Thank you all for the compliments, in words as well as by votes. I feel to honoured that I could contribute something.
@wobnam: yes, factions. Three sentences earlier 'they gathered followers' and two alineas later this is repeated with 'friends and faithful came to aid'. I wanted to be explicit about the origin of the current factions, their rivalry and divergence, without using too much words.
I edited the 2nd text, changing Lenfold to Lenfald. It's so similar to Westfold, the Tolkien word that's stuck in my mind forever.
