Linhardt fell into that blissful status of 'Important enough that almost nobody could tell him what to do but not so important that he's always the most important person in the room'. Between his privilege (of which he is mostly unaware) and his contributions being primarily intellectual in nature (and therefore difficult to force), Linhardt was less restricted than most people. Even if he complained incessantly about the few restrictions that were placed on him.

"They could try, but attempting to force me to fight would be ill-advised." There was a quiet confidence to Linhardt's statement: Nocwich is dark, forcing Linhardt to fight would be a bad idea, "If they are that short on soldiers and magical resources, they should not risk me turning on them, and if they know who I am they must also be aware of my aversion to violence as well as that my magical talent extends to battle magic."

So yes. Linhardt did expect them to leave him out of their problems. If they wanted him to incinerate people, there was no guarantee he'd incinerate Thorne's enemies.