Chapter Text
The castle staff in Camelot are used to hearing the yelling and bickering of the Prince and his manservant. No one knew exactly why Arthur put up with a manservant that apparently caused him so much grief, but everyone shared a suspicion. Today was no different, apart from the fact that they had a noble visiting from another Kingdom, so the castle was awash with servants rushing around, preparing for the guest.
Merlin was plenty busy on a normal day. Between his duties as the prince’s personal manservant, the court physician’s apprentice (and Camelot’s secret illegal protector), his hands were pretty full. Not to mention all the chores he picked up for other servants who needed the help. How could he say no?
He’s been up since before dawn, getting started on the many, many things he had to have prepared for the day ahead. He lost track of time somewhere between washing Arthur’s best cloak and repairing his boots and had to sprint to the kitchens to fetch Arthur’s breakfast. The journey to the Prince’s chambers can’t be done quite as fast however, as his right hand holds the plate of food and his left hand holds the jug of water, and he’s trying desperately to spill neither of them. He also has the cloak thrown over his right shoulder and the boots clutched underneath his left arm against his body, and both objects keep slipping as he walks hastily down the corridors. By the time he gets to Arthur’s door, he’s hunched over as he tries to keep a hold of everything, and Gregor, one of the guards stationed outside, is kind enough to get the door handle for him.
Merlin nudges the door open with his foot and steps inside, where he is met with a rather angry looking Arthur sitting at the table.
“Where on earth have you been!?” It isn’t unusual for Arthur to shout his first words of the day at Merlin. Merlin just shuffles over with a strained grunt and deposits the breakfast onto the table with a clatter. The boots slip out of his hold as a consequence of the movement and slap against the floor.
“Good morning to you too, sire!” he responds breathlessly, swiping up the boots and making his way over to the closet. Arthur’s glare follows him.
“Don't ‘good morning, sire’ me after you’ve just stumbled in here looking not unlike a little goblin who’s trying to nick my belongings,”
Merlin flashes him an insolent grin, “But, I’m your goblin, Arthur.” Arthur scowls and turns back around to start on his food with a pout.
Once Merlin has put the cloak and boots away, he returns to the table to pour Arthur’s water and put the jug back down, which he does so without incident. It’s only when Arthur demands he opens the window, does his hand knock the jug. He scrambles to stop it from tipping over and only succeeds in knocking it further, onto the floor. There’s a loud clang as it hits the stones and the water spills all the way to the door, splashing everything around it in the process. Merlin winces and holds his clenched hands up by his face.
“Merlin!” Arthur shouts. Merlin turns around slowly. “What is up with you this morning?” He’s practically steaming.
“Forgive me for my composure, sire , but I’ve been up since before daybreak running around the castle!” Merlin isn’t going to let the royal prat think he’d simply woken up late. “I’ve cleaned, polished and repaired your things, replaced horse shoes and mucked the stables, mopped the south corridor, helped Mandy in the kitchen, helped Ben prepare the guest room, made five different medicine vials, and cleaned Gaius’ pot. I helped move the barrels of food and goods into the storage rooms and then arranged all of it. I’ve been up and down the stairs more times than I can count, and for some reason I can’t help but feel like I’ve hardly started on the preparations for Lord Ulric’s arrival!” Merlin finishes his rant, looking even more ruffled than he did before.
Arthur doesn’t look any less angry. If anything, it looks like Merlin has just made things worse. His face had twitched at the mention of Lord Ulric; the kind of twitch he did when he’d had an idea. Merlin didn’t like those twitches.
“It sounds to me like you’ve just been doing your job , Merlin, which you’re meant to do every day, by the way.” It was taking everything Merlin had not to curse the prince with some terrible, unfortunately positioned rash. “But, since you’re so concerned about preparing for Lord Ulric, why don’t you serve him personally for his visit?”
Merlin blanched. Forget about the rash, how about boils?
“You can’t be serious,” he deadpans.
