It's not clear that the counties belong to either Heortland or God Forgot. The map on p246 is for Malkonwal, not Heortland. I've a feeling that the Counties are responsible to the God-King directly rather than the KIng and Governor of Heortland. A stronger argument would be to note that the population sidebar lists 628K people in Heortland. Malkonwal has 300K, the Hendriki have 273K, the three counties 52K giving a total of 625K. Not conclusive as to the nature of the Marcher County people (the 5K of Refugee are still God Forgotten) but culturally Heortlander rather than God Forgotten seems a safer bet.