(i) I noted earlier that Wanda Tamberly thought that the conquistador, Luis Castelar, was both strong and smart and that Stephen Tamberly thought that he was at least strong but I had missed this from Stephen:
"Lord, this is a bright fellow! A genius, perhaps, in his fashion...another remark once showed a surprisingly sophisticated view of Islam." (p. 687)
(I would have been interested to read that earlier remark.)
So two Tamberlys agree on Luis' intellectual acumen.
(ii) I have found a passage that I was looking for earlier. This is Wanda reflecting on what she has learned from Luis about his beliefs and plans:
"...he hews to the Trinity and the warlike saints. He'll succeed, dedicating his victories to them, and become greater than the Holy Roman Emperor; or he'll die in the attempt and go to Paradise, all sins forgiven because what he did was in the cause of Christendom. Catholic Christendom." (p. 700)
So - fight and kill his way to becoming a global Emperor while at the same time having all his sins forgiven! (I feel safer with my doubts and guilt.)
(iii) When Wanda realizes that Everard must be with the "Time Guard" and wonders where she put his card, she thinks:
"Where'd I put that bit of cardboard? Tonight the universe is balanced on it." (p. 708)
And when she has put Everard on Luis' trail, he asks:
"'How does it feel knowing you may have saved the universe?'" (p. 719)
"...saved the universe..." sounds maybe a bit juvenile? Like Star Trek? "The Year Of The Ransom" was written, I think successfully, as a short juvenile novel. Everard's reason for using such cosmic language is as follows. He thinks that, unrestrained by the Time Patrol, the Exaltationists will fight among themselves through time:
"'Selfishness like that generally turns on itself. Battles through time, a chaos of changes - I wonder how much flux the space-time fabric could survive.'" (p. 718)
In a memorable passage in the next volume, Raor confirms:
"'We would have made [the universe] what we chose, and unmade and remade it, and stormed the stars as we fought for possession, with an entire reality the funeral pyre of each who fell and entire histories the funeral games, until the last god reigned alone.'"
-The Shield Of Time (New York, 1991), p. 118.
Not only would their selfishness turn on itself but they would plan for that to happen. But, just as three dimensional space survives flux along the temporal dimension, I would expect space-time to survive flux along what would have to be a second temporal dimension. However many timelines the Exaltationists generated, each such timeline would, in and of itself, be just as much a solid space-time continuum as any other (I think).
(iv) It is ironic that Luis makes himself physically vulnerable to Wanda when he dedicates himself to his cause. He draws his sword not to attack but to kneel, invert the sword into a cross and emotionally address both God and the Mother of God. That is when, to bring us all back down to Earth, Wanda is able to hit him on the head with the vacuum cleaner.
(v) Unusually even for the Time Patrol series, two historical mysteries are incorporated into and explained by the narrative of "The Year Of The Ransom": the similarity of Valdivia ware to Jomon pottery and reports of visions above the siege of Cuzco. Time Patrol members are responsible for both of these. Similarly, in "Death And The Knight," a Patrolman warns a friend in the Knights Templar which is why the Templar fleet escapes when the Order is arrested. It makes sense that, in a time travel scenario, such events would happen.
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