Ama (6 page)

“Have you finished?” asked the Na at length. “You say that you captured twenty slaves, a woman, a boy and eighteen grown men. Is that correct?”

Abdulai concurred. It was clear that the Na appreciated his achievements. Perhaps he would reward him with the gift of a new horse, he thought.

“What were your casualties, men and horses?” Na Sa asked him quietly.

He knew the answer. Damba had already reported to him, in private.

Abdulai felt his world collapse about him.

“Two men killed; and two horses,” he replied.

“Think carefully, Commander Abdulai,” said the King. “I ask you again. What were your casualties, men and horses? Tell me the truth, now. I shall not ask you a third time.”

“Three men killed; and three horses,” replied Abdulai.

He had made a mistake in underestimating the Na. The King must have powerful medicine at his disposal. It was uncanny how his question had addressed precisely the facts which Abdulai had resolved to conceal.

“Why did you fail to state this in your report? Why did you lie to me?”

Abdulai hung his head. He knew that an attempt to answer could only exacerbate his predicament.

“The Council of Eunuchs will sit on this matter, examine all witnesses and report to me,” ordered the King. “Galidima, understood?”

The Chief of the Eunuchs nodded gravely. Na Saa looked around to gauge reaction. He had not been on the skin long and still needed to consolidate his position. Every decision he made had a political dimension to it. Support had to be earned. He would not fall into the trap of complacency which had been Gariba's downfall.

“Now send a message to Nana Koranten Péte. Tell the Asante Consul that the Ya Na invites him to join an inspection of the first consignment of slaves to arrive this season.”

* * *

The slaves were allocated a large compound.

In the course of time it would become overcrowded, but the first twenty captives had plenty of space. Their bonds were untied and they were free to move at will within the prison walls.

Nandzi had the small room set aside for female slaves all to herself. As the only woman she was expected to do the cooking. If the men had had their way, she would also have gathered the firewood and washed their ragged garments. They found it hard enough to come to terms with the psychic effects of capture and enslavement; that they should be further humiliated by being forced to do women's work was inconceivable. Fortunately for them their captors' views on what was proper work for men and women were little different from their own.

Suba was a great help. He was happier in Nandzi's company than in that of the grown men. It was he who every morning dumped the pots of excrement on the outskirts of the town. It was Suba who brought the calabashes of rationed water from the well near the market. And at night he slept in the open doorway of her room.

* * *

Na Saa Ziblim and Koranten Péte walked hand in hand, deep in conversation.

They communicated with one another, after a fashion, in a mixture of Hausa and Asante which caused them both much amusement. It was Koranten Péte, commander of the central division, who had led the victorious Asante forces in the recent war. The Asante King had rewarded him with title to one third of the tribute which the Dagomba were now obliged to pay each year. He needed little further inducement to spend the months of the trading season watching over Asante interests in Yendi.

The King and the Consul were followed by a long procession of dignitaries and officials.

The Galidima, Chief of the Eunuchs, was responsible both for policing the city and for the administration of justice. The fines imposed by the Council of the Eunuchs, in cattle and cowries, formed a substantial portion of the royal revenues. Beardless and effeminate the Galidima was also the guardian of the King's wives.

The eunuchs, too, had wives. These women, their unions sanctioned by the King himself, were prostitutes in all but name. They bore the added misfortune of seeing their male children castrated in order that they might one day succeed their mothers' husbands.

Demonkum, already Chief of Those-who-sit-before-the-Na and shortly to be enstooled in the Asante manner with the new title of Chief of the Guns, followed the King. He was dressed in the style of the Kambonse, wearing a richly embroidered cloth, rather than the customary smock. Kambonse was the Dagbon name for the Asante; and Kambonse was the name that Demonkum had chosen for the musketeers whom he was training. Three years at the Asante court had convinced him of the superiority of their military technology and strategy and he was determined to reform the Dagbon army along similar lines. But there was opposition. He smiled wryly as he recalled the recent humiliation of the leader of the reactionary party, the Chief of the Horses, conspicuously absent from this day's inspection.

