okay but the fact that merlin ends up apparently doing things on the regular that are absolutely not in the purview of the prince's personal servant (cleaning the stables/doing laundry/etc.) makes me think that either
arthur told him to do those things to either tease or punish him, but he didn't realize that merlin doesn't actually know he's not supposed to be doing them. for anyone else high enough to be arthur's personal servant, doing something like cleaning out the stables would be an insult, but for merlin, who isn't trained or used to the castle pecking order, how the hell would he know? and at a certain point, merlin is so unbothered beyond some eyerolls that arthur is honestly a little embarassed. how do you tell someone after weeks, "oh yeah, you don't have to do that. i was just fucking with you the whole time."? can't do it. can't. now arthur is just hoping merlin never finds out.
arthur doesn't actually know what his personal servant is supposed to do. he does things like use them for target practice so they try to not be his servant as quick as possible, so they've never been around long enough (and he's never had enough interest in them) to actually know what they do and do not do. so along comes merlin, who ALSO doesn't know what a prince's manservant does, and arthur just waved vaguely and told merlin to get to work. laundry? that sounds right. SOMEONE has to be doing arthur's laundry. that sounds manservant-y. so yeah. sure. go do laundry.
meanwhile all the other servants know merlin isn't supposed to be doing their jobs as well, but tbh they're just gonna confused about why he is in the first place, and he technically outranks most of them, so uh? go ahead? knock yourself out in the stables, Personal Manservant of the Prince, Who Should Not Be Here.
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