Hearn sighed softly. 'You're a lot like your brother,' he said, 'and just as hard to reason with. I gave you the oak as your tree at your birth, my son, and sometimes I think your head is made of it … ''It was a good choice,' Herewiss said, smiling faintly. 'Lightning strikes oak trees more than any other kind. And I have to be crazy sometimes: I have a reputation to uphold. "The only thing sure about the Lords' line of the Wood—'"'"—is that there's nothing sure about them,"' his father finished, smiling too. 'Fool.''They told Earn our Father that He was a fool at Bluepeak, and look what happened to Him.''I would sooner be father to a live son,' Hearn said, 'than to a dead legend.''I'll be careful,' said Herewiss.'Have a safe journey, then. And good hunting.'So Herewiss had taken his leave of his other relatives and friends in the Woodward, and had said goodbye to the Rooftree, and then had stopped in the stable to choose a horse. He had originally been of a mind to take Darrafed, his little thoroughbred Arlene mare, a present from Freelorn – or perhaps Shag, his father's curly-coated bay warhorse. But as he had walked down the aisle betweenthe stalls, Dapple had put his head out over his stall's half-door and looked at Herewiss as if he knew something. Herewiss was not one to ignore a sign when it presented itself.The horse moved comfortably through the low hill country. As long as he kept to a steady southward course, Herewiss let Dapple have his head.
