Meilan Mendiana

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Author: Lireina Dormerus

General

Meilan Mendiana is a Tairen High Lord.

Meilan is a lean, gray haired man with an oily voice. He is tall for a Tairen, though a hand shorter than Rand, and has dark eyes. He is also described as a hard man, and has a gray pointed beard (TSR, Ch. 8; TFoH, Ch. 46 & Ch. 51; LoC, Ch. 19).

Timeline

  • Meilan, along with Sunamon, Tedosian and Carleon, are summoned to Rand to discuss the leadership of Tear. They argue with him about lowering taxes, the distribution of the excess grain they're growing, and their dealings with Mayene and Illian. Rand eventually has to order them to do it instead of getting them to agree (TSR, Ch. 8).
  • Meilan and Sunamon present Rand with the treaty they drafted with Mayene. Rand yells at them because it dictates two thousand Tairen levies under Torean's command to distribute the grain being shipped. When Meilan and Sunamon try to justify it, Rand sets the treaty on fire in Meilan's arms with saidin, causing him to throw it into the fireplace with a yell (TSR, Ch. 9).
  • Rand sends the armies of Tear, under Meilan's command, into Cairhien. Along with Meilan, he sends Aracome, Gueyam, Hearne, Maraconn, Simaan, Torean, and the High Lady Alteima to help oversee, and orders Torean to finance everything. Meilan attempts to talk Rand out of it, and is yelled back down by Rand (TSR, Ch. 21).
  • Meilan sends a delegation to Rand's encampment to form a procession back to Cairhien after the defeat of the Shaido. At dawn, Meilan himself, along with six other Lords, appears to see Rand, but is turned away by the Wise Ones and the Maidens of the Spear. Meilan is very upset by this, and shouts out his fealty to Rand, along with the statement, "I make a gift of Cairhien to the Lord Dragon." (TFoH, Ch. 45).
  • Meilan rides out with a dozen lesser lords and fifty Defenders of the Stone to meet Rand when he arrives in Cairhien. He is allowed through to Rand, but the others are kept back by the Maidens. He tells Rand that he would have cleared the streets and had a procession fitting the Lord Dragon had Rand told him that he was coming, and is upset when Rand says that he has already had one. Meilan escorts him into the city. When they arrive, the looks on the other High Lords' faces tell Rand that Meilan had gone out without their knowledge. Once Rand gets into the main Hall, all the Lords of Tear and Cairhien swear fealty to him (TFoH, Ch. 46).
  • Meilan, along with several other Lords and Ladies, meets with Rand to discuss the general running of things. Rand asks Meilan if he will find a standing army ten miles south instead of on their way back to Tear, and Meilan assures him he won't, after getting a rather nervous look on his face (TFoH, Ch. 51).
  • Min has a viewing of the High Lords of Tear when they come to visit Rand, and sees that Meilan will die by the knife (LoC, Ch. 50).

Relationships

Meilan is a High Lord of Tear, and is one of seven High Lords of Tear that have been plotting against Rand since he took over Tear (TSR, Ch. 21).

"There were certainly no smiles of any sort on the faces of Maraconn, a blue eyed rarity among Tairens, or bald Gueyam, or Aracome, who looked twice as slender alongside Gueyam's solid width if just as steely. They - and Meilan - had been thick with Hearne and Simaan." (LoC, Ch. 19).

"Meilan and Maringil each made his awareness of the other plain by avoiding the other's eyes. Both wanted the throne of Cairhien, and both thought the other his chief rival. Dobraine watched Meilan and Maringil, though why was anyone's guess." (LoC, Ch. 19).

Quotes

"It is a bad precedent, my Lord Dragon, lowering taxes," a lean, gray-haired man said in an oily voice. Meilan was tall for a Tairen, only a hand shorter than Rand, and hard as any Defender. He held himself in a stoop in Rand's presence; his dark eyes showed how he hated it. But he had hated it when Rand told them to stop crouching around him, too. None of them straightened, but Meilan especially hated being reminded of what he did. "The peasants have always paid easily, but if we lower their taxes, when the day comes that we raise the back to where they are now, the fools will complain as bitterly as if we had doubled the present levy. There might well be riots when that day comes, my Lord Dragon." (The Shadow Rising, Chapter 8).

Meilan obviously agreed with her, if not for the same reasons. He stepped forward hesitantly, a lean hard man but so frightened that the whites of his eyes showed all the way around. "My Lord Dragon?" He stopped, swallowed, and began again in a marginally stronger voice. "My Lord Dragon, intervening in a civil war is stepping in to a bog. A dozen factions contend for the Sun Throne, with as many shifting alliances, each one betrayed every day. Besides that, bandits infest Cairhien as fleas on a wild boar. Starving peasants have stripped the land bare. I am reliably informed that they eat bark and leaves. My Lord Dragon, 'a quagmire' barely begins to describe-" (The Shadow Rising, Chapter 21).

"'The Light illumine you, my Lord Dragon. Be you well come to Cairhien. I must apologize for the peasants, but I was unaware you meant to enter the city now. Had I known, they would have been cleared. I meant to give you a grand entry, befitting the Dragon Reborn.'
'I have had one,' Rand said, and the other man blinked.
'As you say, my Lord Dragon.' He went on after a moment, his tone making it clear that he did not understand. 'If you will accompany me to the Royal Palace, I have arranged a small greeting. Small indeed, I fear since I had no warning of you, yet by this even I will make sure--'
'Whatever you have arranged now will do,' Rand cut in, and received another bow and a thin, oily smile for reply." (The Fires of Heaven, Chapter 46)

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