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Terry Pratchett The Discworld series 19th novel – 4th City Watch story
Outline
Characters:	Ankh-Morpork City Watch Havelock Vetinari
Locations:	Ankh-Morpork
Motifs:	Cop novels, robots and artificial intelligence
Publication details
Year of release:	1996
Original publisher:	Victor Gollancz
Hardback ISBN:	ISBN 0-575-05900-1
Paperback ISBN:	ISBN 0-552-14237-9
Other details
Awards:
Notes:

Feet of Clay is the nineteenth Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, and a parody of detective novels. It was published in 1996. The story follows the members of The Watch, as they attempt to solve murders apparently committed by a golem, as well as the unusual poisoning of the Patrician.

The title is a figure of speech from the Bible (Daniel 2:33-45) used to indicate a weakness or a hidden flaw in the character of a greatly admired or respected person:

"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image ... his feet part of iron and part of clay. ... And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken."

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 References 3 Translations 4 External links

The story begins with the sale of a golem, under suspicious circumstances; and continues with the death of a priest, Father Tubelcek, and the Watch's subsequent investigation, led by new recruit Cheery Littlebottom, a dwarf alchemist hired for a new forensics department. By enlarging an image of the priest's eye, Cheery discovers that the last person he saw was a golem; she also finds a piece of paper in his mouth, similar to the chem used to give life to a golem.

Commander Vimes, after thwarting an assassination attempt on himself, must keep an appointment with the Royal College of Heralds. After a brief education in heraldry by the chief herald, the vampire Dragon King of Arms, he is informed that he cannot have a family crest, as one exists, but was withdrawn after Vimes's ancestor killed a king. He is also told that Corporal Nobbs is the Earl of Ankh.

Later, the proprietor of the Dwarf Bread Museum is found dead, and the Patrician is found poisoned. Dorfl, a golem, tries to turn himself in for the murder, but Carrot believes Dorfl was trying to bring the priest back to life the only way he knew how.

Later, despite a constant watch, the Patrician is poisoned again, while across the city golems are destroying themselves, leaving messages which include the phrase "clay of my clay." Commander Vimes tracks down Mildred Easy, the only member of the Patrician's staff who can't be located, and finds her at a funeral for her grandmother and baby brother, both poisoned in the same way as the Patrician.

Carrot suspects that the golems have created a new golem to be their king, with the help of the priest to provide its chem and using the oven in the Dwarf Bread museum; they were ashamed and appalled when it started to kill people. Carrot and Angua follow Dorfl, to find him mobbed by a crowd, which Carrot disperses, before arranging to buy Dorfl from his owner. Carrot then places the deed of ownership inside Dorfl's head alongside his chem, which causes the golem some difficulty. As this happens, Fred Colon, who had been questioning golem owners, wakes to find himself tied up and escapes with the help of Wee Mad Arthur, a gnome rat hunter the Watch encountered while investigating a case of poisoned rats in a dwarf café. Meanwhile, Commander Vimes, stressed over his inability to find how the Patrician is being poisoned, discovers a bottle of whiskey in his desk drawer.

Fred and Wee Mad Arthur are chased by the king golem, and manage to escape. The king falls a great height and is smashed on the ground, but Fred is amazed when the golem starts to piece itself back together. Vimes is visited by the heads of the Guilds, who have been told to search his desk. They are overpowered by the smell of whiskey, and see Vimes slumped over his desk. They find a packet of powder in the desk, but Vimes eats the contents. He knew the whiskey was planted in his desk so that he would be tempted, and swapped the arsenic planted there for a packet of sugar. He then realises how the Patrician is being poisoned; he goes to the palace to question Miss Easy, and finds that the candles used in the Patrician's chambers are not used anywhere else; and that Miss Easy had taken the candle ends to her grandmother.

Carrot, Angua and Cheery go to the candle factory, after making their way through streets full of animals – released by Dorfl, who has determined that no one should have a master - and find the king golem. Dorfl faces the king, and eventually beats him, but is almost destroyed in the process. Vimes orders that he be taken away to be repaired, and given a tongue. Vimes then goes to the College of Heralds to face Dragon, who had been behind the plot. Dragon had long been preoccupied with preserving the royal lineage in Ankh-Morpork, and upon discovering evidence that Carrot is the heir, and horrified by his relationship with Angua, a werewolf, Dragon tried to get the Patrician out of the way, and install a fake, easily controlled, peer – Nobby – as ruler of the city. The solution had only occurred to Vimes after he found the whiskey and arsenic – only a vampire could have flown through his window, and remembered his visit to the College of Heraldry, where Dragon had pointed out the Candlemaker's crest in particular, and shown him the poisson, both a heraldic symbol for a lamp, and a blatantly placed clue.

In a winking nod to RoboCop the book ends with Dorfl joining the Watch and becoming the rigorously-legalistic and utterly (yet atheistically) moral clay arm of the law. The catch phrase that starts his career is "Undead Or Alive, You Are Coming With Me" when arresting a vampire suspect.

The idea of poisoning someone with candle light is taken from the Edgar Allan Poe short story The Imp of the Perverse. The dream sequence in which Vimes sees arsenic as a dancing green imp is also a possible reference to said story.

Language	Title	Round-trip translation
Bulgarian	Глинени крака
Czech	Nohy z jílu
Dutch	Lemen voeten
Estonian	Savijalad
Finnish	Savijaloilla	On Feet of Clay
French	Pieds d'argile	Feet of Clay
German	Hohle Köpfe	Hollow Heads
Italian	Piedi d'Argilla	Feet of Clay
Polish	Na glinianych nogach	On the Clay Feet
Russian	Ноги из глины	Feet from the Clay
Spanish	Pies de barro	Feet of Clay
Swedish	På lerfötter	On Clay Feet

Reading Order Guide Preceded by Maskerade 19th Discword Novel Succeeded by Hogfather Preceded by Theatre of Cruelty 4th City Watch Story Published in 1996 Succeeded by Jingo

• Annotations for Feet of Clay
• Quotes from Feet of Clay
• Synopsis of Feet of Clay