Episode II: Voices of Victory and Grief
A historical fiction narrative from two Ashanti soldiers in the aftermath of the Battle of Anomabo, 1806.
Camp near the Pra River, days after the siege
The fire still burns in my chest.
We marched from Anomabo in silence, our sandals soaked with blood and rain. The smell of powder and iron lingers still—like a wound that won’t close. My men are quiet, but I know what they think. We won the day... but did we win the war?
The white man’s stone fort stood. Our blades could not open it. But the coast—oh yes, the coast—we scorched it. Fante villages reduced to smoke. Traitors scattered like ants under fire.
Still, I cannot sleep.
Every night, I see the eyes of the fallen. My cousin, Adom, struck by cannonfire. My brother, Owura, bayoneted by some redcoat at the wall. And for what? So that Colonel Torrane could smile and sell our enemies to the sea? I wanted justice. What I saw was trade.
(Pause. Low voice.)
And I saw a boy—no older than twelve—dragged from a Fante village. His mother begged the heavens. But she too was shackled. I knew then that the battle had ended, but the war had changed shape.
By a dying fire, that same night
I wanted to be a hero.
When I left Kumasi, I swore I’d return wearing gold and praise, my mother dancing through the streets. I sharpened my blade every night, watched the commanders with awe. Kojo Bediako—they say he rode beside the Asantehene once. I would be like him.
At Anomabo, I learned the truth.
The first man I killed was already bleeding. His eyes met mine. He wasn’t a warrior. Just a father, clutching a broken spear and a child behind him. I hesitated—only for a moment. He lunged. I struck. He didn’t get back up.
(Whispering)
His blood was warm. My hands trembled. I told no one.
Later, I saw a Fante woman dragged to a slave post. She had two children—one too small to walk. She screamed something I didn’t understand. The traders shoved her forward. I tried to look away, but her eyes found mine. Her face was covered in ash and tears, but she stared like she knew me. Like I was the thief who stole her sun.
What were we fighting for?
Osei Bonsu says we are the fire that cleanses. That the Asante must claim its rightful place on the coast—cut out the middlemen, take the trade, make the world bow.
But fire cannot be tamed. It burns what it touches.
At the court, Colonel Torrane came with a white face and red coat, begging to talk. He brought wine, gifts, and words like silk. But then he gave us Otibu—blind, old, useless. They say he died screaming. And Aputai? That snake slipped away once more.
Worse, Torrane sold the Fante who trusted him. Sold them as cargo. Even the British in Cape Coast cursed him for it.
They said we were savages. But we did not chain the women. We did not sell the crying children to wooden ships.
I sit now with men twice my age, and no one speaks of glory. Only the fallen.
I heard one of the redcoats—Williams, I think—say, “They fight like they’ve already lost everything.” Maybe he was right. We fight because if we stop, we are no one. If we hesitate, the coast swallows us.
But I’ve seen what the guns do. I’ve seen the trade, the lies, the gold turned to grief.
And I ask myself: will we become the very thing we came to destroy?
A message came from Kumasi today. The Asantehene calls for us again. The war is not over. We will march—perhaps west, perhaps to Cape Coast. The white man thinks his walls will protect him. But no wall stands forever.
(Pauses)
Still, I worry for the soul of Asanteman. We built our empire on honor, on unity, on fire. But now… we walk the edge of shadow.
If we forget the line between justice and conquest, who will remember us?
Tomorrow, I will march again.
But tonight, I dream of that Fante woman. The one with ash on her cheeks. She is not my enemy. She is a mother. A sister. A wife.
And maybe, if the fire ever cools, I will find a way to lay down my sword. To build something different. To be more than a name in the king’s roll call of war.
But not yet. Not while the drums still call.
The Court of Osei Bonsu and the Fate of Aputai
Kumasi, Palace Courtyard of the Asantehene
The gold did not gleam the way it used to.
