"I reckon that would be the thing you wanted to ask." The old man coughed hard. "I joined because I didn't want my nephew, Greatjon Umber, to get executed by the Freys when my brother Mors joined Stannis. After Stannis fell, Roose had somehow found out we had The Rickon and ordered me to bring him over. Greatjon took almost all the men south with him. What could I do when Last Hearth barely had a handful of greybeards left to wield a weapon? Let my nephew die in the Twins, and my grandnephew perish under the flaying knife for a dead House?" Hother recalled with a resigned shrug.