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Book Home  Books Information Feet of Clay
Feet of Clay
Feet of Clay is a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett
which parodies detective novels. It was published in 1996. The
story follows the members of The Watch, as they attempt to solve
murders committed by a golem.
The title is a figure of speech to indicate a
weakness or a hidden flaw in the character of a greatly admired
or respected person.
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Synopsis
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as one exists, but was withdrawn after Vimes's ancestor killed a king.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 his 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 aethistically) moral clay arm of the law. The catch phrase that
starts his career is "Undead or alive, you're coming with me."
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