He wasn’t exaggerating his displeasure with this arrangement. It was known amongst the servants that Lord Ulric had some… unsavoury qualities. It wasn’t uncommon for visiting nobles to be less than pleasant towards the servants, so Merlin was somewhat used to dealing with the troubles, whether they had been directed at him or his fellow workers, but Lord Ulric had previously been known to be one of the more difficult guests.
Arthur sits with his arms crossed and a smug, self satisfied smile on his face, “Whenever am I not?”
“But he’s meant to be awful!”
“Well, perhaps then you’ll finally learn something, like how I’m much too good to you.”
Merlin gapes at him. Arthur surely wouldn’t do this if he really knew how Ulric was.
Arthur turns back to his food, eating much more happily now, “You’d better clean that up quickly,” he says between mouthfuls, waving his fork at the spilled water, “You still have to get me ready, preferably some time this morning.”
Merlin just huffs bitterly and gets on with it. Arthur wouldn’t change his mind now.
======
The King, Arthur and Morgana are all waiting in the courtyard to receive Lord Ulric. Merlin stands by Arthur and Gwen stands by Morgana. Stable-hands and footmen stand around ready to tend to their guest’s horses and luggage.
Arthur leans back towards Merlin, “As hard as it might be for you, try to look like a perfect servant when you meet your new master for the week.”
Merlin shoots him a sarcastic smile.
Lord Ulric arrives not a minute later. He sits proudly on his horse as it trots into the courtyard. The man is around Uther’s age, perhaps a bit younger, but with a taller, larger frame. Grey strands have started to appear in his long, dry, black hair and his beard is the same. He jumps down and greets Uther congenially. This whole visit is for the two Kingdoms to discuss a trade deal, so it was important that the two men got along. Lord Ulric’s King had been unable to tend to the matter personally, so he was here in his place.
Once he has greeted Arthur heartily and with great character, the Prince pushes Merlin forward by the shoulder.
“I’d like to offer the services of my personal manservant for your stay this week, to make your visit more comfortable.”
The man looks at Merlin, taking him in. His face loses all charm and cheer it had while talking to his fellow noblemen. He runs a critical eye up and down. Merlin almost squirms under his gaze.
“Well, how kind of you Prince Arthur. I appreciate the gesture. What’s your name, boy?”
Merlin puts on his best meek servant smile and bows.
“My name is Merlin, Sire. I’m glad to be serving you.”
“Mm, I should think so. Make sure my bags make it to my room, now,” The lord doesn’t waste any time in starting orders. Merlin nods silently and gets started on his task.
======
What on earth has he got in these bags? Merlin huffs and puffs his way up to the chambers assigned to Lord Ulric with only two of the five personal bags he’d brought. He’s only just managed to get the bags in the room before another servant arrives, showing Ulric where his rooms were. The servant is dismissed without a word and Ulric walks in, examining the room.
“Where are the rest of my bags, boy?” He asks. Impatient then, got it.
“On their way up, Sire.”
This, apparently, was the wrong thing to say. Disdain quickly falls across his face. Dark, overgrown eyebrows furrow and something unpleasant gleams in his eyes.
“If I am in my rooms, my bags should be in my rooms. Is this unreasonable?” He grits his teeth. With his wind-swept black hair and beard, he looks not unlike an angry dog or wolf.
“Absolutely not, Sire. I’m terribly sorry, they’ll be right with you,” Merlin tries to placate, despite how much he hates kissing the bums of less-than-kind, undeserving men.
“I should’ve known,” Ulric sighs long-sufferingly, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Anyone I’ve met with your country accent has been a useless sack of shit. I don’t take kindly to chasing after my servants, do you understand?” Merlin is taken aback at the sudden derogatory insult.
“En-entirely, Sire,” Merlin hates that his stutter will only further solidify the Lord’s view on him. Ulric rolls his eyes and turns away. Merlin takes this as his cue to get the rest of the bags.
