Ye Olde Inn

I've gotten around to painting the men at arms from the Wizards of Morcar... What the heck is going on with their feet?

Right foot looks bare, left foot looks like a toe-sock?
Or is the left foot wearing a boot? Or supposed to be bare footed with an Ace bandage around the ankle?
What's the general consensus?

For me it has been always a boot... with the shape of the foot

They are rather short compared to the hero minis. Maybe they are Hobbits.

Sandals?

Or perhaps the mystery of the 'Boot Tile' has finally been solved..?

They are weird, but I thought they were decorative boots, made to look like animal feet as some sort of uniform embellishment.

I always find it astonishing when somebody points out a funny aspect of this 30+ year-old game that I had not yet noticed myself, despite having played the Wizards of Morcar and Barbarian Quest expansions, both of which include these miniatures.

It looks like these mercenaries prefer comfortable footwear like this over what they would have to wear as soldiers of the Imperial Army. Apart from gold and glory, this could be another reason why these guys choose to follow rather strange people who typically do not care much about the lives of their hirelings on their quests into very dangerous subterranean places.

The HQ Mercenaries are outfitted with caligae, the sandal-like footwear of Roman military. If memory serves, the Perry twins had incorporated caligae into a line of Empire soldiers. Apparently some models were adopted/converted into HQ Men-at-arms..

You mean that we can know which exact Roman miniatures by Perry Twins could have been modified to make the HQ men-at-arms? Or I understood you bad?

Something like that, though they weren't Roman soldiers. Unfortunately, I only have a dim memory of seeing the minis, though memory can be a tricky thing and isn't evidence. I checked the Inn and found a Chaotic Prime post that referenced caligae. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate pictures of Citadel miniatures that foot the bill, so to speak.

This Stuff of Legends link kinda-maybe shows what I'm talking about with a couple of the footsoldiers. If you browse those pages, you'll see other flat-footed candidates, but it's sketchy.