Go to Merlin if any noble is cruel to you; he has ways of finding opportunities for you to work for someone else.

Go to Merlin if you want to know the best gossip about the knights; he is privy to their talk at all their drunken carousing.

Go to Merlin especially if you think that all hope is lost; it's not clear why, but he has a knack for making problems go away - as long as you don't ask him too many questions about how.