Sunmouth Docks - I found a tavern that is called Tavern. It is made of salvage. The proprietor is Vesten, built like a bulwark, and she assembled every piece of it herself, which explains both the ambition and the carpentry. There is something almost admirable in this, the way one admires a bird that insists on building its nest in a storm. The materials are wrong, the technique is enthusiastic at best, and the result stands anyway, out of sheer obstinacy. I suspect she could furnish a palace from a shipyard if no one stopped her. I suspect no one could.

She did not recognize my name. De Vauclaire. It should not have stung. It is a Vesten woman in a driftwood tavern at the edge of nowhere. And yet. One does not stop expecting the weight of a name because the scales have changed. My patronage is not nothing, particularly to an establishment whose cellar consists of five bottles and a prayer.

The rum was tolerable. The wine situation is an emergency. She asked if I knew people who could source Montaigne bottles and I nearly wept with the relief of being asked. Notes: the Castillian merchant on the Rue des Épices moves claret through a factor in Barcino. Deschamps at the harbor keeps a private stock he thinks no one knows about. There is a Vodacce woman near the old customhouse who claims to have Château du Berre, which I do not believe, but which demands investigation on principle.

I left her more coin than the rum deserved. One waters the garden before it blooms, not after. She has tenacity and a clean bar and a location near the docks where business will always wash up. What she lacks is everything else. I can help with that.

I will return. Frequently.