'Tis the Lady of Shallot,' she said. 'Wouldst thou call upon me?'
'No chance,' I stalled. 'New NHS policy, not efficient use of time, etc etc,' but for a fairy she was a quick learner.
'I sense an ill humour, and central crushing chest pain radiating to my left arm and all,' she said; even mythological figures know how to push our buttons.
I parked outside the tower, accidentally mowing down a unicorn, and walked up a winding stair, past a mural of Merlin performing an adenoidectomy on the Green Knight; I tripped on some glistening sticky stuff.
'Mind the web,' said a voice from behind a mirror, which I noticed was linked to external security cameras, 'it's a bugger to spin.'
'If I'm going to examine you, you'll have to come out,' I said.
'No man may look on me, else the curse come upon me.'
'I am a doctor,' I said. 'Basically an asexual robot.'
A beautiful maiden appeared, garbed in voluminous white, a tad too Miss Havisham for my taste.
'Oooh,' she said, 'aren't you the gorgeous young buck.'
'Don't meet many guys, do you?' I said, under no illusion about my physical appearance.
'Beloved, my pain was a mere contrivance,' she said, stroking my bald patch meaningfully. 'I grow lonely and I figured, I know my rights, GPs have to come out when you call, don't they?'
Her expression suddenly changed.
'I don't believe it,' she said peevishly. 'You wait a lifetime, and then two guys come along at once.' On the camera screens I saw a knight in armour, brazen greaves glittering in the sun, his mighty stallion befouling the greensward.
'Gotta go,' she said, and soon after Lancelot came running up the stairs, looking handsome, if not very bright, his noble visage grave and his eyes bugging out.
'Come quickly, doctor, the fair maiden ...'
'Yeah, I can guess, she's all a-swoon, is she?'
I checked her out; her chest was heaving in the way only an alert chest can manage.
'It's a bad case of melodrama,' I said.
