The willow trees bent toward the lake, their lowest branches just brushing the water, and the park’s lone wanderers and couples alike walked more slowly than they had along the fast city blocks, stopping to watch for a while. Lenox always liked to watch the swans gliding serenely, birds with just the mix of beauty and danger that humans like in wildlife—for a swan, of course, could break a man’s arm. Another curious fact about them was that every swan in England belonged to Queen Victoria. Not many people knew it, but poaching swans was an offense the crown could punish. The official swan keeper to Her Majesty wrangled the birds in the third week of July every year, when they were served at the Queen’s table and a few others across the isles, in Cambridge, Oxford, York, Edinburgh. The swans were mute, but at their deaths they found voice and sang, and the long line of wranglers always claimed to be haunted by the sound. It was the origin of the term swan song. Lenox pondered the bizarre customs of his beloved country as he walked toward Toto and McConnell’s house.
