Raise him far away from all of this, somewhere quiet and safe.

Reading that instruction, keep him hidden, raise him far away, I felt the full weight of the fear my daughter had been living under, because it was not the vague fear of a dramatic teenager.

It was specific and reasoned and, I would come to believe, entirely justified.

She had looked clearly at the man she was dealing with, at his wealth and his ruthlessness and everything he had already threatened, and she had concluded that her own child might not be safe simply by existing, that a powerful man protecting a legacy might regard a secret son as a liability to be managed rather than a life to be cherished.

It is a monstrous thing for a mother to have to think about her own baby.