24Summary: Merlin hits a breaking point with Arthur's chores, and Arthur comes to a realisation.
As Arthur listed out the myriad tasks he wanted Merlin to achieve that day, all that Merlin could think was there aren't enough hours in a week.
How on earth he'd come in to collect laundry and ended up with a list of chores that would take three people all day to complete, he had no idea.
It was abundantly clear that Arthur had absolutely no concept of how much time and effort any of the individual tasks he wanted done took. Putting them all together was beyond unreasonable. Other servants might be able to pass some tasks off to each other, but many of the things Merlin had to do had to be done personally because he was the Prince's manservant and his personal effects couldn't be handled by just anyone.
Beyond that, Arthur was well-known for calling Merlin lazy and giving him extra chores as "punishment". Sometimes, if he checked and Merlin hadn't gotten to whatever it was yet, he'd raise a stink about Merlin "slacking off" and send him to the stocks. There were now some chores that weren't actually part of Merlin's duties as a manservant that he had to complete because the people who were supposed to do them knew that he'd take the fall if they weren't done.
He had a spectacular bruise where he'd been struck on the ribs while holding down a patient for Gaius to stitch up a gash. That particular farmer apparently had a cast iron liver and the spirits Gaius had given him to take some of the sting off hadn't had any effect.
Usually, when Arthur did this, he just resigned himself to spending the afternoon in the stocks because no matter how hard he tried, he could never complete the list. But the thought of being stuck hunched over for hours while half his chest was aching this badly was more than he could take today.
He dropped the basket on the table, startling Arthur into finally looking up from the parchment he was focusing on.
"Just save us both the trouble and send me to the dungeons then, because I'll never finish all of that by the end of the day," he announced.
At least in the dungeons he could get some rest.
Arthur huffed and rolled his eyes. "We haven't got time to dither over your laziness today Merlin. Get to it."
"Arthur," Merlin said, holding onto the last strands of his patience, "no one could do all of that in one day. You certainly couldn't - not even George could get it done," he said, throwing his hands up in exasperation, and then immediately regretting how it tugged at his ribs.
Arthur's eyebrows shot up and he huffed a disbelieving laugh, sitting back in his chair. "You know, I never hear of Morgana having these sorts of issues with Guinevere - she just does as she'd told like an actual servant."
"Well Morgana doesn't give Gwen unreasonable demands and then punish her for not meeting them!" Merlin countered. "Must be so nice to work for someone who remembers you're an actual person." He folded his arms - remembering to be careful of the bruise this time - and shot a glare at Arthur that should have made the prince combust on the spot.
Arthur, the prat, had the audacity to act like he was the offended one.
"What the devil is that supposed to mean?" he demanded, rising from the chair and folding his own arms.
The warlock's eyes widened in disbelief, his expression doing a strange dance as he really tried to process whether the prince was being deliberately obtuse or if he was really couldn't see it.
"Do this Merlin," he began, in a perfect imitation of Arthur's drawl of his name. "Go there Merlin. Get this cleaned, dusted, laundered, mended, fixed, washed, walked, watered, polished, sharpened, shone, shoed, fed, mucked." With every new chore, his gestures grew wider. "Oh, and by the way Merlin, get it done before lunch Merlin, because we're going hunting with the knights for three days Merlin, and I've been planning to since last week, but I'm only telling you now so you haven't got any time to get things together Merlin."
Arthur's eye widened in surprise - he'd never actually seen Merlin this angry. He'd thought he'd seen Merlin as angry as Merlin could get when he'd killed the unicorn. He was wrong. Merlin's eyes were blazing and despite his gesturing, he was still very carefully controlled. He was furious and Arthur knew that somehow, he'd pushed his friend too far. He'd just never realised that he'd been pushing to begin with.
"I'm only one person Arthur!" Merlin finally burst. "Do you have any concept of what your stable-hands are there for? It's their job to take care of all your blasted horses, but they don't do it because I'm the one you've been sending to do it for the last four years, and you tell everyone that I skip work to go to the tavern - although if you'd ever bothered to check, you'd know I've only ever gone to collect Gwaine - so they know that if they don't do it, I end up in the stocks, and I can't finish any of my actual duties or the other million things you told me to do that morning, so the stewarddocks my pay for the week, and they still get paid to literally do nothing." Some distant part of Arthur's brain wondered how Merlin had managed to say that all in only one breath.
"Do you know that there are other servants in this castle who are meant to serve your stupid, pompous visitors? Servants whose job it is to lift Sir Snooty the Third's five trunks up three flights of stairs, down four corridors, and past two wings. I'm meant to be your servant Arthur, and I don't mind being set to serve some other prat, but you still expect me to be in two places at once after you've sent me to be someone else's dogsbody. And then I end up in the stocks or the dungeons when I inevitably have to do something for you instead of them. And then for the rest of their stay, I'm in the stocks constantly because now you've gone and told them that I'm a lazy, incompetent idiot on a good day, so now they're looking for something to punish me for."
