Yes, you're right - part of it was to make Merlin jealous (at least what Arthur expected Merlin to think), but the main reason why Arthur did what he did was because he wanted to get Merlin angry. Which, in retrospect, is pretty much the same thing. But Merlin isn't the type to get really riled up, so Arthur wanted to see if he could succeed in making him so. Why Arthur went through the effort to elicit such a reaction was because (he's an idiot :P) he was turned on by Merlin getting really angry.

I'm sorry for the long explanation there. I admit that bit of the story was a weak point in this fic. I may write a follow-up where Arthur finally confesses to Merlin why he hired all those servants. I'd like to have Cypress back again to mess around with Merlin and Arthur anyway... so we'll see. :)

Thanks for reading!