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another, punching, biting, and kicking in an effort to voice with violence what they could not with words. Only the ancient prohibition against weapons at an Assembly kept this from becoming a bloodbath. Memnon watched as partisans of each faction rushed the plinth; both orators vanished under a riptide of grasping hands.
    “Father!” Memnon surged forward, riding the crest of a human wave. Some fought for their cause; others fought to get away. Underfoot, a shoal of trampled bodies made each step treacherous. Memnon grabbed two men by the scruff of their necks and flung them aside. A fist grazed his cheek. A heel bruised the meat of his thigh. A walking stick cracked across his shoulders. Memnon snarled at this last, turned, and wrenched the stick from an old man’s hand.
    Armed now with a truncheon of bronze-capped olive wood, Memnon waded through the flailing mob. Oligarch or democrat, he did not care; he left a path of broken bones, teeth, and heads in his wake. He gained the plinth and found Timocrates on the ground, struggling against a wild-eyed young democrat whose hands were knotted around Philolaus’s throat. A callous man might have left the oligarch to his fate—is he who incites rebellion not deserving of death?—but Memnon believed in the rule of law, in justice. A man should face trial before his execution. With a savage blow of his cudgel, Memnon broke the zealot’s grip and dragged him, cursing and screaming, off Philolaus. A second blow sent him plummeting into oblivion.
    Memnon crouched and helped his father to his feet.
    “Have they lost their minds?” Timocrates muttered, disoriented. “Violence only begets violence!”
    “Orators beget violence with their loose tongues!” Memnon said. Through the wrack he spotted Glaucus, his face scratched and bloody, his robes torn. “Here, Glaucus!” Seeing Timocrates alive bolstered the secretary’s flagging spirits. He rushed to his master’s side.
    “Thank the gods! I thought—”
    Memnon cut him off. “Your people are getting the worst of it! Take Father home and keep watch over him. Keep him safe! I will come when I can.”
    “As you wish,” Glaucus said. Like a Spartan general, the secretary gathered a phalanx of democrats around Timocrates and hustled him from the Assembly building. Memnon watched them leave before turning his attention to Philolaus. The oligarch, on his knees now, clawed at the edge of the plinth as he sought to find his footing. Blood smeared his face, dripping from his beard to stain his blue robes. He coughed and struggled for breath.
    “Get up, you damn fool!” Memnon knelt, looped Philolaus’s arm around his neck, and pulled him upright. “Get up before someone kills you!”
    “They’ve tried,” the oligarch gasped. “I owe you my life. To which faction are you pledged?”
    “Neither, and you owe me nothing.” Memnon noticed a half-dozen of Philolaus’s men nearby, watching as one of their number kicked a fallen democrat in the ribs. Memnon’s proximity to their leader, and Philolaus’s reliance on him, registered in their minds as the actions of an ally. The young Rhodian gestured to one of them.
    Philolaus shook his head. “No. I never forget a debt, or a face. Seek me out when all this is over. I could use a man of your talents.”
    Memnon dropped his bloody cudgel, shrugged himself free of the oligarch’s arm, and entrusted him to the care of his men. “My talents, as you call them, are pledged elsewhere.” He turned and walked toward the door. Clumps of men dotted the floor of the Assembly, moaning, crawling. Some of those trampled would never move again.
    “Wait!” he heard Philolaus croak. “At least tell me to whom I am indebted!”
    Memnon paused at the head of the stairs, under the statue of Dorieus. For a moment, he flirted with the idea of a lie. No. He had no reason to be ashamed of who he was. With a nod, he said, “Memnon, son of Timocrates.”
    Philolaus’s face paled beneath its