Feet of Clay

Once, parties of children were brought there by their parents to learn by dreadful example of the snares and perils that await the criminal, the outlaw and those who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and they would see the terrible wreckage creaking on its chain and listen to the stern imprecations and then usually (this being Ankh-Morpork) would say ‘Wow! Brilliant!’ and use the corpse as a swing.

These days the city had more private and efficient ways of dealing with those it found surplus to requirements, but for the sake of tradition the gibbet’s incumbent was a quite realistic wooden body. The occasional stupid raven would have a peck at the eyeballs even now, and end up with a much shorter beak.

Vimes tottered up to it, fighting for breath.

The quarry could have gone anywhere by now. Such daylight as had been filtering through the fog had given up.

Vimes stood beside the gibbet, which creaked.

It had been built to creak. What’s the good of a public display of retribution, it had been argued, if it didn’t creak ominously? In richer times an elderly man had been employed to operate the creak by means of a length of string, but now there was a clockwork mechanism that needed to be wound up only once a month.

Condensation dripped off the artificial corpse.

‘Blow this for a lark,’ muttered Vimes, and tried to head back the way he came.

After ten seconds of blundering, he tripped over something.

It was a wooden corpse, hurled into the gutter.

When he got back to the gibbet, the empty chain was swinging gently, jingling in the fog.

Sergeant Colon tapped the golem’s chest. It went donk.

‘Like a flowerpot,’ said Nobby. ‘How can they move around when they’re like a pot, eh? They ought to keep cracking all the time.’

‘They’re daft, too,’ said Colon. ‘I heard there was one over in Quirm who was made to dig a trench and they forgot about it and they only remembered it when there was all this water ’cos it had dug all the way to the river …’

Carrot unrolled the chem on the table, and laid beside it the paper that had been put in Father Tubelcek’s mouth.

‘It’s dead, is it?’ said Sergeant Colon.

‘It’s harmless,’ said Carrot, looking from one piece of paper to the other.

‘Right. I’ve got a sledgehammer round the back somewhere, I’ll just …’

‘No,’ said Carrot.

‘You saw the way it was acting!’

‘I don’t think it could actually have hit me. I think it just wanted to scare us.’

‘It worked!’

‘Look at these, Fred.’

Sergeant Colon glanced at the desk. ‘Foreign writing,’ he said, in a voice which suggested that it was nothing like as good as decent home writing, and probably smelled of garlic.

‘Anything strike you about them?’

‘Well … they looks the same,’ Sergeant Colon conceded.

‘This yellowing one is Dorfl’s chem. The other one is from Father Tubelcek,’ said Carrot. ‘Letter for letter the same.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘I think Dorfl wrote these words and put them in old Tubelcek’s mouth after the poor man died,’ said Carrot slowly, still looking from one piece of paper to the other.

‘Urgh, yuk,’ said Nobby. ‘That’s mucky, that is …’

‘No, you don’t understand,’ said Carrot. ‘I mean he wrote them because they were the only ones he knew that worked …’

‘Worked how?’

‘Well … you know the kiss of life?’ said Carrot. ‘I mean first aid? I know you know, Nobby. You came with me when they had that course at the YMPA.’^{50}

‘I only went ’cos you said you got a free cup of tea and a biscuit,’ said Nobby sulkily. ‘Anyway, the dummy ran away when it was my turn.’

‘It’s the same with life-saving, too,’ said Carrot. ‘We want people to breathe, so we try to make sure they’ve got some air in them …’

They all turned to look at the golem.

‘But golems don’t breathe,’ said Colon.

‘No, a golem knows only one thing that keeps you alive,’ said Carrot. ‘It’s the words in your head.’ They all turned back to look at the words.

They all turned to look at the statue that was Dorfl.

‘It’s gone all cold in here,’ Nobby quavered. ‘I def’nitly felt a aura flick’rin’ in the air just then! It was like someone …’

‘What’s going on?’ said Vimes, shaking the damp off his cloak.

‘… openin’ the door,’ said Nobby.

***

It was ten minutes later.

Sergeant Colon and Nobby had gone off-duty, to everyone’s relief. Colon in particular had great difficulty with the idea that you went on investigating after someone had confessed. It outraged his training and experience. You got a confession and there it ended. You didn’t go around disbelieving people. You disbelieved people only when they said they were innocent. Only guilty people were trustworthy. Anything else struck at the whole basis of policing.

‘White clay,’ said Carrot. ‘It was white clay we found. And practically unbaked. Dorfl’s made of dark terracotta, and rock-hard.’

‘The last thing the old priest saw was a golem,’ said Vimes.

‘Dorfl, I’m sure,’ said Carrot. ‘But that’s not the same as saying Dorfl was the murderer. I think he turned up as the man was dying, that’s all.’

‘Oh? Why?’