It was everywhere—in the arches, the stools, the robes, even the air smelled like it. And yet, something hung over the capital like the breath of an unseen god. We had returned home with the smoke of Anomabo still clinging to our skin, and now we stood barefoot on the sacred stone, waiting for the voice of the king.
The Asantehene, Osei Bonsu, sat on the Golden Stool—he did not move, did not blink, but he saw everything.
Behind him, drummers tapped low, steady rhythms—meant to calm the ancestors. But there was nothing calm about the room.
To the left, Aputai stood in chains. Somehow, after all this blood, this fire, this loss—he had been captured, hiding near Axim. The scouts dragged him here three days ago, and still he had not spoken.
To the right, a box of gold—tribute from Cape Coast merchants. They wanted peace again.
But peace, I knew, would come at a cost. And the king was about to name it.
Balcony overlooking the courtyard
I wasn’t supposed to be there.
But my father served on the Kotoko Council, and I had carried his messages back and forth since the Anomabo campaign. Today, he told me to sit still, to watch, and to remember.
So I did.
I watched as Kojo Bediako, bruised and half-limping, stood before the king and gave his report. His voice didn’t tremble, but his eyes—they carried ghosts.
Then came the white man’s envoy: Mr. Swanzy, not the dead one from Accra, but a cousin perhaps. He brought gifts. Mirrors. Wine. Coins. Promises.
I remember how the king never even looked at them.
“My lord,” I said, “we brought down the Fante shield, but not the foreign sword. The traitor Aputai is yours.”
The king nodded once.
Then he turned to Aputai. His voice was low, measured.
“You who murdered my messengers. You who spat on our ancestors’ bones. You who crawled to foreign arms when justice approached. Speak.”
But Aputai only stared back—blood dried at the corner of his mouth, his wrists raw from iron.
(Voice trembling)
“I only did what I thought would save my people.”
The king rose. Slowly. His robe trailed behind him like a shadow.
“You saved no one. The Fante bled because of you. My sons died because of you. The coast burns because of you.”
Then, in the old tongue:
“Mema wo man ntumi nkɔ nkɔso—na wo nso wopɛ a, te ase sɛ onipa a wɔahyɛ no abosom n’ano.”
“A nation cannot rise with traitors in its heart.”
He raised his staff. The court fell silent.
“Tomorrow, he dies.”
I watched Aputai collapse. They dragged him out like an animal.
No one cheered. Not even the drummers.
Instead, the king turned to the box of gold brought by the British. His eyes narrowed.
“What price do they think we are?”
A member of the council asked gently, “Shall we accept it?”
But the king waved it away like spoiled meat.
“Their gold has the stink of blood. Their peace is a leash.”
He turned to Kojo.
“Next time, take their cannons.”
After the court, I stepped into the cool stone corridor. My limbs ached. My spirit heavier still.
The young warrior, Kofi, followed me. He said nothing, just walked beside me like a shadow grown.
Finally, he asked, “Commander… when does it end?”
I looked at him—his face still smooth, but eyes already weathered.
“When we no longer carry swords heavier than our hearts.”
The next morning, they executed Aputai in the field behind the palace. Quietly. Without spectacle.
Later, the traders sent more gold. They said it was for peace. The king accepted none of it.
I heard we are marching again soon—this time west. Some say to Takoradi. Others to the forts.
Kojo says war is a forge. It either shapes you or burns you away.
Me? I wonder if the weight of gold is heavier than the blade. One steals your hands. The other, your soul.
But both, in the end, leave you cold.
🎵 [FX: Faint war drums in distance. Jungle night. Wind, insects.]
NARRATOR (somber, slow)
In the early hours of June 15th, 1806… the drums began.
Not for festival. Not for mourning. But for fire.
They came from the dark belly of the Ashanti forest—
And they spoke one thing: Vengeance.
🎵 [FX: Drums growing. Footsteps. Cattle stirred. Village panic rising.]
AMA SERWAA (urgent, whispered; Fante accent)
Kofi! Wake up now. Take your sister. Quickly—no questions!
🎧 [FX: Cloth being wrapped. Child stirring.]