Damba, who had been put in charge of the slaves' compound, was at the entrance to meet the Na and his party. He had made an attempt to smarten up his prisoners. They had had their first proper bath since their arrival. Discarded old clothes had been found for the man who had arrived dressed only in withered leaves. Damba had persuaded his mother to let him have an old cloth for Nandzi.

The Na and Koranten Péte walked slowly down the line, stopping to inspect and discuss each slave. Speaking his own language, the Na asked a slave his name. When he received only a blank, uncomprehending look in reply, he tried again in Hausa; then Nana Péte tried Asante.

“Bush people,” said the Consul to the King. “It seems that they do not hear any civilised language.”

“If you please, sir,” said Damba, stepping forward nervously, “this boy, he is called Suba, hears our tongue.”

“Suba, is that your name?” the Na asked.

Suba was lost in embarrassment. He had become proud of his developing skills as an interpreter and was pleased at the way that Damba depended upon him, but he was just a humble village lad and quite unversed in the customs of a royal court. He was overwhelmed by the rich clothes and arrogant bearing of these nobles. Fortunately for him, he did not have to reply. Nandzi, standing next to Suba at the end of the line, had caught the royal eye.

“What's this?” he said, examining her frankly.

Nandzi dropped her eyes and looked at her bare feet. This was not the first time she had seen that look in a man's eyes. But this gorgeously robed man was a king. What could he want with her? How should she react? Was this a threat or, might she hope, an opportunity? She concentrated her mind and tried to summon up a vision of Itsho.

The King put his hand under her chin and lifted her head, giving her no chance but to return his gaze.

The Asante Consul put his arm around the King's shoulder.

“No, no, your majesty,” he said firmly, “You have not forgotten our treaty, have you?

“Not just this one?” the King appealed, distracted from his projected dalliance.

“I fear not,” said the Consul. “You have brought in only twenty so far. Your target this season is three hundred. You have a long way to go yet. I regret that I cannot permit any, if you will forgive me, any diminution of my master's stock. Anything in excess of three hundred, of course, is yours to dispose of as you wish, but the first three hundred: those are ours.”

* * *

Damba persuaded the Na and the Consul to permit him to appropriate Suba as his personal slave.

“It is because I hear their language,” Suba said proudly. “Now I am going to start learning Hausa too. And when I master that, I shall learn Asante. Then I shall know all the languages in the world.”

Nandzi laughed. “That is wonderful news, Suba. Now you will not be sent to Kumase. Just think, if Damba were to take you with him on one of his expeditions, you might have a chance to escape and return to your home and family.”

“I hadn't thought of that,” replied the boy.

Damba was treating him kindly and his memories of home were beginning to recede: he saw a career as a court interpreter opening before him.

“But I will be sad if they take you to Kumase and leave me behind,” he said.

In attendance on Damba, Suba now learned all the latest news. The Council of Eunuchs had completed its examination of Abdulai and other witnesses. Abdulai had been fined twenty cows and fifty goats, which would leave him impoverished. He had been demoted and his white horse and brass accoutrements had been confiscated. The two guards who had fallen asleep on duty had been sentenced to death.

“Damba says it is a warning to the other warriors to do their work well and not be cowards,” explained Suba.

The following day Nandzi was at the head of a procession of slaves, each bearing a load of firewood for the shea-butter factory. As they entered the market square there was a commotion at the far end. Their mounted warder, eager to witness what was to come, ordered them to halt.

The Na and his court were seated in the shade of a tree. Beside the Na, on a stool, sat the Asante Consul. The two condemned men, their hands tightly bound behind their backs, were led into the square. The State Executioner, his heavily muscled body bare from the waist up, called a halt. An assistant tied the prisoners' ankles and forced them to their knees before the Na. The Chief of the Eunuchs proclaimed the charge, the verdict and the sentence in his high-pitched voice. There was a great roll of drums as the Executioner raised a heavy wooden club on high and brought it crashing down on the first man's skull, felling him with a single blow. The crowd gasped. Then it was the turn of the second victim.

