Dial - Season 1 - Episode 120

4 years ago

Dial - Season 1 - Episode 120

You see, the fetish priest, or Okomfo, had always been the most powerful man in this village after the King. But Nana Kwakupia loved my husband. Anyway, the king was old, and he died. He had a cousin called Obiba, and a son called Kwamepia. Now, after the king’s death, Kwamepia should’ve been the next king, although he was just eighteen years old.

That was two years ago. However, Okomfo Basabasa suddenly said the gods wanted Obiba – who was not even close to the stool because his father was a foreigner – to be the new king! We all protested, but they had some influential elders and kingmakers supporting them. They made Obiba the new king.”

I paused and scowled.
“Now that was mean,” I said softly. “And what happened to this rightful heir, the son of the dead king, Kwamepoom or whatever?”
She chuckled and with real laughter, rolled her eyes at me.

I was happy; I had intentionally mispronounced the name of the man.
“Kwamepia, not Kwamepoom! He protested wildly, of course, he and his mother,” Maame Ntiriwaa continued sadly. “In the end, they said he conspired to kill his father just to be king, and so they put him into the dungeons in the palace for three months. When he was released, he and his mother were banished from the village for killing the king. They settled two villages away, protected by the king of that village!”
“Oh, that’s cruel!” I said, and I was sad, very sad.

“Yes, it was,” she said and shook her head sadly. “No one could talk, though. Nana Obiba and Okomfo Basabasa had huge thugs working for them, threatening people and crushing all opposition. And then, around that time, my husband died too. Abena Adobea, my daughter, grew up to be the most beautiful in the land, yes. She was really hurting over her father’s death. She was seventeen when it happened. Anyway, the new king, Obiba, suddenly came around asking to marry her.”
“Marry her?” I asked with some surprise. “But she looked young. Is the man that young?”
“No, he isn’t,” Maame Ntiriwaa said sadly. “He will be sixty years this coming new moon. He has three other wives, and children older than my daughter, who will be twenty-two years in six months.”
“Jeeeeezoooz!” I whispered, aghast. “That’s preposterous! He’s too old for her!”

“Yes, she is,” the woman said sadly. “I protested wildly, of course. But Adobea wouldn’t listen to me. She was fascinated by the power she was going to get out of being the King’s Stool wife. As stool wife, she got to sit beside him in the palace, and on all social occasions! People revered her, falling at her feet when she passed! She had her own small palace, servants to wait on her, gold to spend, and all that she had dreamt of ever having. She’s but a young girl who had never known any man apart from the affections of her father. She was so easily swayed by this dirty old man of a king!”
I stopped eating and looked at her with horror all over my face. The picture was emerging now, and it horrified me, sickening me to my very guts.

“That’s why they said you were a witch!” I said hollowly.
She nodded with a sad smile.
“Yes, the works of Okomfo Basabasa,” Maame Ntiriwaa said sadly. “He claimed the gods had informed him that I gave the medicine to Kwamepia and his mother to kill Nana Kwakupia. They said I have been drinking the blood of children who died at childbirth. They said I was responsible for the people that died in the village, and lastly, they said I killed my husband.”
I nodded, horrified.