Something curled in Arthur's stomach as Merlin ranted, something uncomfortable and unwelcome. It had never crossed his mind that Merlin's complaints that he was being unreasonable were anything other than a joke. Initially, he'd been trying to get Merlin to quit because he hadn't wanted the insolent peasant from the marketplace as a manservant when his father had appointed him. But Merlin had always somehow managed to get the jobs done, and Arthur hadn't really thought of it after that, except that Merlin had become the person he trusted most to look after his horses and kennels properly, so of course he'd have Merlin do it. Of course when Merlin skived off work to go laze about in the tavern, Arthur would give him extra chores to make up for it. It was only now that he realised he'd never actually seen Merlin with a telltale hangover from being in his drinks, despite all the times he'd assumed the boy was out getting drunk.
"Do you even realise that Gaius is the only physician left in all of Camelot, and that I am his onlyapprentice? That when he dies, it will suddenly become my responsibility to take care of all of Camelot because there is no one left with any knowledge of herb lore?" Merlin continued, colour so high on his cheeks in his frustration and anger that Arthur could almost picture steam wafting off the top of his head. "But I haven't been able to learn much of anything from Gaius because if I don't finish your mile-long list of chores by mid-morning, I end up in the stocks for the rest of the day, and the steward docks my pay again!"
The thought flashed through his mind that actually, no, Arthur had not in fact known that there were no other physicians in the kingdom. It was true that there was always a line of peasants coming to see the Court Physician, but that was because Gaius was so well-known for being the best at his craft. Camelot was a large kingdom, and even just a few peasants from every village coming to see him would add up to a rather large amount of people. Why wouldn't there be any other physicians in the kingdom? The idea was preposterous. Considering that much of the rest of Merlin's little tirade made Arthur uncomfortable, he elected to focus on this particular bit that he knew Merlin was exaggerating to make his point.
"What do you mean, he's the only physician?" the prince argued, still somehow managing to sound like he was the exasperated one here. "There may not be many physicians of Gaius' skill, but that doesn't mean there aren't others in the kingdom."
There were so many things Merlin wanted to yell at Arthur in that moment, that the indecision nearly suffocated him. Instead, his eyes narrowed and folded his arms as he dared the prince: "Really? Name a single one who is not cooped up in some noble's home."
In that instant, Arthur's mind went completely blank. While some of the nobility did have a resident physician, most of them still actually did come to see Gaius (or send for him if necessary) if the condition was really dire. Even then, their physicians usually only served the noble's household and not necessarily the villages around them unless the peasantry could pay a fee for the service. Come to think of it, he couldn't actually remember ever finding even a proper village healer in any of the villages while on patrol. It was common knowledge among the knights that a major injury while on patrol could mean death or retirement if they couldn't make it back to Gaius soon enough. It was a little fact that he'd always just taken for granted, but he'd never stopped to consider that it meant that his subjects in those areas consequently didn't have any access to a healer if they really needed it. But why?
At his silence, Merlin's expression shifted to one of smug triumph, and Arthur couldn't very well let his servant have the last say. That was what caused him to blurt out, without really thinking, the name that flashed through his mind, though he wasn't quite sure why he remembered it. "Edward!"
Merlin looked at him in disbelief, mouth actually dropping open. "Edward Muirden? The sorcerer who breezed in and, in a few days, convinced you lot to sack Gaius and his 'skill' for incompetence?" he demanded. "The same one who tried to kill Morgana - that Edward?!"
It was only years of court etiquette kept Arthur's cringe internal. That was probably actually the worst response he could have come up with.
"But silly me," the servant intoned with a level of sarcasm that was almost caustic. "What was I so worried about?" The young warlock decided that that was about all he'd take for one day, whirling around and gathering the basket of laundry he'd initially been trying to leave with.
Arthur opened his mouth, not at all sure why and wondering himself what exactly it was he was planning to say, but Merlin cut him off and saved them both from further disaster. "I've got chores to do, and the steward is waiting to berate me about not miraculously getting your socks to sparkle."
With that, he was gone, the door clanging shut behind him.
A/N 1: I promise that I don't hate Arthur - I actually like him! His is a terrible case of "means well, but doesn't quite do well". He's not a jerk because he's trying to be, but he's a spoiled royal who's never had to do most of the chores he sets for Merlin. Even today, with the tech we have available, Merlin's daily chore list would be challenging. Imagine doing it with no washing machine or dryer, no indoor plumbing, no vacuum, no a/c, no background music, no anything. It was a common running gag in the show that Arthur would overload Merlin on chores, but that was just not realistically sustainable for Merlin, even without his Emrys side-job and physician's apprenticing. So I decided to give him a much-needed rant.
A/N 2: So it's been a bit over a year since I first posted this series of connected scenes, and I didn't even realise it! (tbh I was thinking June or July and come to find out it was May - whoops) But it's slow going with the other fics I'm currently drafting and writing (because being organised and doing things one at a time is overrated anyway amirite?), so I wanted to put this up to make myself feel like I'm actually making progress somewhere. Drop me a comment to let me know if you enjoyed it and have a good week!