The warder had seen enough. He cracked his whip at his charges and they moved off again. Nandzi turned her head as they left the market square. The corpses had been laid face down upon the ground. The Executioner raised his axe on high. As she watched, he brought it down and, with a single mighty blow, severed the head from the corpse. A great cheer went up from the watching crowd, but when it died down, Nandzi heard women wailing. She felt faint and wanted to vomit. The warder cracked his whip and she pulled herself together and walked on.

“They cut the stomachs open and took out the livers to make medicine for the Na,” Suba told Nandzi later. “Then they dragged the bodies into the bush and left them there for the vultures to eat. They have stuck the heads on poles in the market place.”

“Suba, I don't want to know about that.”

Nandzi had other matters on her mind.

“Suba can you keep a secret?” she asked.

He was the only one she could talk to.

The boy nodded energetically.

“I am going to escape,” she said.

His eyes opened wide.

“I didn't want to go without saying goodbye to you. You are my brother now and I will never forget you and what you did for me.”

* * *

Nandzi lay on her back and stared into the darkness.

Her arms and legs ached from her long day's work in the shea-butter factory and yet she could not sleep. The small round room was packed with women. At the perimeter they lay shoulder to shoulder, but near the centre of the room there was not enough space for all their feet. When Nandzi lay down early enough to stretch out her legs on the floor, they were soon buried beneath those of her neighbours. Tonight her feet had lain uncomfortably on top of a jumble of others until she had drawn them back beneath her knees.
When the next consignment of women arrives
, she thought,
they will have to sleep outside in the courtyard
.

The room had no windows and the single door opening provided little ventilation. Their water ration was barely enough for drinking, let alone bathing. They were all filthy. There was a pervasive smell of stale sweat and shea-butter, menstrual blood, urine and farting in the room.

Nandzi was hungry. She ran her hands over her body.

I am wasting away
, she thought.

She raised herself to a sitting position and leaned back against the plastered mud wall. Immediately, it seemed, adjacent bodies filled the narrow space her legs had vacated.

She squeezed her eyes shut.
Itsho
, she breathed,
Itsho, help me
. Itsho's features filled her mind.
Speak to me
, she whispered.
Itsho, tell me what to do
. He smiled and his lips moved but she heard nothing. A woman snored. Then the vision was gone. She shook her head vigorously from side to side.
Itsho is no longer in this world
, she told herself.
I am all alone; I have no one to depend on but myself.

Not for the first time, she considered her options. There were only two: and of those acceptance was out of the question. Her present condition was intolerable and the prospect of the future seemed worse.

Yet every escape plan she considered was fraught with difficulty and danger.

Exhausted, she fell asleep and dreamed. She was alone. A row of enormous earthenware cauldrons stretched as far as she could see. Each was supported over a blazing fire. She had to keep the cauldrons on the boil. She collected firewood from a pile and ran from one fire to the next, stoking. The smoke filled her eyes but she could not pause. The boiling must not stop. She stood on tiptoe to peer into a cauldron. There should have been shea-nut kernels bouncing up and down in the bubbling, boiling water. Instead there were men's heads. Somewhere in the distance stood Itsho, naked, his body smeared with shea-butter, watching. Two men approached, arm in arm. One was the King, the other Abdulai. “Yes, that is the one,” said the King, pointing at her. Abdulai grabbed her suddenly from behind, one arm round her waist, the other hand in her crotch, and propelled her up into the air, in a great, arcing slow-motion trajectory. She felt she was gliding like a bird. Then she was diving head first into the seething cauldron.

“What is it, sister?” mumbled her neighbour, woken by Nandzi's scream.

* * *

Nandzi awoke with a start.

She had taken a place near the door so as not to run the risk of disturbing the other women. She looked out and saw the crescent moon.