Four

It was three weeks into her job that Lily faced the chance of getting the sack. Except it wasn't from Arthur but rather Uther. And it wasn't the sack, rather it was eviction from Camelot.

The annual budget and census was being conducted by the court officials which meant that everyone within the citadel of Camelot had to be accounted for. Which meant any extra person in one of the general servants' quarters better have an explanation for being there. Perhaps any other day the official in charge of the census would have dismissed this new 'Lily' –on record as being an assistant seamstress. But this year Uther had strongly briefed the officials that any suspicions of anomalies were to be sent straight to him. After all, Camelot's enemies were never far away.

So when Arthur was handed the task by his father to investigate this new arrival in Camelot, he had to invent a story since Lily's actual job wouldn't make a shred of sense to Uther. Worse, it would probably make him even more suspicious. Lily was informed of the situation and was rather scared to hear of it. But Arthur had assured her a suitable story was being concocted as they spoke. Upon which he looked at Merlin with a jolly expression.

They discussed perhaps she can pretend to be the tailor's niece or god daughter or something and say that she needed to stay here for a while. But then Uther might take it up with the tailor. Then Merlin thought of convincing Morgana to pretend that Lily was her stylist.

The first time Lily had seen Morgana, she was wearing a purple affair –a mauve silk dress overlain with a rich plum coloured dress. Lily had been gushing over the lady's wardrobe ever since and commented on how she thought a new dress of hers looked beautiful. Merlin would occasionally agree saying that Morgana looked beautiful in the said dress, with a smile he thought no one saw.

If she had known there was a Lady Morgana, she would have begged to be her stylist instead. If only she could have worked on a noble lady's outfits –there were a lot more possibilities, with the interplay of silks and velvets and rich hues, gilt with embroidery of silver and golden threads. And that was before Lily thought of jewellery options.

Lily did make enquiries about the position of Morgana's stylist but was politely informed that Morgana and Gwen usually took care of the former's clothes themselves. And seeing as she was already employed it didn't matter too much. When she first introduced herself to them there was a bit of a confusion about that though.

Morgana and Gwen looked at each other curiously wondering what a stylist was then the lady politely asked the very question. Lily had told her happily, "oh I have to dress the prince so that he looks his best at court and for important feasts and…"

Gwen looked somewhat horrified. Morgana kept her smile but furrowed her brows.

"Ah, isn't that what a manservant does?" Gwen asked with an awkward smile.

"Oh no, I meant…" they took it quite literally, to Lily's embarrassment. "I select the clothes for him, that is."

The two young women understood. "Arthur does need the help of someone like you," Morgana commented. The other two gave small laughs in agreement. "What? He does."

Gwen and Morgana were more than happy to converse with Lily on the topic of her fashion adventures ever since.

That week Arthur had reported to Uther about what he had found out in his investigation including the fact that the new girl Lily was assisting Guinevere in her work as Morgana's seamstress. Uther was unmoved and made a comment about how Camelot needed to be careful about who it employs and gives accommodation to as they do have a budget to adhere to.

Arthur relayed the situation to Lily. Uther's ambiguous response was unhelpful especially since she was looking forward to taking on her next assignment –to style Arthur for his first date.