======
Somehow, he drags the other three bags up all at the same time. He’s unhappy to have Ulric’s audience as he struggles to get them into the room, so he does his best to look like he’s giving strong, expert pushes. He’s able to feel the man’s critical eye on him.
“How old are you?” The man asks abruptly.
“Twenty summers, Sire,” he responds. Ulric grunts.
“Fully grown and you still have those sticks for arms. Your mother must have been a weak one. No doubt she didn’t feed you enough either,” he scoffs. Merlin feels a fire burst to life inside of him. He does his best to smother it, saying nothing, and smiling submissively.
The rest of the day goes similarly, even through dinner with Uther, Arthur and Morgana. Lord Ulric seems rather unimpressed with whatever Merlin does, no matter how well he does it. He also has no issue insulting and belittling Merlin and everything he stands for. The insults Merlin and Arthur threw around never hit a nerve like these did. Ulric spoke with intent to harm and dominate, even long after he had done both of those already. He could get used to it if this was the worst he would have to deal with this week.
However, for some reason, he doesn’t feel like Ulric would stop here.
After the mishap with Merlin this morning, Arthur feels in unusually high spirits. He feels like he had done well with Merlin’s punishment. Normally, they didn’t have guests here, so this opportunity to assign Merlin to someone else for the week was a rarity. He’s sure Merlin will benefit from learning what other Lords expect of their housestaff. He’s also just still riding the high of Merlin’s disbelieving expression.
When he hands Merlin off to Lord Ulric, the Lord had seems unimpressed. He expresses his gratitude verbally, but when he looks at Merlin he seems underwhelmed and withdrawn - a stark contrast to the joyful attitude he’d shown towards Arthur moments before. Perhaps this is just how he is with servants in his kingdom; Arthur’s aware he treats Merlin far more friendly than what is deemed appropriate.
Arthur can’t help but watch after Merlin as he shuffles away with the heavy-looking luggage.
======
He doesn’t see Merlin the rest of the day.
He supposes this isn’t entirely unusual, especially since he frequently can’t even find the man when he’s under his own command, but he still catches himself noticing Merlin’s absence more than he’d like to.
At one point, he finds himself thinking about the only argument Merlin had said against his punishment - about how Ulric was meant to be awful. What did that mean? Awful how? Supposedly, he would've heard that from the other servants, ones who had met Lord Ulric before. He can’t be that bad, he’d seemed perfectly pleasant so far. Arthur wouldn’t be surprised if rumours had exaggerated tales about Ulric - the dark colour scheme of his appearance could easily be mistaken ominously.
Arthur doesn’t let the thoughts distract him for long, and he gets back to work.
======
Dinnertime comes, and he sits at his usual place at the table. When Lord Ulric enters the room, Merlin is tailing behind him, and Arthur is almost surprised. He’d forgotten that in serving someone else, Merlin would accompany that person to dinner, and meetings and stand behind them, just like he usually did with Arthur. It’s just strange to see him from this perspective, standing behind someone else, when he is used to having him at his own back.
Throughout the dinner, Ulric is in good spirits, expressing his good feelings towards Uther and Camelot, and thanking him for letting him stay. He is also gregarious towards Arthur and Morgana, clearly trying to create good relations over the meal.
However, Arthur notices some small things. Namely, the way he speaks of the housestaff and serving class, mostly Merlin. He makes jokes about Merlin, from the way he looks to the way he behaves. Some of the comments are so down-right insulting that Arthur briefly suspects he’s trying to express dissatisfaction with Arthur’s favour of lending out his manservant. Merlin is behaving more perfectly than Arthur’s ever seen, and the man still finds things to call him out on. Ulric uses it as a constant topic to create laughs and make himself seem more likeable. Arthur knows he also makes comments about Merlin, but Ulric’s seem to hold a more cruel note.
When his eyes flicker to Merlin, standing obediently at the wall, he seems unfazed. If he wasn’t responding so quickly to his orders, Arthur would assume he was daydreaming, unable to hear the insults.