Neville stepped in to answer before Alreis could single-handedly break the negotiations in half, "He means nothing by it, Your Majesty.  He is young and impulsive, searching for someone to direct his ire towards for this situation."  He said many things in rapid succession, trying to assuage what was surely a wounded ego.  There was no doubt that if the King and Alreis came to blows none in the room would leave unscathed; veteran though the King may be, Alreis had slain entire platoons and, if the stories surrounding him were to be believed, had even stared down a dragon before he had entered Rashaille's employ for the war.  The Lord Marshal had even told stories of his own witness, that the spearman needed no weapon to battle twenty men; his touch alone could freeze the blood and turn the flesh black and rotten with frostbite near-instantly.  Undoubtedly it would be a battle between champions.<br/><br/>Eventually the topic was driven back to the marriage, and the Lord Chamberlain hit upon the idea to keep Alreis out of trouble by suggesting that he and the Princess be left alone together, that they might come to talk and learn of each other while the statesmen settled the formalities.  The Lord Marshal agreed to it, eager less to see the Prince out of trouble and more in the hopes of seeing romance bloom between them; Arthur was somewhat of a romantic old man, bordering on obsessed with what he called the "vibrant summer of youth".  A glance at Alreis gave them no hint, his expression as mute as ever while the husband-to-be silently hoped that their idea would be embraced; for the King to have not wilted before him was an interesting turn of events.  In his decade of wandering Alreis had seen and done much, been given names and titles plentious, but one thing he had never encountered was a creature that was not cowed by the pressure of his attention.  That made Frost a curiosity by extension, both for herself and as a source of information on her father.