KOFI (groggy, confused)
Mama…? It’s still dark…
AMA (breathing faster)
The drums, child! Ashanti drums. We must go. Get up—NOW!
🎧 [FX: Door opens. Outside commotion.]
KWESI (from outside, firm but loving)
Ama! Take the children to Anomabo. Go! I’ll join you later.
AMA (desperate)
Kwesi, don’t! Come with us!
KWESI (resolute, proud)
I am a warrior, Ama. The Fante stand today. We fight—for them, and for you.
🎧 [FX: Spears rattle, footsteps running off. Baby begins to cry.]
AMA (under breath, trembling)
Oh gods… protect him.
🎵 [FX: Rain starts to fall. Running through wet brush. Crickets, frogs.]
NARRATOR (measured, cinematic)
Through wet leaves and broken paths, she runs.
With a baby on her back, and her firstborn in hand.
Behind her: ash, fire, and drums.
🎧 [FX: Distant musket fire. Screams. Thunder rolls.]
KOFI (frightened)
Mama… is Papa fighting the Ashanti?
AMA (short breath, soft)
Yes… but he is strong. He will come to us soon.
🎧 [FX: Heavy breathing, more footsteps nearby.]
🎵 [FX: Gun loading. Cannons preparing. Crowd panic.]
PRIVATE WILLIAMS (young, panicked)
Colonel! They’re piling up at the gates—civilians—thousands of them!
COL. TORRANE (stern, cold British)
Open the gates. But only for those we can control. I won’t have a riot inside these walls.
🎧 [FX: Wooden gates creak open. Sobbing, shouting.]
AMA (pleading, exhausted)
Please! My children—let us in! Please!
BRITISH GUARD (gruff)
Too many already! Stay back, woman!
🎧 [FX: Gates slam shut. Metal bolts slide.]
KOFI (crying)
Why won’t they let us in?
AMA (quietly, holding back tears)
Because… we are not theirs to protect.
🎵 [FX: Horns. Chanting warriors. War drums at full strength.]
KOJO BEDIAKO (roaring, warrior leader)
Men of Asanteman! The traitors of Assin shelter in Anomabo!
They hide behind stone and pale-faced lies.
Today we burn their shield, and the gods will know our name!
🎧 [FX: Roars of warriors, battle cries. Marching feet.]
NARRATOR (tense)
And the Ashanti moved—30,000 strong.
Descending like a storm, beneath red banners and golden blades.
🎵 [FX: Cannons blasting. Muskets. Screams. War cries.]
PRIVATE WILLIAMS (shouting over fire)
Reload! Reload! Hold the gate! They’re at the north wall!
KOJO BEDIAKO (commanding)
Forward! Through the smoke—strike for the king! Down the gate!
🎧 [FX: Blades clashing. Men falling. Fire spreading.]
NARRATOR (grim)
The gate never fell.
But blood ran like river water.
Over 3,000 Ashanti fell.
Over 8,000 Fante—slaughtered as they ran.
🎵 [FX: Wind. Moaning. Crackling fire. Quiet aftermath.]
AMA (soft, choked)
Kwesi…?
🎧 [FX: Cloth rustles. She picks up a blood-stained scarf.]
AMA (cont’d)
Your headscarf… Oh gods…
KOFI (whispers)
Mama… where’s Papa?
AMA (holds him close)
He’s with the ancestors now, my son.
🎵 [FX: Humming—Fante lullaby, soft and sorrowful.]
🎵 [FX: Ocean waves. Chains rattling. Portside noise.]
NARRATOR (disgusted, restrained)
Ama reached Cape Coast… not as a survivor,
but as a commodity.
TORRANE (matter-of-fact)
They are now assets. Arrange for their sale. The ships are waiting.
PRIVATE WILLIAMS (horrified)
Sir, they were refugees! Children—women—
TORRANE (coldly)
Slavery is still legal, Private. Do not pretend it is new to you.
🎧 [FX: Chains tightening. Weeping. Doors slamming shut.]
