The Braavosi peace mission

The Braavosi peace mission was Lord Manfryd Mooton’s embassy to the Sealord, dispatched to prevent further conflict after Lord Alyn Velaryon’s seizure and destruction of Braavosi ships. It won peace at a steep price: Braavos accepted an indemnity and agreed to several political concessions, while the Crown’s resulting financial strain weakened the support of lords, merchants, and smallfolk.

Background and Embassy

The mission took place while war with Braavos threatened. Ser Gedmund Peake and the royal fleet had been recalled from Tarth to the Gullet to guard the entrance to Blackwater Bay against a possible attack on King’s Landing. Other ports and cities along the narrow sea remained exposed, so the King’s Hand sent his fellow regent, Lord Manfryd Mooton, to negotiate with the Sealord and return his elephant.

Six other noble lords accompanied Mooton, along with sixty knights, guardsmen, servants, scribes, and septons, and six singers. Mushroom also joined the party, reportedly concealed in a wine cask to escape the gloom of the Red Keep. The embassy’s size and mixed retinue reflected the importance of the negotiations, even as the royal fleet stayed close to home to defend the capital.

Negotiations in Braavos

On arriving in Braavos, the party saw the Titan and visited the Arsenal, where they witnessed a warship being built in a single day. The Sealord used that display to emphasize that Braavos had already replaced every ship Alyn had taken or sunk. The demonstration established the city’s capacity to recover its losses, but did not prevent the Sealord from negotiating.

While Mooton bargained over peace terms, Lords Follard and Cressey distributed lavish bribes among Braavos’s keyholders, magisters, priests, and merchant princes. The settlement required the Iron Throne to pay a very large indemnity. In return, Braavos forgave Lord Velaryon’s transgression, agreed to dissolve its alliance with Tyrosh and sever its ties with Racallio Ryndoon, and ceded the Stepstones to the Iron Throne. The islands were then held by Ryndoon and the Pentoshi, so the Sealord was effectively conceding territory Braavos did not possess.

Cost and Consequences

Mooton returned to King’s Landing with peace secured, but the indemnity severely depleted the royal treasury. Lord Peake soon had to borrow from the Iron Bank of Braavos so the Crown could pay its debts. To meet its obligations, he reinstated certain taxes imposed by Lord Celtigar that Ser Tyland Lannister had abolished.

The restored taxes angered lords and merchants and weakened Peake’s support among the smallfolk. The mission thus ended the immediate threat of conflict with Braavos while transferring the cost of peace into a domestic political burden. Its outcome joined diplomacy abroad to financial and political strain at home.