears, her insomnia, her nightmares.

“It sounds to me as if a spirit of the bush is afflicting you,” said Minjendo.

Ama looked at her. She had heard talk of Benekpib, spirits of the bush, evil ghosts of criminals, or of those who had not been buried with the proper ceremonies which would guarantee their spirits entry into the domains of the ancestors. The Benekpib, she knew, selected one poor person to persecute. Sometimes, they would harry their victim until he died. The only escape was treatment by a skilled diviner, who would capture the errant spirit, tame it and force it into the service of its former victim.

“There is a diviner, one of our own people, in our house. He is called Dzimwa. He might be able to help you. He works in the kitchen. I am sure he could find the time. Would you like me to speak to him?”

* * *

“I have thought deeply and at length about your case,” the diviner told her. “I do not believe that the ancestors are punishing you for failing to observe our customs. The ancestors are aware that we are no longer our own masters. And I do not believe that it is some unattached malevolent spirit of the bush which is attacking you. No, I believe that the key to your problem lies with the spirit of Itsho. Spirits are not that different from us. After all they were once also human beings. Indeed some sages say that they are destined to become human again in another form. They like us to make a fuss over them. It is clear from what you have told me that in the months immediately after Itsho's death, his spirit was watching over you intently. I suspect that since then you have neglected to speak to him regularly and to give him food and drink. So he feels abandoned and as a result he has withdrawn his protection from you. Does that sound plausible?”

Ama pondered.

“Sometimes I try to speak to him, but he doesn't hear me,” she said.

“I will teach you how to reach out to him and what to say to him. It will not be easy and you must not expect immediate results. He may wish to test your patience and dedication. Are you prepared to try?”

Ama nodded.

“Then next time you come you must bring me a white cockerel. I know that, like me, you are only a poor slave without resources, but I also know that you will find some way, because this is important to you.”

* * *

“Ama,” said Konadu Yaadom, “I am going on a trip.

The baby will come with me and you will come too, to look after him. Esi, you will stay behind to keep an eye on the older children.”

“Please, Nana, what of Nana Asantehene's room? “ asked Ama.

“Nana Asantehene will just have to make his peace with Esi,” replied the Queen Mother.

“Please, Nana, when do we leave?”

“Tomorrow at dawn,” replied Konadu Yaadom.

Ama thought,
I'll be glad to get away. I hope the boy won't take it too badly. Perhaps he will find some one else in my absence.

Maybe Esi,
she speculated and smiled to herself.

To Esi she said, “Where do you think we are going?”

“You are going, my dear sister,” replied Esi, who, unobserved, had been watching Ama's reaction to the news, “You are going on the great annual inspection of Nana Asantehemaa's kola estates and gold mines.”

* * *

Each village vied to outdo its neighbours in welcoming the Asantehemaa; so their progress was slow.

While Konadu Yaadom sat patiently listening to the views of the elders, Ama would wander around with Opoku Fofie on her back. He was growing quickly and was now quite heavy. Soon it would be time to wean him. Then Konadu Yaadom would allow her new husband, Owusu Ansa, into her bed and then she would become pregnant again. Ama wondered why she had never become pregnant, not with the seed of Itsho, nor that of the rapists Abdulai and Akwasi Anoma, nor, most surprisingly, with the child of Osei Kwame. Perhaps she was barren. Or perhaps Itsho was preventing her from conceiving.