🎵 [FX: Ship creaks. Soft sobs. Wind.]
AMA (calm, voice of iron)
I do not know the name of the land where we are bound.
I do not know if my children will see their father’s grave.
But I know this.
They can take our names from paper…
But not from our tongues.
They can chain our hands…
But not our memories.
They can sell our bodies…
But not our soul.
🎵 [FX: Fante lullaby returns, layered with waves, fade to silence]
NARRATOR (soft, final)
In June 1806, two Assin rebels sought shelter from justice.
The Ashanti demanded blood. The British refused.
And as war took lives…
One man sold two thousand more—for silver and silence.
Let history remember Ama Serwaa.
And all the mothers who were not meant to survive.
🎵 [Final beat. Fade out.]
“The Woman in Chains” – A Fante Slave’s Journey to Elmina
Cape Coast Slave Yard, 1806 – Dusk
(VOICE: soft, broken, Fante accent. Almost whispering to herself.)
ESI DEDE (V.O.)
“When the drums first sounded, I thought it was thunder. But it came from the forest—not the sky. And the thunder did not stop.”
They came like waves—dark, gold-tipped, singing death songs. I ran. We all ran. I had one child tied to my back, and the other clutching my hand so tight he almost tore my fingers. I remember the smell of the earth as we tripped and scrambled over roots and corpses.
My husband, Kojo Mensah, was a warrior of Mankessim. He kissed our daughter’s forehead that morning, not knowing it was the last time. He was brave. He would never surrender.
They said he fell before midday. Cut down near the southern wall, trying to defend his people.
I saw the smoke rise from the village.
I saw children trampled at the gates of Fort Anomabo, begging to be let in.
And I saw them shut the gates—right in our faces.
The British, standing tall on their stone walls, guns at their shoulders. And still, the Ashanti came.
Now I sit in Cape Coast, shackled to a thousand strangers. My children beside me, quiet now. Too quiet.
We are no longer people. We are product.
Gouverneur Torrane sold us like yam in the market. For his gold, for his debt, for his pride.
They call it “the trade.” But there is no trade in this.
Only theft.
(She breaks down. Pause.)
If my husband could see us now—if the ancestors could hear our silence—they would weep for what we’ve become.
Cape Coast Castle, Barracks – Night
(VOICE: English accent, tired, shaken, confessional tone.)
EDWARD WILLIAMS (V.O.)
I thought it was over.
After Anomabo, after we cleaned the blood from the walls and counted the spent musket balls, I thought the worst was behind us. The governor toasted the "defense of Empire" that night, drinking Dutch rum with sweaty palms.
But then came the carts.
I saw them—rows of Fante men, women, children, dragged to the holding pens at Cape Coast Castle, branded, silent.
Among them, I recognized one.
A woman with fire in her eyes, and children clinging to her side. She had screamed at our gates during the siege.
Now she didn’t scream. She didn’t speak at all.
They called her "Lot 342."
Torrane, that pale bastard, wrote down her name beside a price. 34 pounds sterling. Her children were separated into different lines. I saw it. I said nothing.
We were soldiers.
We followed orders.
But I tell you this—not all chains are made of iron.
Every day I pass the dungeon, I hear the crying.
Every night I drink to forget it.
They say John Swanzy, our lieutenant governor, tried to stop it. Rode all the way from Accra. Sick as he was, he tried to speak in Council. They ignored him.
He died weeks later.
I sometimes wonder…
Was it the fever?
Or the guilt?
(He sighs deeply, then quieter, almost a whisper.)
And if the Ashanti return, I wonder if we’ll even try to stop them next time. Because truth be told...
I think we deserve what’s coming.
Esi Dede – Fante woman, mid-30s, strong-willed but traumatized. Represents the voiceless victims of the slave trade.
Voice direction: Fante accent, emotional, soft but steely beneath.
Private Edward Williams – British Marine, early 20s, shaken by what he has witnessed. Once proud, now disillusioned.
