Zevi the Great and the Unification of 1723

Early life

Zevi was born in Valdoria in 1690, the son of the lord of the valley, and inherited the lordship at twenty five. His name, in Luxian, means gift. He was by every account a better skier than a talker, and he preferred the mountain to the hall all his life.

The survey

In the winter of 1719 Zevi set out alone on skis to cross the Cinder pass, and did not stop. Over three winters he crossed every pass and followed every river of the five valleys, sleeping in the villages, drawing as he went. The result was the first map of the country, now the 1723 Map in the Royal Archives, and something the valleys had never had: one man who had seen all of them.

The summer of 1723

In the spring of 1723 Zevi invited the five councils to Valdoria and, over one summer, persuaded them to join. He offered three things: the passes kept open by one guard, one coin, and one feast a year. He asked one thing: that the Charter he had written be read aloud and kept. On June 12 he read it from the stone in the square that has been called Charter Square since. The councils signed. Zevi entered his own name in a new book as the first citizen, LX-1723-0001, and the Realm existed.

High Warden

He governed for thirty eight years and changed the Charter not once. He refused a palace, struck the first Luxfranc in 1724, formed the Sentinels from the old pass keepers, and opened the season each December from the top of the Cinder, a custom every High Warden since has kept. He named his son Abselet, protector of the realm, and the house has borne the name since. He died in Valdoria in 1761 and is buried in the Cathedral of the Stone Heart.

Sayings

• "A law longer than a winter's evening will not be kept."
• "A Warden who cannot see the square from his desk will soon forget who he keeps it for."
• "I did not make the Realm. I skied across it until it noticed."