Ambrosius. Merlin, Ambrosius: The Tales of Merlin's Other (Other, Other) Job

Merlin didn't mean to become the Spymaster of Camelot, honest.
It just kinda…happened.
It's not Merlin's fault that when the Purge happened, the previous Spymaster was a known (but not very powerful) sorcerer, and was also young enough to have not yet taken on and trained a successor. In all the chaos, Uther had had to be much less discerning about choosing the man's replacement, and his focus was, and continues to be, locating ‘evil sorcerers’ rather than literally anything else.
In the end, Merlin was the perfect storm of charisma, power, knowledge, connections, and skill.
“And yet, Arthur’s socks are still ranked among my top three worst smells ever smelt.” Merlin scrunched his nose, thoughtfully...