Voice direction: British accent (Southern), weary, reflective, with moments of barely concealed outrage.
Scene I (Esi’s POV)
Background: Low ambient sounds of chains, distant sea, crying.
Music: Sparse West African strings, sorrowful and slow.
Scene II (Williams' POV)
Background: Dripping water in castle cellars, distant cannon cleaning, murmured conversations.
Music: Melancholic solo cello, fading into silence.
Return to Kumasi – 1807
I. Kojo Bediako – Commander of Fire
Court of Kumasi – beneath the golden umbrella
The air in Kumasi was thick with drums, dust, and praise.
When we returned, the streets bloomed like spring. Children ran beside our column, shouting our names. Women poured water on the ground to cool our feet. Even the elders who once muttered that we would not return now smiled with teeth too white to trust.
At the palace gates, the horns blared long and low. The Ashantehene stood at the heart of it all, his cloth shimmering with history, his face unreadable.
He rose as we knelt. “Kojo Bediako,” he said, voice echoing beneath heaven itself, “you have brought us fire, and with it, a name that will never be forgotten.”
Gold was placed in my hands. Praise spilled from tongues like wine.
But when I looked at the ornaments, all I saw was the coast—the burning villages, the screaming traders, the mother who looked at me as though I were her executioner.
They gave me honor. But it felt heavy. Heavier than my blade ever had.
II. Kofi – Ashanti Warrior, Now Named
Outside the royal compound, later that night
They chanted my name.
“Kofi Anomabo,” they called me now. A badge of fire. The one who stood when others fell. I was given a new cloth, the color of war. And a bracelet of ivory that once belonged to a Fante chief.
My mother wept when I entered our compound. Not the weeping of grief—but of pride. She sang the old songs, the ones about victory and men who return on litters of gold.
But when I held her, I trembled. She didn’t see the boy I was. Only the warrior I had become.
They offered me wives. Titles. Even land near the Bantama road. And yet, I still see him—the first man I killed. Still smell the fire at Anomabo. Still hear the cries of that Fante woman whose name I will never know.
They called us heroes.
But some nights, I dream I am the villain in someone else’s song.
III. Kojo Bediako
I walked the palace halls in silence.
The same men who once questioned my orders now bowed low. The same nobles who hoarded wealth now offered it freely, calling me “Kojo Gyata”—the lion of the coast.
And yet, in the corner of the great court stood a man I remembered—one of the coastal envoys, thin, quiet, watching. His face was lined with understanding. He had seen what I had seen. Blood does not vanish with parades. Ghosts do not kneel to golden stools.
Later, the Asantehene called me privately.
He poured me palm wine with his own hand.
“You have seen much,” he said, not as a king, but as a man. “You will see more. The coast will burn again. And again.”
I looked into his eyes and saw not cruelty—but burden. We are all caught in the wheel of empire, even kings.
IV. Kofi
The city does not sleep. Kumasi breathes like a great beast—alive with praise and the promise of more war.
Tonight, I sat with old soldiers who knew wars before mine. They spoke of Denkyira, of Techiman, of battles fought in the forest long before the white man came with his forts and flags.
One leaned toward me and said, “This gold they give you? It glitters, yes. But it is only ash that has forgotten to burn.”
I did not answer. I just stared at the fire.
It danced like the coast once did—full of heat, full of ruin.
But still… part of me wants to believe that one day, we will build more than fire. That we will carve a story from this blood that our children do not have to repeat.
V. Kojo Bediako and Kofi – Together
Outside the palace walls, under the moon
Kojo: “They sing your name now, Kofi.”
Kofi: “They sing yours louder, Kojo Gyata.”
Kojo: (softly) “Do you believe them?”
Kofi: “I don’t know what I believe anymore.”
Kojo: “Good. Hold onto that. The moment you stop questioning, the fire will consume you.”
(They sit in silence. A drumbeat echoes from the palace.)
Kojo: “They call it peace. But peace wears a mask. And underneath it… the drums of war still beat.”
Kofi: “Then we learn to dance to both.”